Author Topic: calcium choloride in brine  (Read 1795 times)

Offline lrunyenj

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calcium choloride in brine
« on: February 07, 2017, 09:07:19 PM »
Hi there.  I am a newbie cheesemaker.  I forgot the calcium chloride and vinegar in my gouda brine.  the cheese has been drying for less than 1 day.  Should I rebrine or just see what happens.  My understanding is that will cause weak cheese structure since the calcium chloride was pulled out of cheese since I did not have it in the brine.   If anyone has make this mistake before, I'd be interested in what you did and how cheese ended up.

LantGladstone

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Re: calcium choloride in brine
« Reply #1 on: February 08, 2017, 04:05:20 AM »
How long were you intending to brine it?  If you were intending to brine it much longer, then it might be worth it to re-brine with the new brine for the remaining time.  If not and you were to re-brine then you might end up with a really salty cheese.  Is this a hard cheese that you were intending to age a long time?  If so, then over-salting might be less of a problem because it is conventional wisdom that some of the salt "weeps" out of the cheese.  Did you notice that the cheese surface sort of broke down during the brining and the brine looked creamy?  That could be indication of the lack of CaCl2.  So my two cents is that if you were planning on making a hard cheese or if you were planning to brine longer, you should remake the brine and do it again.  If not, I'd proceed and see what happens.  I find that when I screw up it is sort of fun and very educational to take it all the way forward and see what happens.  I might end up with crap cheese, but it really helps having that knowledge for trouble shooting later on.

tashad

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Re: calcium choloride in brine
« Reply #2 on: February 08, 2017, 05:45:20 AM »
If it were me, I wouldn't re-brine the gouda.  I'd leave it as is, and add the calcium chloride and vinegar to the brine in preparation for the next time you use it. 

Offline lrunyenj

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Re: calcium choloride in brine
« Reply #3 on: February 09, 2017, 04:37:24 PM »
Thanks for the suggestions.  I decided just to see what happens since the cheese was still really solid after brining.