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?