Author Topic: 4th Caerphilly  (Read 9783 times)

Offline Boofer

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Re: 4th Caerphilly
« Reply #30 on: October 02, 2011, 10:02:56 PM »
Like I said, Jeff, Caerphilly King!!  8)

Thanks for the extra effort & detail.

-Boofer-
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JeffHamm

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Re: 4th Caerphilly
« Reply #31 on: October 02, 2011, 10:26:08 PM »
LOL!  Hardly the king, but it has a nice ring to it.  I admit I do advocate it quite often, so perhaps the Caerphilly Crier is more appropriate? :)

- Jeff

Offline Boofer

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Re: 4th Caerphilly
« Reply #32 on: October 03, 2011, 12:52:35 AM »
Hail to the Crier!   Eh...not the same ring to the ear.  ;)

-Boofer-
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Re: 4th Caerphilly
« Reply #33 on: October 25, 2011, 07:21:05 AM »
Well, just finished the last wee piece of this one today.  I really enjoyed it to the end.  It held the sharpness, though it was more rounded now then when first cut into.  So it was finished after 52 days.  Definately a cheese worth making if you're looking for something to eat while stretching ohter cheeses.

- Jeff

anutcanfly

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Re: 4th Caerphilly
« Reply #34 on: October 25, 2011, 04:25:32 PM »
Have you used goat milk for your caerphilly yet?  If so, how was it??

dthelmers

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Re: 4th Caerphilly
« Reply #35 on: October 25, 2011, 04:56:57 PM »
I made a Caerphilly with 1/2 goat's milk and 1/2 cow's milk; it was excellent, a memorable cheese with a lot of complexity.

JeffHamm

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Re: 4th Caerphilly
« Reply #36 on: October 25, 2011, 06:18:03 PM »
Hi anut,

I haven't used goat milk.  darius has made a goat caerphilly and it sounded like a success.  And Dave's 50/50 mix sounds like a strong approval as well.  I don't have easy access to any goat's milk (other than UHT) at the moment.  I'm sure I can find some once I get the chance to properly search around though.

- Jeff

anutcanfly

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Re: 4th Caerphilly
« Reply #37 on: October 25, 2011, 07:51:54 PM »
Thanks for the feedback.  I'll try it...yum! It's amazing how fast a 4 pound cheese can disappear when it's tasty. 

Offline OzzieCheese

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Re: 4th Caerphilly
« Reply #38 on: October 30, 2011, 02:53:25 AM »
Is there anyone out there ??  I thought this was a good a place to start as anywhere.   I've been floating in here for a while and thought it would a great time to join in the conversations and hopefully increase my knowledge and art in creating these wonderful things we call cheese.   Here are the log entries for my first Caerphilly and my 10th hard cheese.  Please feel free to join in and comment, emails are also welcome.

Friday 28th October
Today I’m making Caerphilly.  The recipe is nearly all from the ‘Making Artisan Cheese’ by Tim Smith, apart from one alteration.  That alteration is the combinations of the Flora Danica and the MO 030 culture.  The green Living Australia press is getting a rest today as I’m trying out the new Dutch press.
Caerphilly
8 litres of Milk
1/8 tsp of Calcium Chloride diluted in ¼ cup of de-chlorinated water.
the culture will be ½ dose of MO 030 and ½ dose of Flora Danica.
½ tablet of rennet diluted in ¼ cup of de-chlorinated water.
2 tabs of Cheese salt.
8:30 added Calcium Chloride and began heating the milk start temperature 17OC the target is 32OC and as this has a 1 degree temp change I’ll put the pots off at 3 degrees shy of 30 because as the bath will increase the temp to 33 without further addition of heat.
8:43 23OC.

As this is a three week cheese I’ll make it in the larger mould the same as the Manchego as it gives a better shape as I’m also not waxing this cheese either.
9:10 added the Cultures and temp hovering nicely @32.5OC. Needs 30 minutes to ripen,  Using the Flora Danica will acidify the milk nicely.
9:45 Added rennet.  Needs to rest for 40 minutes at 32OC and then check for a clean break.  If the clean break is not achieved wait for 5 minutes and retest.
 Getting the press ready and calculating the weights and distances.
Weights are .75Kg @ 60cm for 10 lbs (5Kg) and the 1.5Kgs @ 70cm.  The larger press weight is going to be necessary for the larger mould.
Press for 10 minutes @ 10 lbs.  Remove from the mould rub salt in the top and the bottom redress and press again with 10 lbs for 10 minutes.  Repeat and re-press @ 15Lbs for 20 minutes.  Unmould re-salt and redress and press again @ 15lbs for 16 hours.  On the press I am using .75kg @ 60cm and 1.5kg @ 70 cm which gives me 8Kg at the cheese.
I need to get the cheddaring process better as I ended up stacking little bits and not slabs but I still managed to get quite a lot of whey out of the slabs.
The redressing of the cheese and the resetting of press is so much easier now with the new press.
The pressing is going wonderfully well, except I feel the cheese is a little too open for my liking, I just would like to see the curds closed up a bit more.  Set for the 16 Hour press and I’ve set it at 1.5kg @ 70cm to close up the knit and I will relax it a bit tonight back to 60cm which will bring it back to 7.5Kg.
And to finish off the day a lovely Ricotta.  All in all a very successful day with a new cheese in the press.

 
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JeffHamm

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Re: 4th Caerphilly
« Reply #39 on: October 30, 2011, 06:35:53 AM »
Hi OzzieCheese,

Sounds like the make went very well.  If you're looking for some techniques to help improve consistency between makes, I would suggest learning about the "floc" method for determining when to cut the curds.  It's pretty simple.  You start timing when you add the rennet.  And, at this point, place a small plastic bowl on the milk (sterilised of course).  At this point the bowl will float freely.  Starting around 5 minutes or so, tap the bowl gently, it will probably still float freely.  Each minute, tap the bowl.  At some point, probably as you start to get close to around 10 minutes, the bowl will start to act like it's got it's feet in mud.  It will not float as freely.  When you notice this, start tapping every 30 seconds.  You'll notice the movement is thicker, like the bowl is on top of a milk shake rather than milk.  Eventually, it will just stick in one place, the milk will hold onto it like a cartoon glue patch.  That's the point where your milk has "gelled", which is the floculation point.  Check your watch and determine how much time has gone by since you added the rennet.  You want this time to be somewhere between 10 and 15 minutes.  If it's shorter, you're using too much rennet so cut back next time.  If it's longer, you could stand to use a bit more.  For simplicity, let's say our gell time was 10 minutes.

For caerphilly you then take this 10 minutes and multiply by 3 (30 minutes), because caerphilly has a 3x floc multiplier for a typical make.  That means the time to cut your curds is 30 minutes after adding the rennet, so in 20 minutes from your gell point!  Don't worry about a clean break or not, just cut at the 30 minutes post rennet time.

If you want a moister cheese, increase your floc multiplier (i.e. for a moister caerphilly, use a multiplier of 3.5x, so we would cut at 35 minutes post rennet, rather than 30; of course, had we used slightly less rennet, and had a floc time of 15 minutes, we would be looking at cutting at either 45 or 52.5 minutes for 3x and 3.5x) to get effectively the same result. 

I've been using this now for quite some time and it's really simple (takes longer to explain than to do).  It seems to work really well. 

Also, I find that I get a better curd set if I add my CaCl2 just before the rennet rather than at the start. 

Anyway, welcome to the site.  Don't forget to post a photo of your cheese, and to post your tasting notes when you finally cut into it.

- Jeff

Offline OzzieCheese

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Re: 4th Caerphilly
« Reply #40 on: October 31, 2011, 02:50:30 AM »
Thanks for the 'Floc method' info.  I will use it in my next cheese.  All of the recipes I have, except this one now, don't reference this method.  I'm currently using Tim Smiths book as my recipe source and previously I have been using the 1 teaspoon of Liquid = 1 rennet tablet (and parts there of) but some of the recipes are confusing as they list 3/4 tsp of liquid rennet or 1/4 tablet and therefore using 3/4 tsp will 'floc' faster than 1/4 of a tablet.  Is there any way to confirm these measurements ?

-- Mal   
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JeffHamm

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Re: 4th Caerphilly
« Reply #41 on: October 31, 2011, 03:12:46 AM »
Hi Mal,

The floc method doesn't work well with books, where the author wants to just present a step by step.  I don't know why, because in the end, the floc method is quite straight forward.  Anyway, if you hunt around this site you'll find lots of information on it (search "floc" would be a good start).

As for the amount of rennet, again, the "cook book approach" that the books use doesn't really take into account that rennet comes in wildly different strengths.  I have a vegetarian rennet where I use 0.6 ml for a 10 L batch of cheese.  It's very strong stuff.  What you want to do is use the floc method to determine what amount of rennet you should use (if it flocs faster than 10 minutes, use less, longer than 15, use more, and keep adjusting from one make to the next until you're in the sweet spot).  Once you get a feel for how your rennet works with the milk you've got access to, you can just ignore the book when it comes to the amount of rennet to use. 

The books are great for much of the make information, but when it comes to the amount of rennet to use and the time to cut the curds, they make it sound much more constant than it really is.  Taking pH readings is the next step, but I'll leave that for those with the expertise to explain what that's all about.

- Jeff
« Last Edit: October 31, 2011, 05:42:04 AM by JeffHamm »

Offline OzzieCheese

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Re: 4th Caerphilly
« Reply #42 on: October 31, 2011, 04:51:53 AM »
Woot !
Cheesemaking is the perfect blend of precision and art and you can eat the proceeds.  A-floc-ing I will go and to see where this wonderful journey takes me.
Usually if one person asks a question then 10 are waiting for the answer - Please ask !

JeffHamm

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Re: 4th Caerphilly
« Reply #43 on: October 31, 2011, 05:55:03 AM »
Hi Mel,

Check out the excel workbook in this thread (not the ones in the first post but the one further down).  It's got a bunch of utilities I've put together to simplify things.  Just remember, a calculator is not a substitute for knowledge - it should just help you apply it. 

http://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,8172.0.html

- Jeff

P.S. And this thread opens with a table of floc multipliers for different cheese types.  Note, these are not carved in stone, so you can adjust these up or down a bit to make moister or drier cheeses, until you get something that best suits your tastes. http://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,8128.0.html
« Last Edit: October 31, 2011, 08:32:17 PM by JeffHamm »

Offline OzzieCheese

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Re: 4th Caerphilly
« Reply #44 on: November 24, 2011, 03:26:15 AM »
Just cut into my first Caerphilly and what a wonderful surprise.  I needed cheese for lunch today and It was nearly 4 weeks old so what better reason to open it up.  The paste was white and with a quite open texture I thought it would be closer (i'll post some photos later tonight).  It has sharpish flavour without being too tangy (confused I know  :o) and considering the salt I rubbed in whilst pressing was surprised how un-salty it was. It ended with a smooth creamy aftertaste and had a nice 1/4 inch hard rind.  This one won't last long and my next one will be a nice 10 litre batch.

--Mal
Usually if one person asks a question then 10 are waiting for the answer - Please ask !