Hello!
I am Mark Kosztaczky from Hungary. I started making cheese 2 years ago. I found this forum then, but I arrived to start reading the forum several month ago and I must say that it was a milestone in my cheese making process.
I read Alp’s Berner Alpase making descripion (
http://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,10178.0.html ), I decided to make a batch with pH value. I found a small dairy a few weeks ago, where the cows are grazed on the meadow. This was my first batch using this milk, so some problem occurred during production with the amount of rennet I used, despite the fact that I made a test renneting with a small amount of milk beforehand. I made this test without culture just using rennet, so that amount I defined gave a different outcome during the cheese making.
Approximately half of the batch was from the evening milk (the milking was at 4 p.m.), placed in to the refrigerator till next morning, the temperature was 6,5 degree Celsius. Next morning I skimmed the milk and added the cream to the fresh morning milk. The pH of the evening milk was 6,57 in the morning at 18 degree Celsius. The pH of the morning milk: 6,63 at 25 degree Celsius. I decided in advance to adding rennet at pH 6,55.
Starting time 8 o’clock in the morning.
The hole batch was made of 53 liters of milk. I used primer culture with 1% b.e.
The 1% b.e (530 ml) was composed of:
15,00% R-703 (Chr-Hansen)
18,75% TA-54 (Choozit)
18,75% TA-61 (Choozit)
37,00% LH-100 (Choozit)
10,00% YC-380 (Chr-Hansen yogurt culture)
• The morning milk was warmed to 38C where I added the culture and then continued the warming to 42C, meanwhile the evening milk was warmed to 20C, and then added the evening milk to the cultured morning milk. pH after this stage: 6,54. Temperature 32,7C so added rennet, stirred for 1 minute. Checked floc after 9 minutes, the bowl didn’t move at all, but I decided to start cutting at 30 minutes.
• Cut the curd 1”x1” large chunks (cut first toward me, then across)
• Stirred the curd with a food-container that had been cut to a ladle shape (made the skimming with the same tool) for 10 minutes
• Using a harp cut the curd to coffee bean size with an 8-shaped pattern. It took app. ten minutes.
• Used another tool stirring the curd without cutting on this temperature (32,5C) . Ph was 6,46 at the beginning of this stage. Planned to stir for 30 minutes. After 20 minutes I measured the pH it was 6,41. I decided to start the heating period because of the rapid drop. My aim of pH of hooping was somewhere between 6,30-6,45.
• Heating: reaching 51C during 40 minutes. With a slow heating during the first 10 minutes (5C/10 minutes). pH at the end of the heating period: 6,28. Stopped stirring. Drained whey and kneaded into two forms.
• Pressing, goal ph: 5,2-5,4; pressing weight: 2-3 psi
under whey for 35 minutes, with flipping 5,10, 20 minutes. Removing from whey and continuing pressing on room temperature, flipping 40 min, 1 hour, 2 hours etc.
Boosting the 1% primer culture on high temperature, acidification was faster then I would have liked it to, as it was unfortunately acceptable reached goal pH at 6 o’clock in the evening earlier then I planned (planned pressing 10-12 hours) but there was a lot a whey under the cheese between flippings. So I decided to press till next morning.
I couldn’t press with 2-3 psi because of the too much moisture of curd, when I tried the cheese always find its way out between the form and the pressing disk, so the maximum I could do is to press with 8x weight.
• Brining in 20% salt brine for 2,5 hours/1 lbs of pressed cheese weight
• I planned to air dry it for 4-6 hours before putting it to my “aging cellar” ( a small wine refrigerator) but the whey still came out from the cheese all day so I left it out for the next morning.
• Aging between 17-20C for two month, RH 90-92%. Washing every day for the first ten days, then 1-2 times a week with a solution of saltwater and white wine. 50% water+50% wine, the salt content of the whole solution is 6%.
• After two months, taking to an aging cellar with 12,5-13C RH 90-95%. Washing stopped
