This is my first time writing, so I’ll introduce myself. I’m an impoverished college student and I use cheesemaking (along with baking, brewing, and hunting) as a way to lower the food bills. I’ve been making cheese for a couple years, but it’s been very hit-and-miss. I’m looking to settle down to a couple types of cheese and learn how to consistently produce quality products.
I do small batches because I have time to kill and because I want to be able to experiment and learn as much as possible.
Now, this cheese was made according to the Monterey Jack recipe on this site. I don’t have pictures, but I’ll describe what I did and the results I got through the process. Any criticisms of my technique or suggestions for how I could improve are very welcome.
Materials:
2/3 gal. pasteurized, homogenized milk
¼ cup half and half, ultra-pasteurized
¼ cup buttermilk
4 tsp. non-iodized table salt
Junket rennet tablet
1/8 tsp. CaCl crystals
7:30 Start: milk on heat.
Rennet and 2 tsp of salt in ¼ non-chlorinated water in the fridge.
CaCl in ¼ cup non-chlorinated water in the fridge.
7:55 milk reached 88F, stirred in buttermilk
8:40 milk had cooled to 82F
8:50 heated milk to 90F.
Placed in 90F water.
Added rennet-salt solution and stirred for one minute.
9:30 at 90F, no coagulation
10:30 at 90F, curd too soft to cut
11:20 at 90F, clean break, but still a little bit soft.
Cut the curd into half-inch cubes.
Gently stirred the curds and let settle.
11:30 Increased temperature of water to 100F.
Stirred curd every few minutes.
The curd at this point was still very soft.
It broke into small rice-sized pieces with some smaller bits clouding the whey.
11:47 Curd at 95F
12:00 Curd reached 100F.
Maintained at this temperature, still stirring occasionally.
12:30 Poured off whey.
Returned pot to 100F water.
Stirred every five minutes.
1:05 Poured curds into a cloth to remove the remaining whey.
Added 2 tsp of salt to the curds.
Placed curds into warm press under light weight.
1:15 Removed cheese from press, flipped, and placed under a heavier weight.
Next day: removed cheese from press and trimmed it to leave the ends even.
I like the taste. Even fresh out of the press it has a slightly sharp cultured flavor and 4 teaspoons was just the right amount of salt. But the texture is off. It has the squeaky homogenized milk feel and doesn’t melt like a jack should. I'm letting it dry right now and then I'll wax it.
