Hi all,
Yesterday I attempted a parmesan. I based it off the following recipe, but doubled the batch size.
http://www.countrybrewer.com.au/pages/how-to-make-parmesan-cheese.htmlThe ingredients were as follows:
15L Farmers Own Low Fat (2%) Milk
1tsp TA61 prepared overnight in boiled the cooled milk
1tsp LH100 prepared as above
1/2tsp Lamb Lipase mixed in an egg cup of demin water
3ml Chymax Plus 200IMCU/ml Vegetable Rennet
4ml 30% Calcium Chloride diluted in an egg cup of demin water
The basic steps were as follows:
Preparing the cultures the night before:
- Bring 400ml of the milk to a boil.
- Cool the milk to around 30°C and mix in the starter cultures and leave to sit overnight (around 12 hours) at around 25°C.
- It should be set like yoghurt in the morning.
The make:
- Heat the remainder of the 15L of milk to 32°C
- Add the calcium chloride and mix through
- Add the prepared starter cultures and mix through thoroughly.
- Add the Lipase
- Leave to ripen for 30 minutes
- Add the diluted Rennet and let to set for around 30 minutes. I used the floc method with a multiplier of 2.5, but found I needed a bit longer to get a clean break. It was around 28 minutes though, so the time suggested was pretty close.
- Check for clean break and cut into 6mm cubes.
- Heat curds to 38°C over 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.
- Heat further to 50°C stirring to cook the curds. They should end up the size of grains of rice and be squeaky between the teeth.
- Let curds settle for 5 min at 50°C
- Drain into a cheesecloth lined mould (2kg mould in my case).
- Press for 15 min at 5kg.
- Flip and press for 30 min at 8kg.
- Flip and press for 2hrs at 15kg.
- Flip and press for 12hrs at 20kg.
- Heavy brine for 24hrs.
There were quite a few errors in my make and I guess I'll find out in time what the result of them was.
- My timing was all over the place. I'm still getting used to the new Bain Marie. Heating times were much slower than desired. I wasn't being aggressive enough with my heating rates. Something to work on with vats of water...
- My curds were cut a little large and cooked curds were around pea sized, but rice. They were definitely squeaky though.
- The final pressing was longer than 12hrs as I didn't feel like waking at 4am to take it out. It was more like 15hrs. I can't check the ph of the cheese to see how low it got.
I've attached my make sheet and photos.
I have a question on brining. The recipe called for 24hrs. My cheese is nearly twice the weight. Data is as follows:
Weight: 1310g
Diameter: 16cm
Height: 7cm
I'll put it in the brine shortly.
Thanks for your help.
Shane