First of 2 January Parms

[LoftyNotions]

I figured it was time to expand my cheese making horizons, and Parmesan seemed like a logical next step. I scoured this board trying to learn as much as I could before attempting this make.

Since my 5 gallon Gouda and Tomme had a nice form in an 8 inch mould, that’s where I opted to start. After you see this hockey puck, you’ll understand why I opted for an 8 gallon make for my second Parm. I’ll post that make soon. This cheese was made on 1/14/15.

Here is my mishmash recipe, stolen from several sources:

The Plan

pH targets:
rennet: 6.55-6.6
settle under whey at 6.40-6.45
drain: 6.4
brine: 5.3-5.4

Ingredients:
5 gallons 2% pasteurized non homo milk
1 cube TA61
5 cubes LH100
1/4 teaspoon lipase powder
1 teaspoon  calcium chloride
60 drops rennet
Dry salt to 2-1/2 to 3%


1.   Add CaCl
2.   Warm milk to 94F and add culture once there.
3.   Let ripen until pH drop of .05, maintaining temp at 94F.
4.    Add lipase dissolved in 1/4th cup water.
5.    Dilute rennet in 1/4th cup R/O water and add after ripening.
6.    Using 2 floc multiplier cut curds after ___ minutes from the addition of rennet.
7.    Cut curds initially to 1/2 inch and rest 5 to 10 minutes then stir with a whisk reduce to lentil sized pieces.
8.     Remove approximately 1-1/2 gal whey for easier heating.
9.   Heat curds and whey to 130F fairly quickly…30 minutes would be optimum. Keep stirring to distribute heat.
10.  Once you have reached the desired temp, maintain temp until curds begin to clump together. The final curd needs to be dry, but not so dry that they do not hold together when pressed.
 11.  Settle pH target 6.45. Drain target 6.4. 
12.   Consolidate settled curds with mat and hand pressure. Gather into cloth.
13.   Transfer to warmed mould.
14.   Press under warm whey at 1 psi for 30 minutes. Flip and rewrap, press for another 30 minutes.
15.   Remove whey, flip, rewrap and press at 2 psi for 30 minutes. Flip, rewrap and press for another 30.
16.   Flip, rewrap and press at 4 to 5 psi for 12-16 hours.
17.   Weigh cheese and start dry salting. Weight________.
18.   Continue dry salting until salt is used up (1 to 2 days).

Affinage:
Age at 50°F to 55°F and 85-90% humidity. Flip cheese daily for the first couple weeks and then once weekly thereafter. After 1 month rub rind with oil. Repeat a couple times. Plan to bag at 3 months.

What Really Happened:

Ingredients were per the recipe. Start pH of the milk was 6.64. Added cultures and waited for a 0.1 pH drop which happened at about 1 hour, with pH 6.55.

Added rennet and monitored floc time at 12 minutes. With a multiplier of 2, did the first rough cut at 25 minutes and waited about 10 minutes to start working the curd with a whisk to get it down to a relatively small size. Once I had what I thought was a good size, I let the curds settle and drained about 1-1/2 gallons of whey. This was done to facilitate faster heating. I don’t remember exactly where I saw this done, but I think Linuxboy discussed it.

After draining, started heating and stirring. Double boilers really slow down this heating process. Curds were already clumping before I got to 130°F, which took about 35 minutes. At this point the pH was 6.47, and the curds were just past the really sticky point. I was concerned that they had dried too much.

Settled, drained, and consolidated curds under whey and pressed at just under ½ psi (20 pounds) for the first half hour. Flipped, rewrapped and pressed at 1 psi for another 30 minutes. Flipped and rewrapped several more times that evening, starting at about 1 hour intervals and extending to 2 hours or more. All of these presses were at between 4 and 5 psi (240 pounds). There was never any tendency for the cheese cloth to stick, which also leads me to believe I might have slightly over-cooked. The knit on this cheese was so good that you can read the part number for the mould that is stamped into it.  At this point, I’m not sure if that’s a good thing. 

Pulled the cheese out of the press the next morning and weighed it at 1496 grams, which came out to just a 7.6% yield. Not terrible, but it seemed to be a bit on the low side to me.

At this point in my cheese career I’m a rebel, and I dry salt all my cheeses. This one got a total of 3% salt (45 grams), which was applied over the next couple days.

From there, it dried for 2 weeks at between 75 and 85% humidity at 56°F. Based on how thin it is, and on its dryness, I vacuum bagged it on 1/26/15.

I’ll put up some pictures of this cheese today, and try to post the second Parm make tomorrow.

Larry

[LoftyNotions]

Here are some photos. Notice the mould model number pic.

Larry

[Al Lewis]

That's one fine looking parm!!!  AC4U for 1st time excellence!!

[Danbo]

Awsome! :-)

[GoudaGirl13]

Trult awesome! Nice pics too!

I made a Parm today as well! It's in the press now and I took no pics. Yet....

Yours looks great! Why do you choose to dry salt now instead of brine?

Giving you a cheese!

[LoftyNotions]

Trult awesome! Nice pics too!

Why do you choose to dry salt now instead of brine?
Giving you a cheese!

I think I'm the only maverick around here currently advocating dry salting, and I certainly don't have as many cheeses under my belt as most folks here. It's the way I've always cured meat products, and it's a pretty standard way of salting cheeses like Reblochons and Gorgonzolas. I've just carried the practice forward to everything I make.
1. You don't have to worry about brine pH.
2. You don't have to worry about the brine leaching calcium out of your cheese.
3. You don't have to worry about brine concentration.
4. You don't have to concern yourself with variations in cheese density. (I don't believe that Parmesans take up salt from a brine at the same rate as, say, a Tomme.)
5. Less salt waste.
6. You don't have to consider changes in brine concentration as salt is taken up by the cheese. This is especially problematic when using a less than saturated brine.
7. You don't have to ponder how long to soak your cheese. 3 hours per pound? 6 hours per pound? 1 hour per pound per inch of thickness? Not a concern. Keep putting salt on it until your calculated dose is dissolved. There is always some spillage and salt that doesn't get onto the cheese, but I just add about an additional 20% of the desired salt quantity to account for it. I think that's still more consistent than brining.

Here is some information posted a while back on salt quantities:
Re: Salt, Amount For Making Cheese (If Not Defined In Recipe)
« Reply #9 on: January 10, 2011, 10:40:16 AM »(Linuxboy)

If you want generalities:

chevre and similar fresh lactic or semi-lactic curd: 0.8-1.0
Bloomy rind types: 1.0-1.6%, depending on style
Milled curd types like cheddar: 1.8-2.2%
continental types: 1.6-2.0%
various cheese with eyes: 0.7-0.9%
pasta filata types: 1.2-2.0%, wide range here
Blues: 2.2-3.5%

2.5% for a fresh lactic cheese is about average, the salt helps to balance the acidity. A little high to my personal taste, I use less salt. I'll use about 2.5% for a higher fat lactic curd.

Let me know what further questions that raises.

Larry

[Danbo]

Great Larry,

I'm so happy when a recipe calls for dry salting instead of brining. And I like doing cheeses that are salted directly in the curds.

I'm not good at just saving a brine for the next many cheeses, and I normally make a new one every time - I'm sure that it is mad.

[GoudaGirl13]

I've gotten used to using and filtering my brine - even boiling and filtering after a few cheeses. It's such a volatile liquid - drops of it anywhere begin corrosion, but I've gotten used to that as well and deal pretty well. When learning about brining, I read that many cheesemakers use their brines forever - cleaning and flitering when necessary. I have to ask, Danbo....what did you do with the brine when you "threw it out"? I can't even imagine where to throw it out without causing some serious issues. Even outdoors it would be deadly to any plants or anything.

And, to educate myself further - can anyone recommend a good article or 2 explaining dry salting - the how-to's and the reasons why, etc? I dry salt Feta sometimes but find it to be messy with all the salt falling everywhere, even with a pan underneath. I must be doing it wrong! Do you encase it in salt and leave it?

Thanks in advance!!

[Danbo]

I poured it down the drain. I think that it is OK?

[GoudaGirl13]

Ummmm......I was under the impression that was a bad thing to do for pipes and water treatment....I have even heard that whey can be very bad for a septic system. We have a septic system here so I'm carfeul about what goes into it - it needs a balance of bacteria to work and many things like vinegar, salt, bleach, etc. can kill off the bacteria rendering the septic system unworkable......

*not a scientist, though*

Any other commenters?

One time we were getting rid of a similar brine that was used to cure hides. Ultimately, we dumped it bit by bit on a back lane that had basically no growth or "value" so we didn't feel badly polluting it as there was no other place we could think of to do so.....

[Danbo]

Our drain is connected to the public sewer system. It' the same system that drains the roads for rainwater and here in the winter our roads are heavily salted to make them safer.

I guess that my own part of the sewer could do better without all that salt - and it is also a giant waste of french sea salt...

:-) Danbo

[LoftyNotions]

Down the drain is fine. If you have metal drain pipes you might want to run some water after dumping. The environmental load of any amount of salt you dump will be minuscule compared to other sources mentioned here. I'm talking home quantities, not commercial. I wouldn't dump it into a septic system though.

Concerning whey, people spend lots of money on "probiotics" to take care of their own internal septic systems. My guess is that there's enough E. coli in a septic tank to overpower a small load of lactic producers. Not positive about that though. Septic systems are really cranky.

There is a discussion of dry salting in this thread: http://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,10207.0.html

Here's another thread that discusses salting: http://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,10207.15.html

When I dry salt, I typically place the cheese in a plastic pan and pour a portion of the salt onto the top surface. I spread it around with my fingers and try to get a partial coat on the sides. As liquid is extracted from the cheese and the salt gets mostly absorbed, I flip the cheese over and do the same thing on the other side. Typically I spread the salt load over 4 to 6 doses. Some of the salt does end up in the bottom of the pan, but any liquid that collects there will take up the salt, and in effect your cheese sits in a concentrated brine. For low moisture cheeses, I'll cover the container with something to keep it moist.

Hopefully that explains what I do.

Larry

[GoudaGirl13]

Thank you very much, Larry. I will read up on that! I appreciate the article links.

[Al Lewis]

Made this parm last weekend Larry and oiled it yesterday with some good EVOO.  What do you think about vacuum packing/waxing these?  Would it be better to just keep it in the cave?  Not sure how it would age/dry in a year for grating with the small size.

[awakephd]

Al, I waxed my first parm (only a 2-gallon make) after a couple of months. I'm glad I did -- it would have been a hockey puck if I hadn't. Instead, it has been spot-on as far as texture. Taste was bland at first (no lipase), but as it got closer to 1 year old, the taste improved markedly. My second parm (a 3-gallon make) is just over 11 months old, and been in wax for 8 or so of those months. And my third parm, a 4-lb. make, is all of two weeks old. Not sure if/when I will wax that one ...