Feta too salty

[MacGruff]

Hi folks,

I am trying to make my first feta using the recipe from deejaysmokepit. Everything is working great and I am in the last stage, where I am pickling my cow's milk feta in the 12.5% brine solution. It has been two days and I decided to try a small taste. The texture and look of the cheese is perfectly good, but the flavor is terrible. In essence, the cheese has absorbed way too much salt! It is on the inedible side. Any suggestions on what I can do to leach out some of the salt?

By the way, I wondered if the salt was all on the outside, so I took a cube of cheese that was about an inch and a half on a side and carefully cut away all the edges and tasted the middle part. It is way too salty!

Suggestions please?

[anutcanfly]

You can soak it overnight in a water, whey or milk solution.  Just be sure to acidify the solution to the same pH as is your feta (4.8-5.2).  If using water, add calcium chloride (1/4 tsp per quart).  This will keep your feta from getting mushy.  If it's not to your liking by the next day, you can drain the solution and soak it in fresh solution.  I've found that a 24 hour soak does the job for me. 

[Cheese Head]

Hi MacGruff, we all have the same problem, you want high salt % brine to minimize unwanted contamination and maximize shelf life but the result is cheese tastes too salty (unless used in cooking).

My latest work make worklog is here, where I used 6% brine as store bought Feta brine was only 8.5% brine.

[anutcanfly]

I'll be interested in how that works out.  How long are you going to try to store it in 6% brine?

[MacGruff]

Well, that did not work out well at all, I'm afraid!

I replaced the salty brine with water, which I then added citric acid to, to bring the pH back to the point itwas at. Over the first day or so, the cheese cubes looked good and on tasing, they were noticeably losing saltiness.

Then came yesterday. In the morning, the cheese was still fine, but by evening time, all the cubes had started falling completely apart. The solution it was all white and milky and the cubes were soft and not curmbly any more. After a couple more hours, the process was continuing and I dumped it all down the drain.

Reading here, it seems that getting the ratio of brine to cheese size is the key. In my attempt, I cut the cheese to 2 inch cubes. John's worlkog showed cheese blocks with 6% brine. Are those the real factors for success?

Thanks for the help.

[anutcanfly]

Did you add calcium chloride?  Not sure what to say at this point.    I put a big chunk of feta to soak over a week ago and it's still doing great...?  This looks like a problem for the older cheeses here!

[Cheese Head]

@anutcanfly, not sure, still have 3-4 disks to eat, they definately don't look like they will last as long as high % brine, I'll post in that thread.

@MacGruff, sounds like you got similar effect as I did, next time I'm going to lightly press my feta wheels to make them firmer, good point on ratio of cheese to volume of brine % is the criteria to saltiness of cheese. I've read that you should have brine volume 3X cheese volume to minimize swings in brine % as salt is absorbed into the cheeses. But I think that applies more to brining cheeses, not to brine used to ripen/age/store cheeses like Feta in. All the commercial Feta shipping containers that I have seen have much lower brine/cheese volume ratios.

[MacGruff]

One other thought that I had as I was browsing through various recipes on the internet: I see that in some cases, the recipe recommends that after the cheese is cut into cubes, that the cubes be allowed to sit for a few minute - an hour in the air to "harden" the cubes a bit. Maybe I should try that as well?

My next attempt will start next weekend as I am on a business trip for the upcoming week, but any thoughts about improvements are appreciated!

[anutcanfly]

That sounds like a good idea MacGruff.  I'll remember to do that.  No John, I'm sure they won't last long once the salt is thinned.  I had a chunk last night and could tell it needed to be finished soon!  But I will be curious to see how how low a salt content you successfully age your feta in.   I'll be aging mine a minimum of 6 months, so I'll stay with the higher salt content for now.  I'm only removing salt a chunk at a time as I plan to eat it.