Good creamline milk and new Reblochon molds... what to do?
I had trouble deciding what direction to go, but finally decided to give Taleggio a go again. Anyone looking at my past attempt would see how horrid that turned out. Well, the paste was okay, but the rind was...scary.
Taleggio #2Calibrated my ExStik.
whole milk Twinbrook Creamery 2 gallons
TA61 1/8 tsp
LH100 1/8 tsp
Geo 13 1/32 tsp
SR3 1/16 tsp
CACL 1/2 tsp in distilled water
dry calf rennet 1/16 tsp dissolved in ice-cold distilled water
6:30AM - checked milk - 6.88pH/54.9F - began heating to 90F
7:13 - added cultures; let rest 5 minutes to rehydrate
7:18 - stirred in cultures
8:10 - 6.65pH
8:30 - 6.60pH/87.4F (slight drop because I had taken kettle out of double boiler)
8:30 - stirred in CACL and rennet (I had been looking for 6.4pH, but for some reason 6.60 clicked with me)
8:38 - floc'd - 8 minutes - I had intended to go with a 4x multiplier, but because of the higher pH I decided to do 5x
9:18 - after 40 minutes (8 min x 5), cut curds to 2 inches
9:23 - end of 5 min rest, begin cutting to 1/2 inch size
9:40 - end of second curd-cutting, curds are sinking below whey
10:00 - scooped curds to 4 Reblochon molds - curds were pretty much to the top of each mold
10:10 - put lids on molds and weighted down with soupcan weighing a little over 12 ounces to force whey out
10:15 - noticed three issues:
- ensure curds are well-filled on bottom and sides of mold so there aren't pockets of whey
- the mold holes have a tendency to become clogged so that they whey cannot escape
- not enough holes in this mold
Didn't do the first and can't help the third right now, but resolved the second by inverting the mold, slightly withdrawing the lid and cheese, and then slightly rotating the mold bottom so that the holes were relocated.
11:00 - noticed another issue: 2 gallons of milk is enough for three molds after whey expulsion, a little too lean for four molds - cheeses are going to be a little thin - 3 gallons would have been just right for four molds.
For the next 12 hours I flipped, wicked, dried, and rotated the cheeses.
10:00PM - 5.28pH - removed molds, dried wheels, salted both sides of each wheel lightly with coarse kosher salt, and placed two wheels in one minicave and the other two wheels in a second minicave. Both minicaves went into the black cave @50F.
The cheeses look pretty good at this point. The knit could be better. They could be a little thicker. I should have renneted closer to 6.4pH and I should have scooped closer to 6.25pH. I like these molds. They are like smaller Tomme molds and that gets my imagination going about what else could be done with them (besides Reblochon, of course!).
-Boofer-