Recipe Used (from LinuxBoy):
- Warm 2 gallons milk (17.2 pounds) to 88 degrees F
- add 1/4 tsp MA4000
- Ripen for 30 mins at 88 F. pH should decrease slightly (.02+)
- If needed, add CaCl2 diluted in cold water
- Add .8 ml double strength rennet dissolved in 1/4 cup distilled water, stir up and down 15 strokes (4-5 ml double strength per 100 lbs milk, convert according to your rennet activity)
- Wait for flocculation, multiply by 3 to get total ripening time from the time you added rennet. Time to floc target is 15-18 minutes. Use more or less to try and hit the target the next time if you're off a little.
- Cut into 1/4 inch cubes, let rest 5 mins
- Stir and increase temp to 100 F over 30 mins. Hold at 100F until the curd is at the right texture. You can tell this by pressing a tablespoon of curd in your hand. It should mat together slightly and be somewhat firm.
- Drain in vat or warm colander. pH should be 6.35 or higher. Let curds mat and press slightly under whey.
- Put into cheesecloth lined molds. This cheese sticks, so soak the cheesecloth in pH 5.2 whey beforehand.
- Press under own weight turning at 15 min, 30 min, and 1 hour increments.
- Press until pH is 5.4 or overnight.
- Brine in fully saturated brine 3-4 hours per lb of cheese.
- Leave at 55-65 degrees for a day at ~70% RH for the outer rind to dry a little before moving to the cave.
- Age 3-6 months at 50-55F, 85-92% RH (or higher if using special rind treatment or making a b linens variant). Natural or oil rubbed rind.
Rennet and Mesophilic culture - From the Basic Cheese recipe kit from cheesemaking.com
Milk - From John S’s farm (raw fresh). Had milk for 3 days before using.
I made this at the same time as making a Parm. It was a lot to have 2 cheeses going and even though I tried to give both my equal attention I feel like anything that could have gone wrong with this cheese did go wrong!
First you bring the milk to 88 degrees and add the culture. I did that but then in stirring the culture the temp went up to 92 and did come back to 88 while the culture sat. The recipie calls for a different mesophillic culture than I had. I was told mine takes longer to acidify so I figured instead of letting the culture work for 30 min I should let it work for 45 min before adding the rennet. 45 min is how long you normally let this culture work in other recipies.
I added the rennet and got flocculation at 15 min (target was 15-18 min so yay me!). The multiplier for this cheese is 3 so at 45 min I cut the curd.
Next you're supposed to increase the temp to 100 degrees over 30 min...but I didn't realized my stainless steal pot (first time using it) was more tempermental than my other thicker tefelon pot and the temp got to 100 degrees in only about 20 min. I held it there for another 10 min and the curd wanted to mat a little so I figured I could drain at this point.
(Cooking the curds)
In reading I thought I'd let the curd press under the whey for a little while since I had read about that. It was pretty much a disaster. I had 3 pots on the counters and on the floor and was trying to transfer the whey out of the pot so I could gather the curd and put it in the mold and then I was going to cover it back up with the whey. But there was WAY too much curd and it wouldnt' even come close to fitting in my mold. I ended up with 1 mold filled with curd sitting in whey about 3/4 of the way up the mold and another, smaller mold with more curd in it. My "2 lb hard cheese" mold is 4.5" in diameter and 5" high. Then I had a camembert mold that's 4.25" in diameter and 4" high. My curd filled both molds to the top. But then I pulled them from the whey (after I cleaned up the whey that had spilled all over the kitchen floor in trying to transfer it around) and put some weight, 5lbs, on the top of each mold. The both pressed down enough after 10 min that I thought I could combine them into one mold. I'm not sure if that's a terrible idea or not
But it seemed to work. I took the cheese out of the camembert mold and put it on top of the other. It BARELY fit and it was all like holding slopy jello. I'm sure it's not good for the curd to be handled like that? I flipped it and pressed another 30 min under 5 lbs and the two halves seemed to knit together nicely.
So I re-dressed the cheese (again, much like soft jello) and flipped and pressed an hour. Then re-dressed, flipped, pressed and went to bed. The cheese pressed a full 12 hours like this. In the recipe there's a lot of PH markers but since I don't have a PH meter I just was hoping for the best.
It's notied in this recipie that this is a "sticky" cheese that wants to stick to the cheesecloth. I never experienced this so I wonder if something was wrong with the acidity or in the way I cooked the curds.
(After pressing, before brining, slight discoloration at top)
The recipie says to brine for 3-4 hours per lb of weight. My cheese was 4" tall and I brined it for 4 hours. I need to start weighing my cheeses.
The only oddity after pressing was that the top of the cheese was more "dry" than the rest. There was a line of discoloration about 1/4" on the top of the cheese and it was a little more firm. I put that side bottom down in the brine first. When the cheese came out of the brine the discoloration was still there.
As this cheese has dried it has a more more "paper like" feel to the rind.
Per directions it was dried at a warmer temp, about 65 degrees, for the first 12 hours of drying.
After the initial 12 hours I moved the cheese to my normal drying area of 52 degrees and 55% humidity. After 2 days of drying both this Tomme and a Parm in the same area I smelled a light ammonia smell. This happened with my Gouda as well. The smell lasted about 24 hours and then went away. The cheese itself never smelled like ammonia but the area around it sure did. Not sure why...
I plan on doing a oil rub with cyanne pepper for a rind.
(Edited to add photos)
