Calcium Chloride In Brine

[Sailor Con Queso]

From Danlac----

Why do we add Calcium Chloride to cheese brine?

The purpose of adding CaCl to the brine is to maintain the same concentrartion in the brine as in the cheese - if the concentration is too low then CaCl moves from the cheese to the brine to establish equilibrium concentration in the brine vs the cheese. If the CaCl leaves the cheese then the cheese will go soft.

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I have certainly not been doing this.

[Alex]

That's perfectly right.

[linuxboy]

If you use whey to start the brine, it should have the proper CaCl2 and pH levels. With an established brine, you don't need to add CaCl2 very often.

[Sailor Con Queso]

Great point. Another good case for using whey to make brine. It's interesting that most of the popular cheese making books do not talk about using whey for brine. They also do not discuss pH balance or CaCl equilibrium.

How do commercial operations manage brine? Do they have a dedicated vat ready to go all of the time, or mix it fresh as each batch of cheese is ready? That way the pH and CaCl (and everything else) would be in poerfect balance every time.

[FRANCOIS]

Depends.  We have gigantic (like swimmign pool sized) tanks filled with brine for our big stuff.  The brine is essentially like whey at this point.  We don't change it, it has an in line filtration system and we have a management plan for keeping it clean.  You wouldn't be able to dump and remake tens of thousands of gallons of brine every week.

With that said, some operations brine feta seperately in tubs so they can use different brine conditions.  The draw back to the gigantic tanks we have is you can't dose your milk with anything, or you'd be dosing EVERYTHING with it.

[Cheese Head]

Coincidentally, last weekend I researched and updated some brine webpage guides where on Making Brine Page, said same thing, that it is for balanced Calcium ions:

Freshly made brines, will when first used for brining a cheese, will exhibit cat ion exchange whereby the calcium and hydrogen ions in the cheese surface will transfer to the brine until the brine and cheese reaches equilibrium. This transfer will result in the casein in the cheese surface to absorb water and swell leaving a soft slimy layer that in aged cheeses leads to rind rot during aging.

Please PM me if anything incorrect.

[Alex]

Your quote is correct. The slimy layer can be avoided by adding 3-4 tbs of vinegar to 1 liter of saturated brine.

[Sailor Con Queso]

What does the vinegar do?

[Sailor Con Queso]

Francois - What is different about brine for Feta?

[Alex]

What does the vinegar do?

Vinegar raises the acidity.

[Cheese Head]

Alex, my understanding is that as you said, vinegar is one tool for raising the acidity pf fresh brine, but I understood that a "slimy layer" is caused more by an absence of Calcium in the brine, which is why add CaCl2 when building a fresh brine.

Sailor, FYI, I built this webpage on Brine's for preserving cheeses.

[Alex]

Na + Casein causes the slimy layer. Adding about 1 ts of CaCl flakes to 1 liter of saturated salt brine should neutralize the slimy layer on the fetta. I think that adding the vinegar, contributes to a more sour taste too.