Scott's Version of reg's ALPINE CHEESE

[DaggerDoggie]

I was motivated today after work and was going to attempt the Slovak version of feta.  While preparing my equipment and warming the milk in the sink in warm water, I was looking through here and decided instead to try reg's recipe.  Reading it in the past I was thinking cheddar, but it's really not, with a thermostallic starter.  Anyway, I added the rennet 1 1/2 hours ago and it should be about ready.  I try not to look.  

I made it with three gallons of whole milk and followed the recipe, with exception of using a commercial starter...I don't want to wait until morning since I have to go to work, an I plan on salting it and washing it as the video I posted yesterday.  I'm a kid at heart...my finance says I'm always a kid, but I like to try something different.  Also, I plan on adding a little more to the final pressing weight to get a very firm wheel.

Thanks to John for this board so I can keep track of my experiments as I am not good at writing things down on paper...I lose that stuff.

I think I'm going to be up late. :'(

[reg]

well good luck DD. i have one wheel that we did but used 2% milk to see how much difference it would make in the dryness. we will see soon

reg

[DaggerDoggie]

Here's the cheese.  I just took it out of the press.  I was up until midnight pressing it first at 20 pounds, flipped it after 15 minutes, and pressed again at the same weight.  I flipped it again, increased the pressure to 40lbs for 15 minutes and then flipped it again and pressed it at 48 lbs and went to bed.

This morning I flipped it again and pressed it at over 100lbs for about 10 hours.  I'm going to let it air dry for an hour or so to get off the surface moisture and then salt it.

[Cheese Head]

Wow, 100 lbs/45 kg, thats a lot!

Questions:

• Is first picture of you checking for clean break in curd?
• Did much extra whey get expelled from the 100 lb pressing versus after the 45 lb? I've found and you would expect that there is less reward/expelled whey as time goes by and higher pressure as you try to attain a harder cheese.
• Your pressed cheese has little cheesecloth fold lines along side, how did you do that or did you you do final heavy pressing without a cheesecloth liner in your mold?

Thanks . . .

[DaggerDoggie]

1. Yes, the first picture is my finger pulling out of the curd for a clean break.  I have had better success the past couple of times by allowing the starter to ripen a while longer than the recipe specifies and adding a little extra rennet.

2. Since reg's recipe calls for a higher temperature as scalding point, the curd was quite dry.  By the time I got to pressing at 100 lbs, there was not a lot of whey left and is was essentially clear water.

3. I have been pressing my cheese the last several times in standard cheese cloth.  Also I put a thin plastic disc on the top before I fold the cloth over top of the disc and carefully pull up the edges. I then put my press follower on top of that.  I get no fold lines on my cheese.  Particularly for a dry, high-temp curd as this calls for, almost no white whey comes out.  For lower temperature cheeses, I start with lighter weight and add more gradually.  From everything I had read regular cheese cloth was worthless, but I like it for pressing.  When I am done with pressing, I just throw it away since it is inexpensive and not worth washing.

I did the heavy pressing because I wanted to get a dry, condensed wheel.  I think I may have succeeded, but we'll see how the final product turns out.

Not sure if you can see it, but this is the initial pressing,  Not a lot of whey extracted and it is very clear.

[DaggerDoggie]

Until I saw this video http://www.uplandscheese.com/video.html I guess I really never knew how to rub cheese with salt.  I put a few pinches of salt on the cheese and rubbed it in.  These guys really rub salt in the cheese.  Other than the teaspoon of salt that went in with the tablet of rennet, this is the only way this cheese is getting any salt.  I used a lot of salt and rubbed it into every nook and cranny.   I assume like placing the cheese in a brine solution, the salt get into the cheese by absorption or osmosis.  I plan on rubbing the salt onto the outside daily, adding any more as needed, while flipping the cheese, for a week or so, until a fairly firm rind appears and then washing it with a strong brine solution every few days thereafter.

Now my question...how do you calculate the % of brine in water?  What % brine do you think I should use?

 

[Cheese Head]

Thanks DD

Great clean break in curd, almost thought it was cheese not curd!

OK so sounds like you already removed a lot of the whey by higher cooking of curds. I think the reason I am getting extensive cheesecloth fold lines up the sides of my cheese is because I am making taller cheeses than you where there is much more excess cloth.

Agreed on salt rubbing, they use a lot more than I do, but then their cheese wheel is very much large volume to surface area than the ones we make.

They used a brine solution with an unknown culture, they didn't mention how strong a brine.

Good question on how to calculate % brine solution, is it by weight or volume and is the demoninator water or water plus salt? Googling around I found I found this info from U or Oregon, USA. Basically using Table 1 - Column 4, you need 1.5 lb of salt & 1 US gallon of water to make a 15% brine.

Coincidentally, my family & I spent the last 2 Christmas holidays on Oregon Coast like when I was a kid, where U of Oregon has a very nice Aquarium at Newport.

[reg]

good stuff DD, can't wait to hear of the results. i will be following a similar pattern in a week or two.