John's Cheese #046 - Havarti #2, Caraway Flavored

[Sailor Con Queso]

Why did you add water with the Caraway?

[Cheese Head]

Sailor, I added the water that I boiled the Caraway Seeds in as I wanted to impart more flavor throughout the cheese rather than just diffused from the seeds. But in this batch I screwed up and forgot to add before renneting, so flavor wasn't sealed in.

[Baby Chee]

That looks incredibly good.

I hope it works well!  The finished cheese looks delicious.

[Cheese Head]

Thanks Baby Chee , my problem is that most of my cheeses look good when fresh, it's the aging I have a tough time with .

[Baby Chee]

Yeah.  I've seen your Camembert posts.
The scare me.  Badly.
I'll be waiting weeks to discover how my cheeses worked out, and worried I'll cut the skin and everything flows out.

[Sailor Con Queso]

John - Just to clarify. Are you saying add the caraway liquid before rennet and the caraway seeds before pressing? Did you boil the caraway just to sterilize?

[Cheese Head]

Sailor, correct, I was planning to add the boiling water before rennet (but forgot) and mix I mixed the seeds into the washed curds after draining just before pressing. I boiled the caraway seeds to soften a little and bring out flavor and to get boiled water to put into milk to distribute the flavor.

To choose that method, I searched the whole forum on "Caraway" and used results to start this Caraway Seed thread. I don't know if that is the optimal method but it seemed like others all generally use it. If you have other ideas/methods I'd be interested there.

Alternately, in this Cumin Seed thread, member Daznz likes to pan fry his Cumin Seeds which I admit would probably bring out the flavor better.

[Sailor Con Queso]

I have used dried blueberries in a Stilton & an Emmental. They simply rehydrate from the moisture in the curds.

[Cheese Head]

Sailor, good point, so you are saying that no need to boil the seeds to soften as they will rehydrate/soften in cheese anyway. I thought about that when I was boiling them, but the other reason was to get the flavored water. I guess I could try a batch with boiling and compare the difference, maybe next time.

[DeejayDebi]

If you are concerned about sterilization I would just blanch them.

[susanne]

i think one reason of boiling the seeds and add the water is to get the flavor evenly in the cheese curds.

[Sailor Con Queso]

Blanching, even boiling for short periods doesn't kill mold spores. Blanching works in canning because you also cut off all of the oxygen.

[DeejayDebi]

I see ...

[Lucas]

Hey John what size is your mold im thinking of buying some molds and Im not sure which size to get

[Cheese Head]

Hi Lucas, welcome to CFO, you are our first member in Bolivia!

Above is a 1.5-2.0 kg Kadova Brand Gouda shaped mold that I used for this 4 US gallon cow milk batch.

There's some info on cheese yields in our Wiki: Cheese Yield article and some info on mold/hoop size rating in our Wiki: Hoops & Molds article (they are rated on final cheese weight).