Ph markers for blue cheese.

[Shalloy]

hi cheese makers, Im making some more blue cheese this weekend and was wondering if someone could give me a few ph markers to go by. Ive read a few posts but didnt quite understand them as they went into a lot of detail.

So basically do I measure my PH at the start and look for a certain drop after adding the culture before adding rennet? Or is there a figure Im looking for that I want my PH to be at before adding the rennet regardless of what my ph was at the start?  When i made my cams I think I found a post that said PH should be 6.4 (I could be wrong there) but I never got that low.

Also is there a PH I want to be at before transferring the curds to the moulds or do I just go off the time which is stir every 5 minutes for 1 hour then transfer.

Thanks in advance.

[Gregore]

Ball park numbers , taken from the joy of cheese making
I suspect different blues might vary a little

Molding 6.35-6.15
Salting 5.0-4.8

Look for about a   .05 to .1 drop  you will need a meter that can read this accurately , or you can use a mother culture and go straight to rennet

Happy cheese making

[Shalloy]

Well my milk started at 6.60 at 30C. 
I added the DVI and after 1 hour it was 6.57.
I then added the rennet and got a floc multiplier of 19 x 4 = 176 mi Utes. When it came to cut the curds they had well and truly separated from the sides of the pot and the whole mass was turning as I tried to cut them.

After 1 hour of stirring them every five minutes the ph is still only 6.45. So I'm thinking I should wait until they drop below 6.35.

One thing I've  noticed is that no matter how gentle you are with them they still break up into smaller and smaller pieces.

[Shalloy]

I gave them another stir five minutes later and the ph had dropped to 6.15. Is that normal to get a sudden drop like that?

[Gregore]

I think it is not possible to get such a sudden drop , I too got false readings when I had my last ph meter.

Are you letting the meter temp stabilize each time you put it in ? If you put a room temp ph meter into a warm curd the temp can take up to 1 minute or even more to come up to temp.

My last meter had readings that were low by at least .2 or more  when cold , so as the temp came up  it could go from   5.4 to 5.2 that is a big difference if your cheese needs to be salted at 5.4

keep in mind that none of these changes  from the recipe  on their  own will make or break a cheese , but too many together in a single make can alter what type of cheese you end up with.

That is why for the first year I made only 2 types of cheese ( tomme and reblochons)  , then when I branched out I chose a cheese that was only slightly different . The  raw milk changed through the year and I was able to see that change and adapt.

My tommes are okay, but my reblochons are drop dead gooey .

I would suggest to have a cheese that you  make every second time  or so  that you make cheese , something that you can always fall back  on  to reset your thoughts and skills  and see if you milk is changing .

The every time you make it record all that you would change next time then make those changes  , this will help you guide the cheese closer and closer to the recipe.

This is a great one to make and easy to eat as you will have lots of it


http://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,13051.msg100928.html#msg100928

[awakephd]

Shalloy,

I generally don't worry too much about the pH until I get into the curd phase; for the ripening, flocc, and stirring phases, I just go by time and to some extent by feel. (I like the flocc method, but it hasn't worked well for the milk I have available to use, so I have gone back to using time and testing the break.) I think I may have measured pH of the milk while ripening only once in all the cheeses I've made. Normally I don't get out the pH meter until I have drained off the whey. Of course, I may be a very bad example ...

As for a sudden drop -- I do think there seems to be a "tipping point" where the bacteria really get going, and the the pH starts dropping much more rapidly; then it begins to taper off. But I wouldn't expect a big drop over just five minutes.

[Gregore]

 from my understanding the cultures double  in numbers every 20 minutes  so the curve of acid will get steeper and steeper . But nothing sudden .

One thing I found that helped the most with rennet measuring .... When I first started I would measure the amount of rennet  with spoon type measure and the floc was all over the map in  the time it took , then I started using drops per make and I was able to control floc to with a minute or 2 .

Now I know my milk changes from about 20 drops per 3 gallons to 17 drops per 3 gallons through out the year.

 So get your self a dropper if your rennet does not come in a bottle with one.

Because I use raw milk I like to check ph at start as it tells me how fresh it is .

[Shalloy]

I'm thinking now that I hadn't stirred when I checked the first time. And so perhaps the ph was lower.

I made these blues last night using the correct amount if rennet this time and following my floc multiplier and everything else correctly and they have turned out with a lot of gaps and holes. Not rubbery like my first batch but still don't seem right. What am I doing wrong. Seems I don't have much luck with cheese. Lol

[Gregore]

They look good if you want a Stilton blue , lots of pockets for the blue to grow into .

[Shalloy]

What exactly is the difference between a Stilton blue and just a normal blue? 

A Stilton blue is fine by me.  I just want an edible cheese. Lol

[Gregore]

I do not know all of the differences  but 1 that I have noticed is that the curds are more separate from each other than other blues thus giving large pockets for blue growth. Just like yours .

Often  but not always the out sides are smoothed out like you would do with cake icing   I think it is done to lessen air to the insides and thus control it with piercing.

I think it is not done straight away though

Plenty of posts here about them as it  is the favorite blue to try.

[John@PC]

They look good if you want a Stilton blue , lots of pockets for the blue to grow into .

I totally agree with Gregore.  These look like fairly small diameter rounds and that may have contributed to the voids but if you maintain a good high %RH (90 to 95%) the voids will shrink and my guess is these will have some great blue formation.  You could even experiment with piercing one and not the others. 

[Gregore]

I was just reading why Stilton is smoothed out on the outside,  the article was mentioning  if left open it would start to blue right away  but  it needs to go through post acidification , mellow and mature a little  before  the piercing and blue gets going.

They mention that  if it was left open you would end up with a sloppy mess.

This is not to say yours will end up like that if left open as yours do not look any where's near as big as a Stilton

The stiltons I saw look like it would be a 15 to 20 lb cheese

[Shalloy]

Well at this stage I'm still salting them and leaving them in the laundry to dry out before spiking them and putting them in the cheese cave with my other blues.