Author Topic: Coffee added to Cheese  (Read 1629 times)

Offline nccheesemike

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Coffee added to Cheese
« on: February 05, 2017, 05:40:54 PM »
Hi Cheeseheads. So I am a coffee addict and my brain is giving me lots of possible future cheese ideas. I know that for coffee people do a rubbed rind like coffee grounds and olive oil but I am wondering why can't you soak the curds in cold coffee then press and age a cheese from there? I know coffee can be acidic and too acidic makes for bad cheese too, is that the reason or can someone tell me why this is a bad combination otherwise?

Have a great Sunday :)

Offline awakephd

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Re: Coffee added to Cheese
« Reply #1 on: February 05, 2017, 06:16:36 PM »
Interesting idea! I don't know what would happen if you soaked in cold coffee, but people certainly do this with wine - and I think wine is acidic, isn't it? I suppose another option would be to do an espresso grind, boil the grounds in some water (to sterilize), and cool - then mix the coffee AND grounds with the curds, or add the coffee to the milk before making, and add the grounds to the curds - this is how many people handle adding herbs.
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Offline Al Lewis

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Re: Coffee added to Cheese
« Reply #2 on: February 05, 2017, 07:14:03 PM »
You can adjust acidity using calcium carbonate.  I've done it when using wine to wash curds.

http://www.brsquared.org/wine/Articles/deacid.htm

Quote
4.2.1 Calcium Carbonate (CaCO3)

Calcium carbonate is generally used for aggressive deacidification and reduces acidity through precipitation. Calcium carbonate reduces acidity by precipitating tartrate anions and leaving the much weaker carbonic acid which, in turn, then dissipates as carbon dioxide and water, leaving no remaining acidity.

Approximately 0.67 g/l of calcium carbonate will reduce the TA by 1 g/l (2.53 g reduces 1 US gal. by TA of 0.1% (1 g/l); 3.03 g reduces 1 Imperial gal. by TA of 0.1 %) and raise pH by approximately 0.3 units.
A dosage of 2 g/l to 3 g/l is usually the maximum dosage recommended, after which chalky flavours become apparent and pH increases beyond acceptable levels.

It is usually added to a portion of the batch, carbon dioxide is given off while the portion is well mixed, and cold stabilisation is conducted several days later. The deacidified liquid can then be racked off the salt lees.

Calcium malate (the salt formed by deacidiying malic acid with calcium carbonate) has a higher solubility than calcium tartrate (the salt formed by deacidifying tartaric acid with calcium carbonate) and may not fully precipitate from the must/wine, rendering a salty taste. For this reason, the "double salt" method (see below) is often adopted when conducting deacidification with calcium carbonate to force dissociation of the malic acid and induce precipitation of the salt.
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Offline nccheesemike

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Re: Coffee added to Cheese
« Reply #3 on: February 05, 2017, 09:10:26 PM »
Thank you for the further ideas Andy! The idea using the grounds and adding to the cheese sounds very interesting. As well just like adding the water from sterilizing herbs for cheese adding cold coffee to the milk at the start would be a way as well. Now I feel that it would be fun to try a few different methods with the same cheese recipe and compare the differences after aging for the same length of time. Hmm what style of cheese would match a coffee

Thank you Al for the insight as well I never realized you could use CaCO2 and I can get that at my local homebrewing store too.

I just measured the pH of my Smoked IPA beer and what was left in the coffee pot from this morning's coffee with my pH meter
IPA was 4.85
Coffee was 5.15
Comparing Wine is in the range of 3-4 pH

Seeing that my two previous beer cheeses had a final pH reading of 5.2.5.3 and Wine is often used in cheese why I could not try coffee and continue to control the pH as I would for any other cheese. Really appreciate the feedback I may have found my next cheesemake. It surprises me I could not find any creameries that make a coffee infused cheese along with nothing of value on the topic on the internet. I'll keep this updated on how I proceed with this idea.