Tried my hand this weekend at wine infused cheese. I've been making wine and cider longer than I've been making cheese and I was reading the recipe on the NEC website so I thought I would give that a try.
It's currently in the press and is due out later tonight. I will post a pic of the final product later.
I pretty much followed the recipe verbatim except I used 3 gallons of milk and adjusted the CaCl and rennet accordingly.
The store bought milk I choose didn't produce a quality curd. There are two brands at my local store that I've used. One usually turns out ok and the other doesn't. They are Both marketed under the same label but one is white letters on red background and the other is reversed. They both say whole vitamin d milk and neither say anything about being UHT. I obviously got them mixed up and chose the one that hasn't turned out well in the past. A lesson to take better notes.
After 30 min of letting the rennet set up and having a nice firm curd that gave me good clean break and pulled away from the sides nicely, I cut per the recipe at 3/4" cubes. After a 5 min rest, I slowly stirred up the curd lifting them from bottom to top about once a minute until I could get them to settle enough to start removing whey. The recipe wasn't too detailed through this step but that very first stir I watched the curds shatter and I knew I wasn't going to be able to hold them together. I tried though... Stirring more slowly than I ever had before, I removed about a gallon of whey and started adding the 140 Deg water back the vat. I continued with the recipe but once I drained all the whey after the curds were sufficiently dry enough, I was left with a mix of curd size but a lot of them were like cottage cheese size. When I would stir them with my hand to keep them separated, my hand would be covered in little bb's of curd. Grrrr.
I kept the temp up until I mixed in the wine which was at about 70 Deg and let it saturate for about an hour. I used a bottle of my "Kings Lair" Cabernet Sauvignon. I was worried about the temp of the curds being so cool after sitting for an hour in house wine. I drained the wine and added the salt in two phases then put it all into the press. At the End of the first hour pressing, I was able to flip it but I was losing pieces here and there. The second 2 hour press it was a little more consolidated but the edges were real rough. The 3rd 16 hour press resulted in a wheel that was much more consolidated on one side than the other. It was holding up but one side had no cracks between the curd and the other did so I flipped it and it is now in a 4th pressing. I will post a pic later when I take it out for air drying.
I didn't measure PH or take many notes and I have no idea how this one will turn out but time will tell. It smells great! I have to remember to not grab that milk anymore. I took a picture to keep on my phone in case I forget next time. I have a source for raw cows milk but I haven't reached out to ask for any lately. I do want to try that cream top milk sold at whole foods but at $6 a half gallon, I will wait until my next passionate make. Maybe my first blue or first cams. This wine infused make was just on a whim and a last minute decision to get a make in for the practice of technique. We shall see... Ken
