problem with Caerphilly

[Bernardsmith]

Made a batch of Caerphilly a few weeks ago and I had no problems.  Started a batch Sunday using Gavin Webber's approach (cheddaring) and this time while I had what looked like a good clean break the curds seemed to break up almost as soon as I began to gently stir them. I used 1/4 cup of kefir as my culture but the kefir had been in the fridge perhaps two weeks or more. I never measured the pH but assumed that the culture was still active. After draining and cheddaring for about an hour and after pressing -  using the same weights and times suggested by the recipe I am still finding whey seeping out of the wheel even as it air dries today, Wednesday.

I used 2 gallons of (store bought pasteurized and homogenized) milk and the wheel weighed this morning 2.25 lbs, moreover when I removed the wheel from the form on Monday morning (around 6.30 AM) it still had not really formed hard as a few hours later (around noon) some of the  bulk of the cylinder had moved to the bottom (sorry , no photo) creating something of a pear shaped cheese. What are the likely causes of all this? Could the rennet have been the problem? A lack of acidity? Insufficient draining? All of the above? None of the above?  I have suspended the cheese in a cheese cloth bag with the goal of airdrying the cheese without it having to sit on its own moisture..   

[wattlebloke]

Sounds to me like a few problems there.
If you tested for, and got a clean break, then your rennet is fine.
The curd 'shattering' when stirred is typical of homogenised milk.
I would not assume that 2 week-old-sitting-in-the fridge kefir is active enough for a starter. To quote from Priscilla, Queen of the desert:"Assumption, (Bernard), is the mother of all ef ups".
Welcome to the trial-and-error learning curve

[Gregore]

I suspect that 2 week old kefir may not have been active enough , and may have needed some waking up before being used for a cheese starter . Thus your acid may not have been at the level needed during the setting of the curd .

Did you take any ph readings during the make?

You might have a cheese that never reached the needed acid level at salting .

[Bernardsmith]

Thanks Gregore. I never took a pH reading of the cultured milk with that batch, but last night I tried to make a different cheese using the same batch of kefir but a newer purchase of the rennet. Same problem after allowing the rennet to work for about 45 minutes. I took a pH reading of the milk 30 minutes after adding the culture and it was at 5.4 (at 99 F) . Different source of milk (although supermarket bought) and with an expiration date in the middle of July.

[Gregore]

Unless you added a huge amount of kefir then it is not possible for your milk to reach 5.4 in that short of time .

For 2 gallons of milk you would need  a quart or 2  or possibly even more kefir to bring it that low that fast

Maybe a problem with your meter?  Or did you mean to type 6.4

I think you have 2 issues with the first cheese ,

#1. Homogenized milk ( soft curds easily shattered )
#2. Not enough time for kefir to drop the acid enough to help create  firm curds



With both of these 2 in the same cheese you are bound to get a more moist curd

could you post the,recipe here so we can look at it and see where you might make changes based on your out comes so far .

[Bernardsmith]

The second recipe was for a cheese known as Tzafatit.

1 gallon milk
1/4 t Ca Cl dissolved in 1/4 C distilled water
1 C kefir
2 t vinegar (I used apple cider (with mother))
1/4 tab rennet dissolved in 1/4 C distilled water
1 T salt
Brine

heated milk to 99F , added Ca Cl, and kefir - stirred
ripened 40 minutes
added vinegar (stirred) and  rennet (stirred)
Cold break at 45 minutes
Cut curds 1/2 inch (+/-)
Rest 10 minutes
Stir curds gently for 15 minutes (here they immediately broke up)
Drain whey - curds failed to settle so I drained whey and curds into cloth lined colander.
Hung colander and allowed cheese to drain 30 minutes
Milled cheese & added salt
Allowed cheese to drain 60 minutes
placed cheese in form with about 8 lbs weight overnight.
Removed from form and brined 4 hours

[Gregore]

Not sure what the vinager is all about , but kefir  will certainly prefer a lower temp. Than 99f  ,and it will need more than 40 minutes ..... Maybe that is why the recipe calls for vinager  (to cheat a little ) and this must be a cheese eaten young as you added the mother from the vinager which has yeast .

I would look for a better recipe  . If your into naturally cultured cheese I would suggest getting David Asher's book  the art of natural cheese making .

I am thinking of making his mason jar Marcellins this  weekend , as they look so easy .

Also get some better milk , you must be able to find non homogenized milk some where .

[awakephd]

The addition of the vinegar will certainly lower the pH immediately ...

[Bernardsmith]

No no - I didn't add the mother , the vinegar has a mother, so it is not a dead vinegar. And I took a pH reading before I added the vinegar. And kefir should have both meso and thermophillic cultures (according to David Asher)... I wonder if dairies increase the temperature that they pasteurize at during summer months here in NY?

[Gregore]

2 table spoons of vinager will not bring it down to 5.4 ( today I made a kefir cheese and I added about 1 1/4  cups of kefir and it brought the ph down from 6.5 to 6.4 ).  My cheese took about 10 hrs to reach 5.4 ph

So I still think you have issues with the ph meter.


And I am not sure what 2 table spoons of vinager is going to do to 1 gallon of milk

Yes it should have both Meso and thermo , but for what ever reason it is happier at lower than 90 f

My wife killed the last one by keeping it above 90f for many months and it slowly died and could not be revived . I suspect that all of the Meso died off.  And the thermo was too weak to make good kefir .

Do you have David's book?

Today I am making his mason jar Marcellin.  I used 1 gallon raw and 1 gallon pasteurized , I really like the minimal amount of work compared to normal cheeses .

[Bernardsmith]

I do have David Esher's book and I think that it is excellent but I don't add the kefir grains when I make cheese. I simply usually add the from last batch of kefir those grains made. But the batch I used to culture the cheese this time was from a container of kefir that was a couple of weeks old. As to the calibration of my pH meter. Agreed, I need to check this. I have some 4.1 and 7.1 buffer solution I just got for precisely that purpose.

[Gregore]

I too do not add the grains , my wife would kill me if I lost them in the cheese some where .

After making his mason jar cheese I can say that I am impressed with how well the kefir acidified the milk

1 1/4 cups of kefir acidified 2 gallons of milk about 50 percent slower than a commercial culture that has been  rehydrated   in milk overnight before being added the the cheese milk .

To make his recipe again I would use less kefir as the cheese hit 4.4 ph by the next morning  and I feel it should have taken longer to get there .  How ever it also was a warm day so the home was quite warm , and could have effected the time quite a bit .