Well as the title states, I made my first attempt at some Gouda. I made a mistake with the press, as you'll see but please feel free to tell me if I can do anything better with my next attempt. I finished
making the Gouda, but I intend on letting it age in the fridge for 1 month, so I'll post more info then.
I used the basic recipe for Gouda found on this site and have copied the recipe here. The recipe was given in sections of it's major steps and I have included my thoughts and what I did after each set of steps including any problems I had with each section.
1. Warm the milk to 85-90°F/29-32°C in vat of your choice, i.e. double boiler.
2. Add Starter Culture, optional Calcium Chloride, and optional Annatto colourant and mix thoroughly with a whisk to make uniform throughout the milk.
3.Cover and let the culture ripen at same temperature for 15-45 minutes.
*No problems here, relatively simple
1.Trickle in diluted rennet stirring constantly for 1 minute to evenly distribute, then stop swirl with ladle to enable better curd set.
2.Cover and let the milk stand at your target temperature for 40+ minutes until a clean break is achieved.
3.Cut the curds into 0.2-0.5 inch/0.5-1.25 cm cubes.
4.Allow the curds to sit and heal undisturbed for 5-10 minutes.
5.Stir gently, intermittently for 15-25 minutes to ensure the curds don’t mat together.
6.Let the curds rest for 5 minutes to settle to bottom.
*I know the recipe says 40+ minutes until curd set, but it took mine about 1hour and 10 minutes. Is that normal for the time to be so off? Should I just put more rennet next time? What are some possible solutions to this?
1.Remove and discard volume of whey from top of vat equal to one-third the volume of milk used. Add same volume of hot water to reach target 95-102°F / 37-39°C, normally 130°F / 55°C water will work.
2.Stir gently intermittently for 15-30 minutes, breaking any large lumps of curd.
3.Let the curds rest for 5 minutes to settle to bottom.
*I actually enjoyed this step a lot. I kinda got lost in all the subtle differences in the making of cheese, that its fun to see a major difference in making cheese, lol. Does that qualify me as a dork?
1.Drain/remove whey/water until the curds are just covered by whey.
2.Pre-Press washed curds for 15-30 minutes with weight equal to weight of curds (about 0.4 kg per liter / 1.5 pounds per 1 3.US gallon of milk). A perforated plate below your weight is best to allow whey to escape easier, I improvise with an un-perforated next size smaller stockpot lid and used milk jug with water for weight.
4.Remove plate/lid and weights, drain off the water/whey.
*I am quite proud of my idea with how I got through this step. It hit me like a ton of bricks the night before. I was in bed being quite excited about my plan to make cheese the next day, when I realized that my mom has a large stock pot with a strainer insert that would work quite well to press the cheese while in the whey and then transfer the cheese to the strainer for a makeshift cheese press.
1.Warm your mold/hoop.
2.Place the knit pre-pressed curds into cheesecloth lined mold, pack curds down into mold by hand (try to minimize breakage of the curd pack).
3.Press the cheese lightly for 15 minutes at ~2 pounds per US gallon or 0.5 kg per liter of milk used.
4.Remove the cheese from the mold and cheesecloth, turn, replace in cheese cloth and mold and press again at ~5 pounds per 1 US gallon / 1 kg per 1 liter of milk for ~1 hour.
5.Remove the cheese from the mold and cheesecloth, turn, replace in cheese cloth and mold and press again at ~12 pounds per 1 US gallon / 1.5 kg per 1 liter of milk for final ~8-16 hours (i.e. overnight).
6.Remove the cheese from the press and cheesecloth.
*I started pressing the cheese in my makeshift cheese strainer, but had to rush off to school (which I was too late for
Thanks a lot Gouda! You better taste good!). Since I was in the area, I stopped by What Ale's Ya? to buy a maturing box, and lo and behold, they have increased their stock to include a lot more items... So I bought a real cheese press and a metered pipette. Now I ran into a problem here, the size my cheese would have turned out in my original cheese press would be too big to fit in the maturing box, and I have no effective way of controlling the humidity in the family fridge. So I decided that I would move my cheese to the mold that I had just bought, but not without consulting the trusty forum! But no one answered my post in time on the forum here
but it's okay. As you can see in the pics, I made the switch and I must admit, it came with some problems. The cheese had set in its shape so I had to break it up a little to fit it in the new mold and it wasn't perfect. In the end the cheese ended slightly slanted, which I know isn't so good. And for some reason the last time I turned the cheese to press it for 12 hours I didn't cover the top of the cheese with the cheese cloth so it was right in contact with the pressure plate. As you can see in the picture (towards the end), the top didn't dry out as much as the rest of the cheese, is slightly whiter than the rest of the cheese, and has a couple of little cracks on the top, which I believe is due to the fact that there was no cheese cloth to absorb and move whey from the top.
1.Place in saturated brine solution for 3-4 hours per pound or 0.5 kg of pressed curds, be certain to turn the cheese every few hours to ensure even rind development.
2.Note, after brining the cheese will have lost ~5% weight and the outer surface will have become firmer and almost tough.
*After reading some posts on here, I decided to only brine the cheese for 3 hours total. It lost the slightest bit of weight but it did dry out a bit. Also I overestimated the strength of the cheese and, I must admit, was handling it quite carelessly. Well I tore a crack in the side, that was small at first but got bigger as it sat in the brine for longer. I uploaded a pic of the crack at the end of the brining as well. I remember reading a post where someone's cheese was cracking from low humidity and when they increased the humidity, the crack "healed". Is it possible that my cheese will also heal?
1.Place the cheese on a drying mat in 50-60°F/10-15°C and 85-90% humidity.
2.After a few days the cheese should be dry to touch and then it can be waxed. Or it can continue to be aged with a natural rind.
3.If natural rind, if unwanted molds appear on rind, clean with a low 2-3% brine and cloth or disposable paper towel. After cheese hardens, a brush can be used with brine.
4.Turn cheese and replace mat if moist initially every ~2 days then every week and eventually every month if age that long.
5.Consume after 2 weeks to several years, flavour changes with age.
*The cheese finally ended in a wheel of about 6" in diameter and 1.5 to 1" in height (its slanted). Now the cheese is sitting in my fridge in it's maturing box. I am quite pleased with the box, because it seems to be holding the cheese right at my target humidity. I will keep up with the turnings and such and will enjoy my cheese in exactly one month. So hope back over if you are curious how it turned out... I actually never had gouda before, lol!
Wow! If someone actually bothers to read this to the end I would be touched, lol!