My previous effort missed the target a bit in trying to nail the smooth rind.
This make saw me try a few different techniques to achieve that elusive style that attempts to mimic
"Grayson".
I don't post as much as I used to, but I thought this particular make deserved to be highlighted as "a teaching moment". In previous makes the time required to have the pH drop has been fairly short, one instance was 30 minutes. So when I had added the cultures at 90F, and after checking repeatedly with my Exstik over two hours, I should have sensed something was out of kilter. I was relying on my meter and the meter was off somewhere on holiday, lying to me about the increasing acidity of the milk. I ended up adding the rennet around pH 6.40 which is by now just a guess. Another half hour and the pH continues to drop waiting for the floc time.
After the floc time had expired I cut 2 inch blocks, rested 5 minutes, whisked into 1/2-3/4 inch pieces, rested 10 minutes, and stirred for another 30 minutes to firm up the curds @ 90F. At this point I scooped the curds into a Plyban-lined colander and predrained before moving the curds to the mould, which I'd placed on a sanitized spruce board. Looking at the curds in the Plyban sitting in the colander, I thought "Why not just pick up the whole bag, squeeze a little bit as I lifted it, and drop it into the waiting Taleggio mould?". So I placed a mould follower down first followed by a Lexan plate, the the bag of curds. Wearing gloves, I pressed the curds into the corners of the mould as best I could. Then I draped the Plyban over the top of the curd mass, placed a Lexan plate followed by a mould follower (another one with the straw-type mimicry). Then the spruce board with the filled mould was place into the incubator (a couple stacked plastic tubs, the bottom one containing 4 inches of water and a 78F aquarium heater, the top one is the actual incubation space.)
The idea here is that the curds stay warm while the pH slowly drops. After 90 minutes the pH had dropped to 5.06 (my reliance on that meter put me behind the curve)...I had been expecting 5.3-5.4 before placing the cheese into the whey-brine. Wow, hope the salt gets in there and stops the pH drop!
After 90 minutes in the whey-brine, I flipped and salted the top for another 90 minutes. After the bath the cheese went onto a damp muslin, on needlepoint mats, which sit on the spruce board inside a deep minicave. The cheese is then draped with lightly-salted damp muslin and kept in the covered minicave at room temperature for several days. The cheese is flipped daily, the excess drips down and is wicked away. The dampened spruce board helps to retain a certain humidity level inside the minicave.
The cheese square is not perfect, but there are fewer divits and crevices with this technique. Next time I might try skipping the predrain and just scoop the curds to the prepared mould. It would then be easier to tamp the curds into the corners but the overall cheese would be wetter.
We'll see how this meter fiasco affects the end product down the line. Let that be a lesson to
me: Instinct and experience should steer me...do not overly rely on technology.
-Boofer-
