Hey everyone
Today I slowly slid a cheese from its mould to reveal a creamy delicious looking mass of curd, I must say that never in my few experiences at making cheese has the result been so close to what the aim was. I can only pray now that I have the ability to nurse these babies through to their grizzly demise at the hands of many knife-wielding Italians at my Nona's 80'th birthday celebration. although I haven't weighed them yet, I believe that I have one that is about 2kg, one that is around 500g and one that is around 250g. Im not sure if the small one will make the journey but if it does we will eat it at 5 weeks, the medium one will be at 6 weeks and the big one at 8 weeks.
The recipe that I loosely based the cheese on was the 'Stilton type cheese' in Ricki Carroll's book of course with some information gleaned from this forum. The make was as follows:
Stilton Type cheese
16 L farmers own pasteurised only milk Fat: 3.8% Protein: 3.1%
1 L Anchor pure cream Fat: 40% Protein: 2%
1. Milk and cream was heated to 32C and the following was added
1 knife point Penicillin roqueforti (the supplier describes it as a strong flavoured strain)
1 ‘drop’ Sigma 30 - Saccromyces Yeast
3 ‘dashes’ Type B starter (Lactococcus lactis subsp. lactis, Lactococcus lactis subsp. cremoris and Lactoccocus lactis subsp. lactis biovar diacetylactis
2ml CaCl 50% solution dissolved in ¼ cup of pure water
The milk was allowed to ripen for 60mins and a pH reading of 6.8 was obtained
2. 3.6ml of vegetarian rennet dissolved in ¼ cup of pure water was added and stirred thoroughly for 1 min.
Flocculation occurred at 24mins and a factor of 6 was used so total setting time was 2hr 24mins
3. After setting time the curds were gently ladled into a total of 3 draining cloths and tied into balls to set in their own whey for 90 mins; a pH reading of 6.7 was obtained
4. The curds were then hung to drain for 30 minutes after which the pH reading was 5.1
5. The curds were then placed between two boards and pressed lightly (3.75kg) overnight at ambient temperatures between 21 and 24C (total pressing time 11hrs) the pH after this press was 4.8
6. The curds were milled into thumb sized pieces, weighed (3335g) and salted at a rate of 2% weight (67g)
7. The salted curds were then gently placed into the moulds (one 2kg mould and 2 500g moulds) with minimal pressing to ensure a few nooks and crannies for the blue to grow
The cheeses were flipped at a rate of once every 15 mins for the first 2 hours, once every 2 hours for the next 6 hours and then 3 times daily.
I will update this topic as things progress and no doubt ask many a nervous newbie questions!
