Help me make a better cheddar! (Please)

[lazyeiger]

Just a bit of background first

I started making cheese a couple of years ago and made some very successful unpressed cheeses, Brie, Stilton and mozzarella. all as good as if not better than anything I can buy. Being a UK expat living in the US I really wanted to make a Cheddar. Here is where all the problems started. I made a total of 3 Cheddar's a Cotswold and an alpine cheese. All these cheeses suffer from the same type of problem, they taste like processed cheese (the orange squares people put on burgers) and they all stick to your teeth when you eat them and none of them melt they just brown kind of like Halumi.

I have decided to start making cheese again, I have made some wonderful Brie/Camemberts one blue Brie which is amazing, now I want to make a good Cheddar!

I have an Extech Ph meter and a good thermometer I am a scientist by trade and consider myself a good cook (I can follow instructions to the letter!)

My last cheddar recipe is as follows (condensed)

4 gallons local P/H milk ( makes great soft cheeses)
8oz RA 22 culture (mother)
3cc Rennet
5cc CaCl

07.45 Milk at 90F Ph 6.73 add culture
08.30 89.7F 6.60 add rennet
08.43 floc time 12.5 x 3 = 37.5 minutes
09.08 cut curd to 1/2"
09.20 89.0F 6.57 stir gently start heating to 105F
10.42 105.0 6.35 stir
11.25 103.5 6.07 drain
11.37 101.5 5.87 cut and stack
13.05 101.8 5.10 Mill and salt at 2.5%  (63oz curds 2oz salt)
13.10 Mold and press under whey 3psi (7" diameter)
14.15 turn press @ 7psi
16.00 turn press @ 11 psi
17.00 turn press @ 15psi

next day out of mold 57.5oz

age at 50F - 55F  85% - 100% humidity

I tried this at 3 months sticky and processed taste
again at 6 months pretty much no change in taste and texture will not melt.

What is going wrong? please help I want to make a good Cheddar!

Thanks!

Jon

[Gregore]

Never made a cheddar so I can not say for sure what is the cause of that flavor and texture ,

but I found this thread where Linuxboy advises on critical ph markers for cheddar , and you are off on the salting ph by a fair amount , and could be why it does not melt well



http://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php?topic=2573.0

[scasnerkay]

I drain at about 6.1 to 6.3, and I salt at 5.3 to 5.6 pH depending on what I am making. Yours seems too low!

[lazyeiger]

but I found this thread where Linuxboy advises on critical ph markers for cheddar , and you are off on the salting ph by a fair amount , and could be why it does not melt well

http://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php?topic=2573.0

Thank you for reminding me of that thread, I had read it before, however on an in depth re read I came up with 2 things. maybe I am ripening for too long causing too low a Ph at drain also my salting Ph is too low.

I drain at about 6.1 to 6.3, and I salt at 5.3 to 5.6 pH depending on what I am making. Yours seems too low!

Yes I think both my Ph at draining and salting are too low, I am going to try again with higher. I still find the Ph meter a bit hit and miss!

[awakephd]

I agree with the others on the draining and salting pH targets. But a few other thoughts as well. First, add a pint or more of cream to bring the fat content up. Second, try cutting your curd to 1/4" rather than 1/2". Third, try using 3% salt - 2.5% may taste too bland.

Now a bunch of questions: How quickly are you raising the heat from 89 to 105°? Are you stirring more or less continuously as you heat? What is the texture of the curd when you are ready to drain? (It should be firm; you should be able to squeeze a handful together and have it stick together, but still break back apart into individual curds fairly easily.) Tell us more about your cheddaring method - how often do you re-stack it, and are you draining off built up whey each time?

Finally: don't even think about trying it before 6 months, absolute minimum!

[lazyeiger]

I agree with the others on the draining and salting pH targets. But a few other thoughts as well. First, add a pint or more of cream to bring the fat content up. Second, try cutting your curd to 1/4" rather than 1/2". Third, try using 3% salt - 2.5% may taste too bland.

I will try all of that next time!

How quickly are you raising the heat from 89 to 105°? Are you stirring more or less continuously as you heat?

22 minutes stirring all the time.

What is the texture of the curd when you are ready to drain? (It should be firm; you should be able to squeeze a handful together and have it stick together, but still break back apart into individual curds fairly easily.)

This seems about right, I have read that description from many places, also Caldwell's "stick to your hand test"

Tell us more about your cheddaring method - how often do you re-stack it, and are you draining off built up whey each time?

Looking at my notes I cut and re stacked 5 times over 1 1/2 hours cheddaring is in a tilted pan so the whey drains off into the lower part of the pan.

Finally: don't even think about trying it before 6 months, absolute minimum!

Ha! Yes I know!!

Maybe I should try your Lancashire recipe, it looks like it is pretty much like a Cheddar with out the heating/cooking?  Do you add extra cream for that one too. How do you age it, naked, waxed or bandaged? whats the bare minimum time to age the Lancashire?

I am thinking that I will make a Lancashire before the Cheddar to at least give me something to try while waiting for the Cheddar!

Thanks!

Jon

[awakephd]

Jon, the only thing that concerns me in your procedure is the heating time - 22 minutes sounds fast to me. By comparison, here is the profile for the two cheddar recipes I make:

Traditional Cheddar (combo of R. Carrol and G. Caldwell recipes): Ripen at 88°; cut to 1/4"; rest 5 minutes; stir, gently at first, gradually raising temperature to 100-102° over 30 minutes. Hold temp and keep stirring until whey pH = 6.2. Drain and cheddar until pH = 5.3-5.4.

Double Gloucester (Amrein-Boyes recipe): Ripen at 90°; cut to 1/4"; rest 5 minutes; stir gently for 15 minutes; continue stirring and gradually raise heat to 99° over 45 minutes; settle for 20 minutes. (No pH targets supplied with this one, but I'd shoot for the same 6.2 or so at draining, and again cheddar until pH = 5.3-5.4.)

As you can see, the TC recipe calls for 12-14° rise over 30 minutes, so approximately one degree every 2 - 2.5 minutes. The DG recipe is even slower, 9° rise over 45 minutes, so only one degree every 5 minutes. By contrast, you are giving a 16° rise over 22 minutes - one degree every 1.375 minutes - considerably faster, and a higher final temperature as well. I am no expert, but my understanding is that too-rapid heating can cause the outside of the curd to toughen up while trapping more moisture inside. So together with the 1/2" cut you are using, perhaps this is a significant factor in the results you are getting.

On the Lancashire recipe - yes, it is basically a cheddar-ish recipe that is intentionally left very moist - no additional heating, and only 10 minutes of stirring. As a result, the cheddaring process is pretty sloppy, especially at first, as the curd is more mushy than a true cheddar. The high moisture content lets it age quickly, so it is ready in 6 weeks. (And the high moisture content means it is not a good candidate for extended aging - best used within, say, 12 weeks.) My preferred aging method is just to age it "naked" in the cave, regularly turning it and cleaning off any mold; depending on how dry your cave is (mine is always too dry), you will get a bit of a chewy rind that I absolutely love. But if I don't have time to keep the rind clean, I have also vac-bagged this after a couple of weeks in the cave, so that it can age out with less fuss.

If you want an even faster-aging cheese, look for a Caerphilly - ready in 3 weeks! On the forum, I have seen two fairly different makes under this label; one of the makes is similar to the Lancashire make, but with just a bit of heating; it still involves a cheddaring phase, then salting, then pressing. The other make is along the lines of the Amrein-Boyes (200 Easy Recipes) recipe; this involves a little bit of heating (just a couple of degrees), and some stirring, but no cheddaring - just a long time settling in the whey, then pressing, then brining. The result is tangy, crumbly, and salty (though of course, you can control the saltiness by the length of time in the brine).

I haven't tried making either the Lancashire or the Caerphilly with extra cream, but I suppose there's no reason one couldn't. I guess I should give it a try next time ...

[Danbo]

Great explanation that makes all of us wiser.

Thumbs up!

:-)

[lazyeiger]

Thanks Andy, this is really helping me understand what is going on and which parts of the process I am failing at.

I think I may have some time tomorrow to have another try at this, these are my observations, conclusions and corrections that I intend to make.

1/  Too much culture and too long a ripening time causing the acid to develop too early and making me cut short the process.
Correction.  Use less culture, I will try 1% instead of the 1.5% I was using.

2/ Waiting too long after adding culture before renneting again causing acid to develop too early.
Correction. Add rennet immediately after stirring in culture and CaCl

3/ Curd cut too large makes it harder for the curd to lose moisture during heating.
Correction. Cut curd to 1/4" instead of 1/2"

4/ Heating to fast and too high, not holding at temperature long enough (mainly caused by 1 and 2 I think?) again making it harder for the curd to lose moisture.
Correction. Heat to 102F over 40 minutes, gently stir at 102F until Ph = 6.4 - 6.2 then drain.

5/ Too low Ph at Milling and salting stage too little salt. not sure of the effects this causes, it should make the final cheese more crumbly, maybe the low Ph is contributing to the inability to melt?
Correction. Mill and salt at a Ph of 5.4 - 5.3. Use more salt 4% instead of 2.5%

I will report back ( in June 2017!)

Jon

[awakephd]

Jon, all sounds good ... but 4% salt may be too much. I'd suggest closer to 3 or 3.5%. You will lose some of the salt when it draws off additional whey, so the amount you add to the curds is not actually the amount that will be left in the cheese. As always, the key is experimentation ...