Author Topic: Colby Cwuestions  (Read 3220 times)

kawatiri kaas

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Colby Cwuestions
« on: December 15, 2009, 10:05:18 AM »
Hi, turophiles one and all. I've just made my first Colby using a recipe from Debi (thankyou). I've been trawling through some threads and gleaning bits of info here and there. But I thought I'd ask some of the questions directly here, just to be sure I'm on the right track.
Mesophilic A culture - how specific is this to making a Colby? I have a mesophilic culture but it's an ABT culture.
How important is the distilled water for mixing the CaCl? Will I kill it with tap water, what if I used bottled water?
I've been reading a bit about what you guys have been saying about Flocc multipliers. What is the multiplier for a Colby. What is a good target time-to-flocc for a Colby?
How do you get 1 Tbsp of salt to dissolve in 1/2 C water. and if you boil it (like I did) how cool does the water need to be before using it? Is this 'brining' done only once at the start, or several times over the first few days?
And lastly (thanks for your patience in reading soo far!) is there a low tech way of ascertaining the appropriate humidity (85% in this case)? eg misty or heavy condensation?
Many thanks. Cheers
PS how do you hyperlink? I tried but rather badly I think...lol
« Last Edit: December 20, 2009, 05:21:46 AM by kawatiri kaas »

Alex

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Re: Colby Cwuestions
« Reply #1 on: December 15, 2009, 12:28:35 PM »
I can only partly answer your questions:

All the cheeses I make are with buttermilk as meso culture.
CaCl - if your tap water isn't chlorinated, it's ok, so is bottled water. I use boiled water from my electric kettle. (Tip: I use the same water for my espresso machine, almost no maintenance needed).
Flocc multiplier - Should be like Cheddar's, 3-3.5 .
Dissolved salty water should be under the curds temp. Brine temp should be about 15 deg C.
Low tech way of ascertaining the appropriate humidity - hang wet towel dipped in water in small space as possible.

Offline Boofer

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Re: Colby Cwuestions
« Reply #2 on: December 15, 2009, 05:32:14 PM »
Brett - What is the one tablespoon of salt dissolved in 1/2 cup water for? If I venture a guess, that's supposed to be your brine? If you check the tips on brining here on the forum http://cheeseforum.org/Making/Brine%20-%20Making.htm you can get many answers to your questions.

Creating a hyperlink is as simple as grabbing the URL (control-c), clicking on the "Insert Hyperlink" icon above the post textbox, and dropping the URL (control-v) between the "url" and "/url". As they say in France, "voila!".

Hope this answers some of your cwuestions.  ;)

-Boofer-
Let's ferment something!
Bread, beer, wine, cheese...it's all good.

kawatiri kaas

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Re: Colby Cwuestions
« Reply #3 on: December 16, 2009, 10:30:33 AM »
Alex, thanks for the buttermilk tip, I love the idea of using 'natural' on-hand resources like that. Do you age the buttermilk first, and how much would you add per litre? I've used day old buttermilk to make 'Farmer's' Cheese (recipe courtesy John CH) which was a roaring success with the family.
Boofer, thanks for the hyperlink tip, I have managed to insert one that way, but I see others have got a common word (say for example 'flocculation') in blue text that acts as a hyperlink - how do they do that? The salt mixture is bathed over the cheese - I presumed to aid skin/rind formation prior to waxing?
« Last Edit: December 17, 2009, 04:25:00 AM by kawatiri kaas »

Offline Boofer

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Re: Colby Cwuestions
« Reply #4 on: December 16, 2009, 03:33:52 PM »
Brett - Perhaps you might have seen from your reading from that link I gave you that brining involves floating/submerging the cheese in a salty bath much the same as my picture here.  ::)

-Boofer-
Let's ferment something!
Bread, beer, wine, cheese...it's all good.

Alex

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Re: Colby Cwuestions
« Reply #5 on: December 17, 2009, 08:14:49 AM »
Alex, thanks for the buttermilk tip, I love the idea of using 'natural' on-hand resources like that. Do you age the buttermilk first, and how much would you add per litre? I've used day old buttermilk to make 'Farmer's' Cheese (recipe courtesy John CH) which was a roaring success with the family.
Boofer, thanks for the hyperlink tip, I have managed to insert one that way, but I see others have got a common word (say for example 'flocculation') in blue text that acts as a hyperlink - how do they do that? The salt mixture is bathed over the cheese - I presumed to aid skin/rind formation prior to waxing?

Brett, I use a store bought buttermilk, of a certain brand, the freshest possible, i.e. 4-5 weeks exp date, as with time the bacteria gets weaker. I use 1 ts/1 liter of raw milk. As termo culture I use yogurt.

Of course, you may want to make your own cultures and keep them freezed for up to a months.

Offline DeejayDebi

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Re: Colby Cwuestions
« Reply #6 on: December 18, 2009, 07:51:06 PM »
Hi, turophiles one and all. I've just made my first Colby using a recipe from Debi (thankyou). I've been trawling through some threads and gleaning bits of info here and there. But I thought I'd ask some of the questions directly here, just to be sure I'm on the right track.

Mesophilic A culture - how specific is this to making a Colby? I have a mesophilic culture but it's an ABT culture http://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,2673.msg21547.html#msg21547.

Many people suscessfully produce cheeses using home made starters. In this case buttermilk base mesophilic starter. You will sometimes see people use different commercial cultures as well.

How important is the distilled water for mixing the CaCl? Will I kill it with tap water, what if I used bottled water?
I've been reading a bit about what you guys have been saying about Flocc multipliers. What is the multiplier for a Colby. What is a good target time-to-flocc for a Colby?

When mixing rennet, calcium clhride, lipase etc you want to avoid clrorine. Bottled water will work as will filtered water. You can aslo boil tap water and let it sit overnight to allow the clhrine to dissapate.

How do you get 1 Tbsp of salt to dissolve in 1/2 C water. and if you boil it (like I did) how cool does the water need to be before using it? Is this 'brining' done only once at the start, or several times over the first few days?

Salt will disolove more completely in hot water than cold but before adding it to your cheeses cool it down to whatever the temperature of your cheese make is at the time.

And lastly (thanks for your patience in reading soo far!) is there a low tech way of ascertaining the appropriate humidity (85% in this case)? eg misty or heavy condensation?

Thermometer/Hygromters can be purchased rather cheaply here for a few dollars. Be sure to calibrate them before use. There is a thread here for this.
http://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,2679.msg21477.html#msg21477

Many thanks. Cheers
PS how do you hyperlink? I tried but rather badly I think...lol


There is a help thread for posting links here: http://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,65.0.html

kawatiri kaas

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Re: Colby Cwuestions
« Reply #7 on: December 20, 2009, 05:50:46 AM »
Thanks for all the help guys.
Alex; do you happen to know how long you can keep 'home-made' buttermilk? Can you freeze it? Don't think shops here in NZ sell it, not that that matters, we make enough I guess.
Boofer; this is what I find so interesting about cheesemaking, that there seems to be a hundred one ways to do any one thing! My recipe says not to submerge the cheese but only to bathe gently. Which I've done and waxed it, so I hope it works! (Waxing is such great fun, hard work keeping the kids out of it though)
Debi, thanks for the link on links, works a treat, very tidy. Thanks for all the other info. It's funny how a recipe can read so well on paper and then when you come to do it, all sorts of little cwuestions pop up.
Cheers, Brett

Alex

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Re: Colby Cwuestions
« Reply #8 on: December 20, 2009, 10:19:10 AM »
Brett,

As far as I know, you can freeze buttermilk for up to a month, because even freezed the "strength" of the bacteria weakens with time.