Port du Salut (or, if you prefer, Port Salut or St. Paulin) has been on my to-do list for a while but I was encouraged by Jeff Hamm's recent post to bring it to the top of the list.
I compared several recipes, including those from Jeff, Linuxboy, Boofer and Cheesemaking.com.
The first big decision was which cultures to use, thermo or meso. I decided that for the cheese that I had in mind, Flora Danica would be the way to go.
The make from there on went as follows:
Prepare a brine of 2L of water containing 3g (½tsp) of salt.
Warmed 10L of milk to 32C (6L of Fleurieu full cream, unhomogenised and 4L of Fleurieu Jersey; Target P:F = 0.82- 0.86 ; Actual = 0.79)
Sprinkled on ½ tsp (3 tads) Epicurean Flora Danica and ¼tsp (3 dashes) of B. Linens. Allowed to rehydrate for 2 min and then stirred in for 2 min.
Ripened for 30 min.
Stirred in 3ml of CaCl2 in 60ml of water.
Left for 10 min.
Stirred in 2.5ml of 140 IMCU rennet in 50ml of water.
Allowed to set. Flocculation occurred at 14 min. Using a multiplier of 3.5 gave a coagulation time of 49 min.
Cut to 6mm slowly over 10 min. Rested for 15min.
Removed 4L of whey and gradually replace with the brine (now at 36C) over 10 min. Heated with stirring to 38C over a further 20 min.
Settled for 10 min.
Removed most of the whey and formed the curds into a consolidated mass under the remaining whey. Pressed lightly (1 kg) under whey for 10-15 min
Pressed the curd mass into a lined mould. Pressed with a very light weight (2kg; 0.12 PSI) under whey for 15 min.
Removed from whey, flipped and pressed at 0.12 PSI for 40 min. Kept warm (~26C).
Flipped and pressed at 0.14 PSI kg for 1 hour.
Flipped and pressed at 0.22 PSI for 2 hours.
Flipped and pressed at 0.33 PSI for 2 hours.
Flipped and pressed at 0.33 PSI for 3 hours (Goal pH = 5.2-5.3).
pH ~5.1. Flipped and returned to press naked at 0.08 PSI. Left in a warm place overnight.
Soaked in heavy brine for 5 hours. (pH by paper at start of brining = 4.9-5.0)
Air dried at room temp. for 2 hours, then moved to a closed box at ~13C.
I was a little nervous as my only previous attempt at a washed curd was an early blower so I was relieved that this one floated at the correct level in the brine.