Author Topic: Hello from Hannibal MO and Question About Acids  (Read 6341 times)

Offline Lennie

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Hello from Hannibal MO and Question About Acids
« on: January 05, 2010, 02:01:30 AM »
Brand new to cheesemaking and this forum.  I brew beer and make wine so I know the power of a good forum.

My wife bought me some cheesemaking books for Christmas.  It was a great gift!  I have ordered some supplies and they should be here at the end of the week.  Meanwhile, the wife also found me some Junket rennet at the local store so I thought I'd try a practice batch of mozzarella.  The Junket directions call for citric acid but I have an acid blend for winemaking, its a blend of citric, malic and tartaric acids.  I'm giving the recipe a go tonight.

My question is, will this acid blend work OK?  I also have pure tartaric acid but no pure citric.

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Re: Hello from Hannibal MO and Question About Acids
« Reply #1 on: January 05, 2010, 02:39:16 AM »
Yes, the flavor will be slightly different with an acid mix, and you need to adjust quantity to take into account the different disassociation constants, but it will work. Use a pH meter or strips for best results, because it's hard to determine the acid blend mix.

Offline DeejayDebi

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Re: Hello from Hannibal MO and Question About Acids
« Reply #2 on: January 05, 2010, 03:00:42 AM »
Hang on to that tartic acid for mascarpone!

Offline Lennie

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Re: Hello from Hannibal MO and Question About Acids
« Reply #3 on: January 05, 2010, 03:18:26 AM »
I knew I'd read of tartaric being used in Carroll's book so I was hoping the blend would suffice until I can get some pure citric.  What pH am I shooting for anyway?

Offline Lennie

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Re: Hello from Hannibal MO and Question About Acids
« Reply #4 on: January 05, 2010, 03:22:27 AM »
My pH is around 4.8.

The wife is already planning some cannoli's with fresh mascarpone.

Offline DeejayDebi

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Re: Hello from Hannibal MO and Question About Acids
« Reply #5 on: January 05, 2010, 03:42:17 AM »
pH should be 5.0 - 5.2 to stetcch properly but you could bgin to get a stretch at pH 5.2-5.3 if the water is 160F degrees.

Most people here don't like to use Junket but I used it for everything from mozzarella to parmesan for years.

Offline Lennie

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Re: Hello from Hannibal MO and Question About Acids
« Reply #6 on: January 05, 2010, 04:19:10 AM »
I got great curds, delicate yet firm.  I drained them in cheesecloth, then transferred it all to a bowl.  I heated for 45sec on high, stirred, heated some more, stirred some more.  It never seemed to be melting but it did become soup.  :o

Somehow I think I did something wrong.  I maybe should've started kneading by hand back when it was curdy/grainy looking, but for the life of me it didn't look like it was melting yet.

I made some ricotta out of the whey.  I'm refrigerating the melted curd, hoping to salvage something from it.

Any ideas of what happened?  Maybe my pH wasn't quite as low as I thought, I used pH paper out of laziness.  It sure looked like it was rght around 5 though. 

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Re: Hello from Hannibal MO and Question About Acids
« Reply #7 on: January 05, 2010, 04:39:21 AM »
I think your pH was too low. I'm not a big fan of direct acidified mozz. Have you tried to make the cultured one? IMHO, it has much better flavor. Mozz will actually stretch lightly starting around 5.4, so I don't think it was an issue with the pH being too high.

Offline Lennie

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Re: Hello from Hannibal MO and Question About Acids
« Reply #8 on: January 05, 2010, 01:22:30 PM »
I didn't know there was such a narrow window for pH, interesting.  I got milk from a local store, do you suppose it might be ultra-pasteurized?  Carroll's book mentions something about milk thats heated at too high a temp not working right.  I definitely want to find a source of dependable milk that I can use for this stuff.  This milk curdled just wonderfully and the curds shrank up a bit as I warmed it to 110F, I had high hopes that things were going to work out right.

 I'm just playing with this stuff until my cultures and good rennet arrives, hopefully late this week.  I put the "cheese soup" in the fridge overnight and it set up some, tastes like cottage cheese.  I'm already eating a farmers cheese type of log I made the day before, I was hoping to have some mozzarella to put on a chicken stewed in tomatoes that is tonight's supper.

Also, I'm using a noniodized sea salt as my cheese salt, is there any problem with this?

I'm all questions at this point, I'll do some searches in the coming days and try not to be too much of a pest.  Thanks for the insights.

linuxboy

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Re: Hello from Hannibal MO and Question About Acids
« Reply #9 on: January 05, 2010, 02:29:53 PM »
pH is HUGE in cheesemaking. pH variances of even .1 can make a large difference (I've posted before here about why this is). For example, drain your whey at 6.2, you get a smooth, cuttable cheese, drain it at 5.8, and your cheese will not hold together very well and be more crumbly.

Mozz is no exception and is especially picky. Your milk set, so it doesn't seem like it was UP. Seems like there was too much acid and the curds fell apart when you heated them. Every time that's happened to me with mozz in the past was when I either went to sleep and the curds overacidified with cultured mozz, or I added too much acid.

Milk has an isoelectric point of pH ~4.6, and the closer you get to it, the worse the stretch is. Technically, a cheese will start to be meltable at a pH of 5.8 and stretchable a little below that.

Salt without iodine is best.

Offline Lennie

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Re: Hello from Hannibal MO and Question About Acids
« Reply #10 on: January 05, 2010, 07:57:38 PM »
So ultra-pasteurized milk won't set up?  Because I think I had some really nice curds.  So I can rule that out, which is good since I want to be able to use that milk again.  I was actually very proud of the way the curds looked right up until I destroyed them in the microwave.

I suppose its an acid-related problem then.  Or I didn't cook the curds quite long enough or drain them quite as thoroughly as I should've.  I also never reached in with my hands to knead the curds, just used a rubber spatula.  It never seemed like they were wanting to stick together though.  Maybe I'll sneak up on the pH next time with my acid blend instead of adding it all up front.  I added a bit more than the 1.25tsp the recipe called for (just short of 1.5tsp), and there's no telling whether this blend produces more or less acid.  Apparently its a little more acidic than straight citric.

Offline Lennie

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Re: Hello from Hannibal MO and Question About Acids
« Reply #11 on: January 05, 2010, 08:34:42 PM »
I see in another mozz thread that a pH below 5.0 results in cheese that doesn't hang together, this seems to be the likely explanation.  I like that, I can back off on the acid addition and hope for a better result.

Does the rennet produce additional acid?  Or can I simply add enough of my acid blend to get in the right range and then go from there?

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Re: Hello from Hannibal MO and Question About Acids
« Reply #12 on: January 05, 2010, 10:43:38 PM »
Quote from: Lennie
So ultra-pasteurized milk won't set up?


It may form a very weak set. The heat destroys the milk too much to be useful for cheese.

Quote from: Lennie
Does the rennet produce additional acid?  Or can I simply add enough of my acid blend to get in the right range and then go from there?


No, rennet does not acidify. Please see the video I posted here:http://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,2357.0.html to see what rennet does to milk.

You can acidify directly with acid to get to the right pH, or use some buttermilk or yogurt (or DVI) instead and make a cultured mozz.

Offline Lennie

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Re: Hello from Hannibal MO and Question About Acids
« Reply #13 on: January 06, 2010, 01:09:42 AM »
I actually watched that earlier today, very informative.  I just didn't know if the action of the protease caused any additional acidification.

I'm trying again tonight with another gallon of whole milk (only 2.53 plus tax at Aldis).  I'm using just under 1.25 tsp of acid blend (as opposed to 1.5tsp last night) and I have a pH in the low 5's according to my wide-range pH paper.  I also used a 1/2 tablet of Junket rennet this time, again following directions.  Its hard to follow directions!  More should be better!


Offline Lennie

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Re: Hello from Hannibal MO and Question About Acids
« Reply #14 on: January 06, 2010, 01:12:14 AM »
omorrow I should get my cheesemaking supplies I ordered, then I can do some serious cheesemaking.  Although after reading Fankhauser's webstie I wonder if I spent too much to do something I could achieve with ingredients available locally (Junket, buttermilk, yoghurt).