Chipotle Jack 15 October

[GBoyd]

This is my second attempt at a jack cheese. I got distracted for a couple weeks there because a coworker wanted me to turn her milk into neufchatel. Good experience, I guess.

Well, this time I decided to add the peppers. I took a can of chipotle peppers, removed them from the sauce and patted them dry as best I could. I still think they went in the curds a bit too moist, but hopefully there won't be a problem.

Otherwise it was about the same. The main changes were:
No added cream.
I added a tiny bit less salt- 5 tsp for 1 gallon instead of 4 tsp for 2/3 gallon.
Also, I cooked it a bit cool because I wasn't paying attention to the water.
The curd set quicker and better, but was still a little soft and took longer than it should.
   
Ingredients:
1 gal homogenize, pasteurized milk
2 cubes of buttermilk
1/8 tsp CaCl dissolved in ¼ cup cold water
1 junket rennet tablet dissolved in ¼ cup cold water
5 tsp non-iodized salt

3:00 Heated the milk to 88F with the CaCl mixed in
Thawed and added the buttermilk
Maintained at 88F for 50 minutes
3:50 Heated to 90F
Added ¼ cup of cold water with rennet and 2 tsp of salt
Whisked for 1 minute Maintained at 90F
4:50 Weak coagulation
5:50 Better, but the curd is still too soft
6:30 Clean break Milk had crept up to 92F somehow
Cut curd in ½ in. cubes
Stirred once and let settle
6:45 Placed pot in 100F water to begin cooking
Stirred often for the first half hour, but softly
7:00 Curds and whey at 95F, the water at 102F
7:15 Curds and whey at 98F
Still stirring occasionally
Maintained near 100F for half hour
There was more curd dust at this point than I would have liked, but the curds that were intact looked good.
7:45 Curds and whey at 100F, let settle, stirring every five minutes
8:15 Still at 100F, stopped stirring
8:30 Poured whey off and placed the warm curds in a mold
Added peppers and 3 tsp of salt and mixed in mold with a light weight
12:00 Flipped the cheese and placed under a heavier weight
Next day: Set on a rack in the cheese cave to dry. I tried some of the parts I had to cut off and it was alright. The chipotle was a bit overpowering, but hopefully that will balance out when the cheese develops a stronger flavor. Again, it doesn’t melt like I would want but Debi says that could improve with aging. And today I waxed it. And then made some blue cheese that I might write up later.

Does anyone have any tricks for adding peppers without completely obscuring the taste of the cheese?
 

[DeejayDebi]

Chipolte peppers are rather strong sometimes and Jack cheese is kind of mellow. Maybe you could use a bit less of them or cut them up extra small?

I have not used them but I have gotten caried away with pickled jalepinos or peperocini. It hard to hold back with things you really like.

I wonder how they would dry in the oven? Not quite dehydrated but dryer? I can get dried chipolte pepers in the produce department in the grocery store I think if you can get those it might work better for you.

Give it time it gets better with age.

[GBoyd]

I finally borrowed a camera and took some pictures. Sadly, I just ate the good looking cheese and am left with the ugly one to show people. Hopefully it will take alright. I'll probably open it in a few days.

[FarmerJd]

did the moistness of the peppers have any effect? I am trying this Thursday of this week ( 25 gallon batch - may try to separate finished curds into 3 batches each with different pepper mixture)and I bought several types of peppers and even julienne tomatoes and I was wondering about the moisture and if dried peppers would be better. What is your opinion to this point?

[GBoyd]

There was more liquid to be pressed out, but the texture of the cheese seemed normal by the time it was done. It could be that some residual moisture stayed in the peppers and is now making everything sour inside, but I won't know until I open it.
I'll post about it in a couple days.

From reading other posts on pepper jack, I would think that peppers can be added dried, fresh, or canned and there won't be any problems from the moisture as long as they're cut into small pieces and patted dry before being added. The more difficult part seems to be a correct balance in the flavor of the cheese and the peppers.

Your experiment sounds very interesting and could be helpful. I'll be reading it closely.

[Alex]

I make Pepper Jack with fresh peppers. For a 10 liters batch I put in one red and one green hot pepper, each being about 10 cm long. The final result is a very piquant taste and not hot.

[FarmerJd]

Thanks Alex and Gboyd. I bought a can of chipotle and it is exactly the flavor I want but it is full of sauce so I am not sure about using it. I also bought some jalapeños that were a little milder than the ones I  put up myself; they are a possibility but they are just green so I may add the julienne tomatoes for aesthetics and taste. I also bought a can of chilli's but they just don't look appetizing. Alex's cheese looks great with the fresh peppers but I think I want more of a dried pepper taste and look if that makes sense. Maybe that's just what I envision a perfect pepper jack looking like. We will find out.

[Sailor Con Queso]

Farmer - Are you dehydrating? I am finding that many things work well in cheese if they are dehydrated instead of fresh. It seems like the moisture from the cheese tends to rehydrate things slightly during draining and/or pressing.

But.... Alex's red & green Pepper Jack's do look fantastic.

[GBoyd]

This conversation got me curious, so I opened this cheese. It was ugly the whole way through, so there's no surprise that it's still ugly. In addition to being lopsided, it is very crumbly and open-textured.

I used the canned chipotle peppers in adobe sauce, it sounds like they're the same as FarmerJd bought. I took the peppers out of the sauce, wiped them with a paper towel and let them air dry a little bit. I don't think there is too much moisture, but the flavor of the peppers is completely overpowering. I can't even taste the cheese.

From this, I think that you would be alright using the canned chipotle peppers. However, you should be careful to dry them off as best you can, to chop them well, and keep a very low ratio of peppers to curds.

Maybe you could even add the peppers before draining off the whey?
That would wash out a lot of the pepper flavor and better distribute the flavor that remained.

[FarmerJd]

Sailor: I do not dehydrate much of anything. I have in the past but not lately. I was actually considering buying a few big dried red peppers and crushing and adding them to the curds but bought the canned stuff to try first. Now I am not too sure. I think the commercial variety seems to have dried peppers. Do you agree?

Gboyd: Wow this really muddies the water. The chipotle peppers you used are exactly what I got. I was looking at them and wondering how would I dry them out. Seems impossible. Then I also considered adding them in the whey like you stated. I am just not sure how that would affect the ph and other factors. Obviously Alex's peppers were not completely dry and it turned out ( I think he said he added them to the curds after whey removal, right?) so it must be possible to add them to the curd even though they aren't completely dry. How much of a can did you add and how big of a batch was it? That would help me some too. Sorry you had to open early. I really appreciate the insight though. I can't imagine making cheese without this board.

[GBoyd]

Yeah, it's difficult to get those peppers separated from the sauce. It took some time and when I was done, the peppers themselves only made up about a quarter of the volume of the can. I added that 1/4 of a can to one gallon of milk. It was a lot of overkill.

I chose to use the canned chipotles because I really love that flavor, but maybe it was a bad decision. In the cheese, that that flavor doesn't really come through. I only taste the pepper themselves, not the smokey adobe flavor. I think that the flavor I like was actually in the sauce that I removed.

Adding peppers to the whey seems promising to me. It would mellow the pepper flavor and make it more consistent throughout the cheese and if it was done directly before draining off the curds, I don't it wouldn't affect acidity much.
Has anyone experimented with this?

[Sailor Con Queso]

Here's something to consider.

Seperate the liquid and the peppers. Wash the peppers then dehydrate or dry in the oven. They don't have to be bone dry. Just reduce the moisture content substantially.

Add some of the liquid from the canned chipotles to the drained curds (not the whey) for flavor, but don't overdo it. After mixing the liquid in you can sample the curds and get an idea of the flavor concentration. Add more liquid if it isn't making your eyes water.  Add the chopped peppers for texture and effect.

[FarmerJd]

Sailor might have the best idea. I will try to experiment with this idea Thurs. Here is the plan:

Follow Jack recipe until the curds are ready to be pressed. Then separate into 3 containers of equal amounts of curds.

In container #1, add diced jalepenos.
In container #2 add diced jalepenos and chopped and towel dried julienne tomatoes
In container #3 add dried chipotle peppers and some sauce from original can per Sailor's epiphany.

I am going to have to think of a way to press all three simultaneously. I have been contemplating making some square hoops that were 5 x 6 inches and 24 inches high so that the final cheese will fit perfectly in an 11" vacuum bag like a loaf of Sam's club cheddar. This might be the time to build 3 and then place them close together and press at one time. It would only be 90 square inches so I could produce 12 psi this way. I can't think of a way to keep the layers separate in the same round hoop. Maybe 3 different followers?

[DeejayDebi]

Dried veggies and fruits definately work better. I would dice them them bake them low for a bit to dry them. Maybe you could dry them with some of the sauce on the peppers.

[Alex]

FarmerJd,

After chopping the peppers I pat them dry with paper towel, and yes, I mix them in to the drained curds.