Feta #3 (#1 to actually age)

[ellenspn]

I used a combination of the Feta recipe in the Wiki and the 200 Homemade Cheese recipe.

1 gal whole p/h milk
1/8 t goat lipase (Mad Millie)
1/2 packet Meso culture (Mad Millie, 1 pkt=2 gal)
5 drops Cal Chloride

Heated milk to around 87 deg and since I don't have a pH meter yet (next purchase!) I'm going based on the 1 hour in the 200 HC book.  Keeping eye on temp of vat...I'll check in with the rennet and flocculation later.

[ellenspn]

0.8 ml of vegetable rennet (also from Mad Millie) added with a flocculation time of 15:54.  With a 4X multiplier this is 1:03:36 but who's counting

Temperature holding steady.

[ellenspn]

Once I got my temp straightened out and accidentally warming it to 96 degrees (!!!!!!) I got it cooled down while waiting for rennet to finish it's work.

Checked for a clean break, beautiful!  Cut into 1/2" cubes in two directions.  The third I attempted to do with the slotted ladle...I won't do it that again with a batch this small.  I left it to heal for 10 minutes.

Stirred on and off for the next 30 minutes.  Cut a lot of curds during the initial stirring.  Was stirring at a pretty good clip by the end, but not constantly.  Not having much trouble with it matting.  Let it rest 5 minutes then ladled into two cylindrical mold from Mad Millie.

Reserved the whey and collected two containers full of whey and added 2 T of non-iodized salt to each. 

Flipped mold after 5 min, 15 min, 30 minutes, 1:30 hours (went to get ice cream) and now it will sit overnight.

Now I'll be brining the 1/2 or more of the feta and just salting the rest.  I can't wait to dig into some.  Here are the pictures I took.  I'm still getting the flocculation video edited.

[ellenspn]

This morning I quickly removed the feta from the molds, dropped them in sterilized containers and put some salt on them.  One piece I'll cut up and salt for immediate consumption.  The second one I'm cutting into larger pieces to brine.  I'll cut it up and and re-salt it after I get home.

[ellenspn]

On Monday (10/3) the chunks were cut up and distributed two ways.  A smaller amount was directly salted and is over half gone  The other portion was sliced and put in the reserved whey/brine in the oh so convenient lock n locks from Mad Millie.  I checked it yesterday morning, no sliminess and the curd was holding firm.  I'll check it again tonight.

[ellenspn]

Today went to remove the blocks and discovered that only a few near the top of the container were slightly soft so I added more salt and some CaCl to the brine. Blocks are about 3x2x1" in size.

[Gürkan Yeniçeri]

Hi Ellen,

May be you should add some vinegar to your brine to increase the acidity. this will prevent melting. You can reuse your brine too. Don't chuck it away. Boil and pasteurise the brine and filter it through muslin to remove big particules and adjust the salt level as required.

[ellenspn]

That's a good point.  I didn't think about lowering the pH.  Thanks!

[T-Bird]

I bet your whey brine is already acidic. T-Bird

[ellenspn]

But the question is my whey acidic enough.

[T-Bird]

Mine was. I used the fiascofarm.com recipe except that I used whey instead of water- worked perfectly. Salted the whey after the make and refrigerated it. My friends were amazed, I told them how easy it was and it will be even better when I use lipase (which I have now). I had zero "melting" probs.  Aged in the fridge 30 days.T-Bird

[smilingcalico]

The vinegar is a good idea just 1 teaspoon of vinegar per gallon of brine.  It really will help as a preventative of softening.  But once soft, you're stuck so far as I know.  LinuxBoy once mentioned some sort of ion exchange that takes place.  The vinegar is supposed to give up it's ion, rather than the cheese.  That's a rudimentary explanation, and the best of my recollection, so I could be off on some details.  From personal experience, if I don't vinegar, cheese softens, if I do vinegar, cheese doesn't soften, it's that simple for me.

[ellenspn]

Now was that brine made from whey?

[smilingcalico]

Yes, made with whey.

[ellenspn]

Okay!  Thanks smilingcalico I got vinegar added to both my containers tonight and will add it to the schedule for next two