Brine or surface salting?

[welly]

Hey all,

Well, my feta seems to have come out nicely! The new milk I used, which was a small dairy non-homogenised pasteurised milk resulted is great curds! They held firm nicely. I know what my go-to milk is from now on!

So I've dumped the curds in my cheese basket and I'm pressing it a bit with a 2 litre bottle of water on the top of the follower. I'm hoping for a moderately firm feta. Question is what I do with salting or brining. I'm not sure which I should be doing for a piece of cheese this size. The last feta I made was far too salty - I put it in a brine bath for about 4 days. Obviously the brine was too salty. I used about 300 grams of salt in 2 litres of water.

I've saved the whey from this batch in a 2 litre milk bottle, which is now sat in the fridge. I planned on using this for the brine. But I'm wondering if I should just salt it by rubbing salt onto the surface? Any thoughts/tips/suggestions?

Thanks!

welly

[Stinky]

If you dry salt it, then it'll be a fresher cheese, firm, and may not keep as long. I'd recommend putting it in a bowl in the fridge overnight, and then placing it in jars of about 5-8 percent solution, and keeping it indefinitely, until you use it. I dry salted and then brined, which was a mistake as the result was too salty, so next time I plan to just brine. Good luck!

Here's the link to my make.

[welly]

Cheers! I ended up dry salting it overnight and then I've stuck it in the fridge. I'll probably finish the batch I made this week so that should be fine. It turned out quite well although the temperature went a bit over the 30c that I should have cooked it to and so when I tried it a little bit this morning it was a touch rubbery, which I understand is something that will happen if you heat it too much, but I think a few days ripening should fix it. It tasted pretty good other than that. I'm going to make one more feta before cracking on with the camembert I've got planned. Need to get my temperature control sorted. I am using a double boiler but was a bit sidetracked.