I wrote this all up for my own notes and then thought someone might benifit or at a least get a laugh from what I've done. So here's my process: The directions are in
BOLDRecipe followed - Ricki’s Basic Cheese Making Kit Recipe page 14
Rennet and Mesophilic culture - from Basic Cheese Making Kit
Milk - From John S’s farm (raw cow's milk). Acquired less than 24 hours before making the cheese
* Warm milk to 86 degrees and add culture. Sit for 1 hour
* Add rennet, stir for 1 minute, top stir for 1 minute
* Let curds form for 30 minutes until clean breakI set out to make this cheese because it’s a washed curd cheese and I had SO much luck with the Gouda. I also wanted to do something fun and different by adding a Malbec as my curd washing liquid hoping that the dark wine would add a marbled effect to the cheese.
I followed the directions to a T and was impressed that I held the cheese at EXACTLY 86 degrees for the 1 hour of ripening time. I stirred in the rennet with no trouble and the milk was still right around 86...maybe 85 degrees.
Checking the cheese at 30 minutes show that there was NOT a clean break! This is the first time I haven’t gotten a clean break when I should...after 45 minutes the consistency hasn’t changed. There’s a skin or film on top that I haven’t seen before. I let the curd sit a full hour and didn’t think the consistency changed so I cut the curd. As I stirred I was pleased to see that perhaps the curd below was better consistency?
(My "clean break" before I cut the curd)
(The curds right after cutting)
* Raise the temperature 2 degrees every 5 minutes until you reach 102In stirring the curd and raising the temp I see little white flecks in the whey that haven’t been there before but otherwise the color of the whey looks ok. I think the curd is just soft so I’m trying not to stir too much.
I did a great job of raising the temp only 2 degrees every 5 minutes. At the end I was surprised how much less curd volume I had with this cheese than I had with the Gouda. The Gouda curd filled the pot about ¾ of the way where as this curd condensed to about ⅓ of the way up the pot. I feel like the temperature has to play a roll in this? Though I am using a different milk as well. However, I feel like the milk for the Colby should be superior to the milk I used for the Gouda.
(After about 10 minutes)
(After about 45 minutes)
(White flecks in the whey)
* Add tap water at 60 degrees to lower temp to 80 degreesAt this point the recipe tells you to add tap water to cool the curd to 80 degrees from your starting temp of 102. I decided here to add a Malbec wine to cool the curd for both color and flavor and because I like to experiment. Everything I think turned out great. My only slight concern was that after I let the curds sit in the wine for 15 minutes there was a slight “miso-soup” look in the liquid. I stirred it and the wine-colored whey became cloudy but I just poured it off and the curds seem fine.
(After I pulled off the whey)
(Starting to add the Malbec)
(The "miso-soup" look after sitting 15 min)
(After stirring)
(The curds draining)
One thing of note...I did save this whey and I FINALLY (after 2 failed tries) made ricotta. I did add 16 oz of raw milk to the whey. I now wish I hadn’t done that because I changed both the milk and the way of making the ricotta. But I’m wondering if this isn’t a more quality milk and thus made more quality ricotta?
I'll add more to this as the pressing progresses. It's pressing nicely though and is SO pretty