LB - thank you. The "pre" part was what had me confused, I was thinking "you mean I need to PRE-ripen and then do the regular ripening time?" till I realized the recipes I'm using don't call for any ripening time at all, rennet a few minutes after culture addition (200 Easy Cheeses). So sorry for that silly question.
Oh, but how warm is "really warm"?
I have another question about MM100, also. I made a couple of goudas this past week, using MM100 instead of the C101. On both of them I had perfectly good floc times, but when all was said and done the curds seemed awfully weak, and busted up quite a bit more than usual while stirring. It's the same milk, etc., as I've been using every couple of days for all different sorts of cheeses - I made a Havarti yesterday, also with MM100, that didn't have that problem. Is there something about the MM100 that would cause that to happen with the short Gouda ripening time (only 30 minutes)? Should I plan on longer ripening when using MM100 than when using the C101? (no reliable way to measure pH, so I'm going by feel on everything). This may also be a silly question, but I can't think of any reason why, all else being equal, a culture would make such a difference in the curd strength. It doesn't seem right, but really, nothing else was different in these makes. Very confuzzled, I am.
Yes, I know I'm jumping all over the place, but as the scorpion said to the frog, it's my nature.
(except without the "I just stung you and killed you" part)