Not sure where to put this exactly.
Last spring I got this recipe with some cultures from Egon at Dansco in Canada. Really nice guy.
Anyway I finally got around to trying it out. I really wasn't feeling like making cheese this weekend I have been fighting a bug for the past 3 days but my old supplier called and her milk is so sweet I couldn't resist going up there and getting while the getting was good.
The first trick was trying to skim the milk. This milk is 5% fat. I let it sit in the basement over night to separate. The water pipe coming up from the floor froze so it was cold enough. Good thing the corney kegs are double walled there were some ice cunks in the milk.
Skimming from corney kegs is NOT easy! I used a small soup dipper which barely fit in the oblong opening if you turned it just so. No pictures of that but lets just say I had to wash the kitchen floor I splashed and dripped so much. I am pretty sure this milk was still way over 2% after skimming but oh well. It'll live.
Here the recipe:
Reggianito - Adapted from recipe by Danlac
Reggianito is a very hard, granular, cows' milk cheese from Argentina whose origins lie with immigrant Italians who wished to make a cheese reminiscent of their native Parmigiano Reggiano. The name — the Spanish dimunitive of "Reggiano" — refers to the fact that the cheese is produced in small 6.8 kg wheels, rather than the huge Parmigiano-Reggiano drums
Ingredients:
cow’s milk with .2 % fat (initial pH 6.55)
Choozit Alp LYO 100
Rennet
Procedure:
Pasturize milk at 158 to 162°F for 25 – 20 seconds
Cool milk to to 90°F
Preripen for 5 - 20 minutes pH should be 6.40 to 6.45 (renneted a pH 6.44)
Add rennet
Coagulation time 15 – 30 minutes (actual flocation time 5.5 minutes)
Setting time 25 to 30 minutes. (Used spinning bowl method with a 2.5 multiplier)
Once clean break is achieved cut curd into 1/8 inch pieces - use a whisk to break up curds.
Rest curds for 5 minutes.
Stir for 15 minutes.
Heat water equal to 1/4 of the whey to 140°F. (pH 6.38)
Drain of between 1/3 and 1/2 of the whey and stir gently for 15 minutes.
Add 140°F hot water to raise the temperature of the curd to 95 to 100°F.
Stir the curds for 10 to 15 minutes.
Add 140°F hot water to raise the temperature of the curd to 112°F.
Stir the curds for 10 to 30 minutes.
Drain off most of the whey and press curds under the whey letting no air come in contact with the curds with about 2 pounds of weight for 1 hour.
Flip Cheese and press curds under the whey with about 20 pounds of weight for another hour.
(pH at demolding 5.25)
Ferment at room temperature. About 75°F placing the cheese in special bands to keep shape for 20 to 40 hours.
Brine for 3 to 4 hours depending on size. (brine pH 5.30)
(chesse pH after brining 5.14)
Dry at at 75°F, 75 % relative humidity for 1 – 3 days.
Age at 50 to 60 °F for at least 6 months, best if matured for 1 – 2 years
