My cheese making depends on how much milk I get to bring home from the farm where I volunteer. The calf is (finally) weaned at 6.5 months, so there is milk again!! Production is not high, but I got to milk two days in a row, and brought home 29# in all - about 3.5 gallons of lovely, high fat, Jersey milk.
I was wanting a tender buttery style cheese, and so decided to do a variation on a havarti type make. Funny thing happened on the way however.... I added 1/16 tsp of FD to the still mildly warm milk from the first day collection since I was not going to use it the same day, and tucked it in the refrigerator. Next day, I added 1/16 tsp FD to the second collection, since I still could not make milk that day, and tucked that milk into the frig as well!
Ready for making my cheese the next day.... My starting pH was 6.4 after a fairly rapid warming of the milk!! OOPS! I chased the pH of the make the whole way!
Total time from at temp to brine was 4 hours.
Lesson learned... Don't add FD to warmish milk and hold in the frig for 2 days!!
Another point of interest, the make produced a cheese of almost 5#. Pretty good size from 3.5 gallons! Makes me wonder about the moisture in this one!
I intend to test the cheese at 2 months. Who knows, it may be good anyway!!
