I completed a 6# Caerphilly in my new 8-inch full size steam table vat yesterday. The recipe was straight out of Caldwell's
Mastering Artisan Cheesemaking with only a preplanned change in the cultures. Caldwell called for MA-4000 and I substituted an equal amount of MA-011 combined with TA-061 in a 2:1 ratio - 3/4 tsp MA-4000 changed to 1/2 tsp MA-011 plus 1/4 tsp TA-061. Both recipes called for 1/16 tsp of mycodore and I retained that in my batch. The only issue was that my culture combination dropped the pH much faster than I expected having used the MA-4000 several times in the past for similar cheeses. This kept me hopping and I finally caught up with the goal pH as the curd was draining in the tilted vat right before salting the broken up curd. It remains to be seen if the momentum of the pH drop was halted in time to prevent the cheese from becoming too tart.
The deeper pot presented a little challenge in that my curd cutters were designed for the 6-inch vat. As you can see in the photo below I solved this by using 4 small cable ties to marry the 1/2 and 1 inch cutters together to at least get the horizontal cuts. The vertical cuts were done with a knife.
Here are the photos and comments:
Caerphilly 2 - Six gallons of Pure Eire vat pasteurized whole milk.
Caerphilly 3 - Warming the milk in hot tap water. Took ten minutes to go from 38F to 76F saving about 50 minutes verses the vat heating.
Caerphilly 4 - The married curb cutters.
Caerphilly 5 - The cut curds.
Caerphilly 6 - Cutting the blocks after draining in a tilted vat. I do the cheddaring in my laundry room heat to about 93F with a little electric heater.
Caerphilly 7 - Broken and salted ready to load the press.
Caerphilly 8 - Pressing in an 8-inch mold.
Caerphilly 9 - Finished 2633 gram cheese after brining into ripening box for rind formation. Go mycodore, go!