This is my second attempt at port salut, but it's a first in a few other ways. I basically stuck to the recipe as far as times go, but tried to make a point of checking ph at various stages, and checking for flocculation. The recipe I'm using doesn't have ph markers or floc multiplier, I just wanted to get an idea of what's what and get used to those things so I can start to use them. This is my first time using a ph meter, and I found the results confusing.
10L creamline milk 3.25%
1/2 tsp Meso II
1/8 tsp b. linens (SR3)
tiny smidge of geo 15
3/4 tsp calf rennet, diluted
3/4 tsp calcium chloride, diluted
- warmed milk to 90F in the food warmer. While the bulk of the milk was slowly warming, I prewarmed 1c of milk to temp and added the meso II, to try and give it a bit of a jump start on waking up.
- Once the milk was at temp, added the 1c of milk, the b. linens and geo. ph of the milk prior to adding cultures read 6.52
- maintain temp and ripen 1 hour - ph midway through ripening read 6.67
- add CaCl and stir well
- add rennet - floc time 9.5 min. ph at renneting 6.55
- clean break after 30 min, cut curd to 1/2" and let rest 5 minutes
- stir 10 minutes and let settle
- remove 3L whey and replace w/ 140F water to raise temp to 92. I only added 2L of 140 water, because it brought the temp up to 95.
- stir 10 min and let settle
- remove 2L whey, and replace w/ warm water (approx 130) to bring temp to 98.
- stir 10 min and let settle - all through the washing, I didn't write down ph, it was around 6.7 each time
- scoop off most of whey, scoop curds and whey into lined tomme mold and press under light pressure (about 5lb) with the mold sitting in the whey.
- flip/redress and using press inside food warmer, press at medium weight 30 min, 30 min, 60 minutes, overnight. Curd ph after 60 minute press was 6.37.
When I took it out of the mold this morning, ph was 5.18 - 5.34 depending on where I placed it on the cheese. I took the cheesecloth off and repressed a little while to smooth out the wrinkled side a bit before putting it into the brine. I also weighed it before brining, and it weighed in at 1362g. That seems heavier than it ought to be. I *think* the culprit was my cutting. I'm not very good at eyeballing 1/2", and even worse when it comes to the horizontal cuts. (curd cutters from Perfect Cheese are on my wishlist). I think the curds were cut too big, and then not stirred/cooked long enough to compensate.
My rennet amount can probably be cut back a bit next time, but I usually have trouble with not getting a clean break even after an extended period, so when I reduced the amount of milk from 12L to 10L, I kept the rennet the same. I probably want to be using a syringe and measuring in cc's rather than fractions of a tsp.
Is it normal to see the ph rise in the beginning? That didn't make any sense to me, but this is my first batch using a ph meter. The meter is brand new, freshly calibrated. Calibrated repeatedly last night, in fact. I kept doing it thinking that the meter was malfunctioning or something. Would butterfat mess up the readings? Half of the bottles of milk had plugs of fat that had risen, and a lot of it wouldn't re-incorporate so there was a fair bit of butter floating around in there, and the electrode seemed to get pretty greased up.
One other thing I did was dip a toothpick into the bottle of annatto and swirl it around in the milk as it was warming. It was hardly any at all, but I think it took a bit of the edge off the whiteness. Gave it a bit creamier of a color.
I have it in the brine right now, since 9:15 am. The recipe in 200 Easy Cheese Recipes says to brine it for 8 hours. 8 hours from when I started is 5:15, but I have to be at a friends b-day/housewarming at that time. Would it be better to brine 6 hours, or 11? Should I take it out now for a couple of hours and then put it back in?
A couple of pics to follow.
