Author Topic: Michael's Gruyere #1.1  (Read 11562 times)

mokumeguy

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Michael's Gruyere #1.1
« on: September 15, 2008, 02:46:43 AM »
1- Started right after I finished my cottage cheese on Saturday. Got 1.5 gal fresh milk plus 1.5 gal skimmed milk from yesterday. 3 gal total, part skimmed, raw Jersey milk. Start warming to 90F.
2- Get everything in place. Dissolve 1 tsp Propionibacterium 50 in .5 cup milk.
    Dissolve 3/4 tablet rennet (Marshall M50) in .25 cup water.
    Find PH Meter and wisks
    Pour one organic porter to sustain cheese farmer through ordeal
3- Took 45 minutes to get milk up to 90F. 1.5 gal was at 33F to start. When stable at 90F I add almost 1 pint thermo culture that I slowly thawed since yesterday. Stir gently. Sip Porter.

« Last Edit: September 15, 2008, 04:47:24 AM by Michael »

mokumeguy

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Gruyere #1.2
« Reply #1 on: September 15, 2008, 03:13:19 AM »
4-  Record beginning pH at 6.65
5- Wait ten minutes, take ph - 6.53. Decide to wait another 10 min.
6- pH @ 20 min is 6.54. wait another 10 minutes
7- ph @ 30 min is still just 6.54. Finish porter. Crack another. Hmmn.
8- Add rennet, because I'm afraid to wait any longer. The recipe says to ripen for 10 minutes.
9- Recipe says clean break at 40 minutes. I have very clean break at 30 minutes. pH is still just 6.5
10-Cut curd into smallest pieces I can and start raising temp.
11-Stirring curds with whisk constantly, while breaking up into smaller pieces. 40 minutes to 120F. ph is still only 6.2.  Is that beer gone already?
« Last Edit: September 15, 2008, 03:30:05 AM by Michael »

mokumeguy

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Gruyere #1.3
« Reply #2 on: September 15, 2008, 03:56:56 AM »
12- Let cooked curds rest 5 minutes. Started draining.
13- Curds are tiny and clumping. I can basically pick the whole thing up to put it in the press.

mokumeguy

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Gruyere #1.4
« Reply #3 on: September 15, 2008, 04:19:04 AM »
14-Recipe says to press at 10 lbs for 15 minutes. I can't even get the follower to make full contact at 20 lbs.
    Switch to an IPA, and decide to go for 30 lbs and 15 minutes.
15-Turn cheese and press at 30 lbs for an hour. There is no visible whey coming out.
16-Turn again with the intention of pressing at 50 lbs for 12 hours, like the recipe says. After there is not a drop of whey in 2 hours I decide it's had enough and weigh it in at about 2.2 lbs. Not a great yield.
17- Put cheese into brine for 12 hour soaking. In the mean time I've made 1.5 lbs of very nice Ricotta with the whey from the mornings cottage cheese and this Gruyere. Maybe I will post the pics later.

Tea

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Re: Michael's Gruyere #1.1
« Reply #4 on: September 15, 2008, 07:23:49 AM »
Lookin' good Michael, lookin' good.  So how long are you hoping to age this for?
By the way, I love your set up.

mokumeguy

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Re: Michael's Gruyere #1.1
« Reply #5 on: September 15, 2008, 02:54:54 PM »
Thanks Tea.
I guess the aging will depend on a few things, like if I see barreling or it starts to crack. It's supposed to go at least 8 months. A couple of things worry me about the way the cheese went.
I think my pH was still too high at the time I added the rennet.
I think it set too fast, mostly set at 5 minutes.
The curds were very tough.
Low yield.

This is only my 7th attempt at a hard cheese, and I am still trying to figure out how to get a better yield.
All of my cheeses have set very fast, with firm or tough curds at lower temps and shorter cooking times than the recipes describe. I keep lowering the amount of rennet, but I think it still needs to go lower. I may go back to freeze dried culture to eliminate that as a problem. The other variable is that I am using raw milk,
which I believe changes the way cultures work. Anyone else using raw milk?

SalMac

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Re: Michael's Gruyere #1.1
« Reply #6 on: September 15, 2008, 03:11:55 PM »
I assume thats the cow that provided the milk?

Sal

mokumeguy

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Re: Michael's Gruyere #1.1
« Reply #7 on: September 15, 2008, 04:52:12 PM »
Yep. We've been milking her for almost 4 months now. Once a day, calf sharing at the moment, and getting
almost 2 gal a day. So when we ween the calf it could go up to almost 4 gal. Thats a lot of cheese.

Tea

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Re: Michael's Gruyere #1.1
« Reply #8 on: September 15, 2008, 08:56:00 PM »
Yes I use raw milk given to me by a friend.  I find I get a much better yield from raw milk than I do store milk, but having only used store bought milk a couple of time, and not being happy with the result, I haven't played around enough with it to see.  I do know the the set, yield and flavours are completely different.
By the way, your cow looks the same as our Shirley, although our's is still a baby and spoilt by the kids.  DH lit a bon fire last night, and Shirley sat around it with the kids.

SalMac

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Re: Michael's Gruyere #1.1
« Reply #9 on: September 15, 2008, 09:17:20 PM »
Very cool Michael thats great.

CH have you ever had a thread that started with a picture of the very cow at the beginning that produces the milk??

Sal




reg

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Re: Michael's Gruyere #1.1
« Reply #10 on: September 16, 2008, 01:33:08 PM »
Michael, would like to thank you for sharing your input and photo essay on your making of the Gruyere cheese. this is the style of cheese im most interested in. to date i have made five attempts at the 'Alpine' types of cheese with the last one being the best.

if you don't mind me asking, what recipe are you using ?

while studying about this particular family of cheeses its my understanding that the PH level only starts to drop substantially after the final pressing. my notes indicate that the PH dropped to 5.5 after 12 hrs of pressing.

the starter that im using is a store bought plain yogurt with an active culture. the process involves bringing the (store bought :-((() milk to room temp, adding the starter then ripening overnight at 68*. my PH reading at that point was 6.4 added 1 tablet of rennet (dissolved in water) to four gallons of milk. it takes about 1 1/2 to 2 hrs for a clean break. the PH is still 6.4 at this point but drops at the start of draining and pressing.

from what i have read using raw milk is quite different than using store bought pasturized milk. i have absolutely no experience with raw milk.

be looking forward to hearing about your progress with this cheese. 

reg   

mokumeguy

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Re: Michael's Gruyere #1.1
« Reply #11 on: September 16, 2008, 03:12:06 PM »
Hi Reg.

I love these style of cheese, as do the rest of my family. So making them successfully would be a great thing for me. My first attempt was a simple Swiss, trying the recipe from Ricki's book. It was pretty much a flop, but I still have it in the cave. I got only a tiny 1.5 lb block. But it is barreling like you wouldn't believe.
The Gruyere recipe is from The Tim Smith book, Artisan Cheese.

There were only two changes I made. He was using 1/2 tsp propionic per gal while the instructions for these cheese on the package and in Ricki's book calls for 1/16 tsp per gal. Big difference. So I used 1 tsp for 3 gal.
The other thing I did was to skim 1.5 gal of the milk, because I don't know what the fat content of my Jersey milk is, but it's probably higher than store bought whole milk.

I didn't get to follow his pressing procedure because the curd was so firm and dry already. It's been in the cave at 55F for two days and it's already starting to barrel! I hope it doesn't crack on me.

When you say you let it ripen overnight, about how many hours is that? All the recipes I read call for ten minutes then add rennet. I suspect that is way too short. I know I get fantastic taste and yield from my cottage cheese and it goes for 24 hours and never needs rennet at all.

The starter I am using is this thermophilic that I culture in pint jars. I am thinking about getting this one.

I am going to carefully read through all of your Alpine posts and then maybe I can ask you some intelligent questions.

reg

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Re: Michael's Gruyere #1.1
« Reply #12 on: September 17, 2008, 11:04:52 AM »
morning Michael. it looks like the LH100 culture would be the way to go but it is not cheep by the time you buy the culture and pay shipping. guess the other way to look at it is if you go through the trouble of making yor own cheese you want the best ingredients.

the yogurt i use for the culture is called Bulkan regular/plain and it cost $.67 per 4 gal batch. so far the cheese ends up with a pretty good taste but not sure if that is exactly the way it should taste. did buy a Austrian Alpine style cheese to try and compare the flavours/taste and thought the home made cheese was much better even after only 8 weeks of aging.

may try a few different cultures later this fall when i get time to make more Alpine style cheeses

reg

mokumeguy

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Re: Michael's Gruyere #1.1
« Reply #13 on: September 17, 2008, 02:39:37 PM »
Ya, the cultures are spendy, but I re-culture them and plan on getting dozens of cheese out of the initial purchase. I am used to doing that with the yeast cultures I use for brewing beer. If I am careful I can keep them going for many years.

Here are a few picks of the gruyere so far. It is the one on the right in the first shot. You can also see my baby swiss in the middle, poor thing. And you can see the barreling already going in the second.

I plan on trying to do another one this weekend.

reg

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Re: Michael's Gruyere #1.1
« Reply #14 on: September 18, 2008, 11:29:27 AM »
good looking cheese there Michael. the Swiss has really barreled lol.

are you using a wine fridge for your cave and if so how are you finding it so far ?

reg