Author Topic: flakey Parmesan in week 1?  (Read 4398 times)

AvB

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flakey Parmesan in week 1?
« on: July 18, 2010, 07:14:40 PM »
I think I failed in my attempt to make Parmesan cheese and would like some advice.

I used:
4L of 1% organic milk
1 c organic yogurt
1/2 tab of rennet dissolved in 1/4c of water

Nothing went according to plan in this cheese attempt but I'm not sure which of the failings resulted in the flakey cheese in the picture below.

I heated the milk and yogurt to about 36C and waited an hour, adding the rennet, stirring and waiting again.
I was successful in cutting the curds into long, thin strips, but accidentally heated the pot considerably before cutting them down into cubes.
I immediately removed the pot and put it into a cold bath (in my sink), cooling it down to below 40C again and cutting and stirring allthe while. At this point most of the curds were cut into tiny cubes.
I put the pot back on the element and heated the mixture to 50C over a period of half an hour to fourty five minutes.
I stirred at this temperature for another half hour.
The didn't shrivel up into small hard pieces. Should they have? Should I have cooked for longer? They did shrink, but perhaps not long enough.
At this point, I removed them and put them into small homemade tin moulds and pressed under 10lbs of books for 10 minutes, flipping, and pressing overnight under 25lbs of books. I flipped again when I woke up and then pressed under the same amount of weight on the other side for another 8 hours.
At this point I took them out of the moulds and put them into a brine of salt for 48 hours, flipping every 10 hours or so.
The picture below is on of them, after a week left on a rack in the fridge, covered only by a bowl.

Please advise! This isn't what I expected. Is there anything I should do now? Or differently next time?
« Last Edit: July 18, 2010, 08:54:01 PM by AvB »

iratherfly

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Re: flakey Parmesan in week 1?
« Reply #1 on: July 18, 2010, 10:01:03 PM »
I am not a Parmesan expert by any means but I would re-do it.

The process needs to be a bit more accurate and perhaps at this stage you would want to use a proper thermophilic/mesophilic (I would also use Lipase in Parmesan) to get your acidification under accurate control.

Parmesan is a very low yield cheese (maybe 8%?), so starting with 4L should give you about 240ml worth of cheese which is a tiny baby wheel. Since it ages very long (because there is a complex anzymatic activity that needs to happen and you can't rush it;) it needs to be larger than that otherwise it would dry out well before its ready, so I would do at least 16 L to begin with.

Your recipe didn't mention the brining/salting. This is ESSENSIAL for the development of rind on the cheese (which would protect it from drying out and falling apart) - not to mention flavor development and the vital bacterial/enzymatic action.

Parmesan is also a heavy-press cheese and perhaps the home made molds are not proper for it. I would invest the few bucks in a proper mold and follower that you can then use for many other cheeses (such as Gouda, Tomme, Cheddar etc.) You may also want to consider a cheese press (there are many tips on this forum about building your own cheaply at home). You would want to create a smoother shaped wheel.

Where did you get your recipe from? What other cheese have you before?

AvB

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Re: flakey Parmesan in week 1?
« Reply #2 on: July 18, 2010, 10:11:13 PM »
Hi there,

I've made a couple, but not many. Two Quese Blanco cheeses that turned out deliciously from the same moulds I used to make the Parme, A gouda that is aging, and two cream cheeses.

I did brine, as stated, for 48 hours total. I wondered if that was too long. The recipe was actually taken from here, the Cheeseforum's main page:  http://cheeseforum.org/Recipes/Recipe_Parmesan.htm. Also, I did use a thermo-culture: organic yogurt.

At the moment, I haven't the money to make an online order and haven't found a reason to buy cultures rather than use buttermilk for meso and yogurt for thermo. They've worked so far. I agree with getting some better moulds though. Saving up...

Any idea why the flakes, specifically? It looks as if the curds are separating. Should I have cooked them longer?

iratherfly

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Re: flakey Parmesan in week 1?
« Reply #3 on: July 18, 2010, 10:49:44 PM »
The thing with Yogurt is that you don't really know how much is right for your milk to develop the correct acidity in the milk at the right time (Unless you have experienced enough with it to get a feel of course). Acidity of the milk is a prime suspect in cheese disasters. Sometimes you wouldn't even know you screwed up because everything feels right and then you open a cheese that turns out to be flaky, dry, chalky and not melty months later.  Cheese cultures help you with it because they are stable and predictable. You know exactly how much to use to get the perfect results and you can do it over and over again.

48 hours sound like a lot of time in the brine, even for a hard cheese. The brining time is based on the weight of your wheel. I would say that for each 500g weight you should brine it 6 hours per side (6, flip, then another 6).  How salty was your brine? (It needs to be at least 18%). Also, if you have used store bought milk you should use Calcium Chloride in your milk and your brine otherwise it runs out of the cheese and weakens your curd.

If I may make an out of the box suggestion... try looking up home made or factory Parmesan cheese videos on YouTube, it can give you a clue as to how others tackle this process and what each of the progress stages should look like. Forum member Wayne Harris posted a good video of him making Parmesan a while back:

BigCheese

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Re: flakey Parmesan in week 1?
« Reply #4 on: July 18, 2010, 11:22:31 PM »
I tend to agree that you may find a need to get more specific with your process. But that aside, if your brine was a heavy one, like it should be (specific gravity around 1.160), then you should only be brining for about 5 hours per lb of cheese. Your cheese should have yeilded about .7 lbs (.3 kgs) and brined for only about 3 hours. But again, like iratherfly said, this is too small for a parmesan as you will end up with a ball of rind.

Dont be discouraged! the effort is worth it.

wharris

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Re: flakey Parmesan in week 1?
« Reply #5 on: July 19, 2010, 01:35:46 AM »
I don't have any of the details of your cheese, but my first suggestion would be to use 2% to 2.5% milk.
Not sure that you will get much out of 1% milk.

In general:
Correct culture, Lipase are  important as is the correct floculation point.

I would need much more details before I can offer much more help.

God its been too long since i've made some. 

Gina

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Re: flakey Parmesan in week 1?
« Reply #6 on: July 19, 2010, 02:15:09 AM »
Quote
At the moment, I haven't the money to make an online order and haven't found a reason to buy cultures rather than use buttermilk for meso and yogurt for thermo. They've worked so far. I agree with getting some better moulds though. Saving up...

I've only been making cheese for about 3 months and at the beginning I did a lot of reading and decided what were the absolute essentials needed to make good (enough) cheeses, and to put other things on my wish list till I knew I would stick with this. This is a relatively expensive hobby and my wish list is still very long.

The most important thing (and primary expense) to me was setting up a cheese cave so I could keep the cheeses I made at a good temperature. (50-55*F). A second hand small frig from Craig's list was about $40, and an external thermostat to regulate temp (online purchase) was about $60. You can shuffle bottles of ice a couple times/day into an icechest, and that works, but a committment to do that for months on end didnt seem appealing.

Also liquid star-san sanitizer I thought essential.

The molds I still use are modified tupperware and/or rubbermaid containers with drain holes melted into them or the bottoms totally cut out. I'd just love some purchased ones, but my yard sale finds work just fine.

My press is stacked/balanced stuff.

I do have purhased cultures, but I did start with yogurt. Some people here still use it. 

I fortunately had decent sized stock pot and other ss untensils. I would love a larger stock pot and a cheese trier, but that is what the wish list is for.

One thing I would suggest is making cheeses of at least 2 gallons so you can eliminate too small a size as a reason for having hard cheese failures.

iratherfly

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Re: flakey Parmesan in week 1?
« Reply #7 on: July 19, 2010, 08:28:35 AM »
haha Wayne
Quote
God its been too long since i've made some. 
- I guess this means it must be time to crack open one?

Good point about the 1% vs 2%+ milk. Parmesan is a skim milk cheese, but 1% is WAY too skim and not using CalCl makes is even weaker. The way I figured it, since this cheese is cooked at over 120F or so, excess fat can float to the top and won't become part of the curd anyway as long as one uses non homogenized ("creamline") milk, which is always a better milk to use anyway.

Nitai, you are correct. I do extend the brining time when I make harder heavy pressed cheese though because it is more dense and slower to accept the brine. I would stay around the 4-5 hours for a Tomme or Farmhouse Cheddar but with Parma I would assume to go 6 hours/side/Lb. Again, I am no hard cheese expert, I just guess. Wayne, how long do you do yours?

wharris

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Re: flakey Parmesan in week 1?
« Reply #8 on: July 19, 2010, 02:33:08 PM »
My brine is pretty simple. Non-iodized salt/water with a Specific Gravity of 1.154

pH 5.03  (Adjusted with a touch of Citric Acid.)

I use Debi's recommendation of 12 hours per 2.2lbs of cheese to determine bring time.
I turn at least once a day.

That works out to a 4.5day soak for my parm wheels.

iratherfly

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Re: flakey Parmesan in week 1?
« Reply #9 on: July 19, 2010, 04:51:14 PM »
Mind you, Amanda Wayne's Parmesan is 24 Gallon (90+ Liters) so I assume that his wheel is 16-20 Lbs (9kg wheel). 4.5 days is 108 hours so that is still about 12 hours per Kg of cheese. Your cheese is 1/36th the size of his cheese, yet you did half of Wayne's time, so you have brined it 18 times (!!!) longer than you should have

AvB

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Re: flakey Parmesan in week 1?
« Reply #10 on: July 19, 2010, 04:57:51 PM »
Thanks everyone. I think i'll try again, this time with more cooking and less brining. In Wayne's video he mentioned the curds were the size of rice. Mine were much bigger than that. I don't think I cooked them enough.

I wonder what my would-be Parmesan will taste like, anyways?

wharris

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Re: flakey Parmesan in week 1?
« Reply #11 on: July 19, 2010, 05:46:33 PM »
I wonder what my would-be Parmesan will taste like, anyways?

I can think of only one way to find out!

Good luck!

iratherfly

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Re: flakey Parmesan in week 1?
« Reply #12 on: July 19, 2010, 06:00:57 PM »
Amanda, watch carefully the acidification time (milk ripening). If you over acidify than the curd builds up protective casein walls that prevent whey from escaping and thus give you an over moist curd that would not drain and shrink when you cook it. The difference when you cook the curds happen in a gentle manner, you almost won't notice it when you keep looking at them but 10-20 minutes through it you would say all of a sudden, "wait, aren't these smaller than they used to be?" They also become less soft and more springy in your hands.

Offline DeejayDebi

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Re: flakey Parmesan in week 1?
« Reply #13 on: August 25, 2010, 01:38:02 AM »
Amanda

One thing to note about using homemade cultures is to make sure they get really thick which tells you the bacteria has multiplied sufficently. Then you can use the recommended 3 tablespoons per gallon.

Looks like you just dumped a whole cup in there. I never did that but could be a hint as to the problems. The flakey curds could have been from over acidified milk.