I've been making cheese for a while but I have never had the rind NOT dissolve in my brine.
Now and then I look the issue up on the forum, and every time I read the same old stories about brine ph, and how using whey as brine helps.
I have not noticed a difference between whey brine and water brine. Never added vinegar, though. I'm thinking next time I'll have to measure pH of both the cheese and the brine.
Questions:
1. How do I measure cheese ph after pressing? If I measure the draining whey pH, does that equal cheese pH? I have no method of measuring pH of solids...
2. Maybe I'm doing something wrong that makes my whey pH take another direction as the cheese, before I get to brining. I have tried refridgerating the whey before brining starts, but also keeping it at the same temperature as the cheese (which I would imagine would promote the most similar pH development). Should I add the salt only just before putting the cheese in, or can I add it earlier? Will the salt slow down pH development so that the cheese and brine end up with different pH levels before the brining starts? Or do any of these make any difference?
3. If I use whey, is there a point of still adding vinegar to the brine? Since the rind still dissolves, I would assume yes?
4. Is it possible for the problem to be vice versa - meaning instead of a low pH cheese in high pH brine, could it be the other way around? Would the result be similar?
5. The cheese has mainly ended up fine, despite the brine issues. I still wonder, can it be an issue of unadequate or excess acidity in the cheese, instead of problems with the brine? So should I look into cheese acidity problems also, or just brine acidity problems?
6. Are there other factors that cause rind dissolving issues, than cheese/brine pH? To me it seems that the brine pH has not made any difference, so could it be that my problem is something else?