Thoughts on the cheese making process

[Likesspace]

Guys,
I've been giving something a lot of thought over the last week and decided to make this post in hopes that it will help others and also be a reminder to myself.

Over the past three years I have been making cheese and have nearly always been happy with the results.
Even the few times that I have not turned out what I considered to be a good final product, it was still edible so I was happy with the results of my effort.

Well as I posted last week, I discovered a couple of little changes that had a really great effect on the curd of my cheese (namely warming the milk slowly and adding cream to the milk).
I also just finished reading Wayne's recent post on the importance of "healing time" for the curd  which is something that I also did for the first time last week.

The result of these changes, that I made, resulted in the best (looking and feeling) swiss cheese I've made to date.
I am having a lot of trouble leaving this cheese alone simply because it looks to be an example that would be very diffiicult to improve upon.
Now of course only time will tell how well this wheel turns out, but my early assessment is that I might finally have found success in making this particular variety.

My point is this....
Ove the past three years I have been blindly following each recipe to the letter and turning out the same "okay" varieties of cheese that I've made from day one.
Now, with just a couple of very minor changes I've made a cheese that so far seems to be vastly superior to anything that I've turned out before.

From now on, I am going to be observing every detail of the cheesemaking process and thinking long and hard about small changes that can be made to improve things.
If this swiss does turn out to be as good as I hope, then this recipe (with the minor changes) will become the recipe I follow from this point forward.

I guess cheesemaking is like everything else in life.
If you continue to do the same things over and over you can't expect anything more than the same results you've gotten in the past. Some cheeses might turn out more acceptable than others, but I don't think it's possible to ever reach that point where you feel you have turned out that really perfect example of any given variety.

From what I've found, minor changes can make a great difference in the final product. Hopefully, by working together and posting our results, We'll one day find all of the tricks and traps to produce the final product that we're all looking for.

Dave

[wharris]

Fantastic post.

[chilipepper]

Dave, I think you hit the nail on the head there!  Realistically in the grand scheme of things, cheesemaking is about subtle changes in pretty much every aspect for some fairly dramatic changes in taste, texture, etc.   I remember when I first picked up a cheese recipe book and glanced at all the different recipes... they all looked basically the same.  You had to really read and digest the differences which were quite subtle.

I think that is the great thing about this group of individuals here, we are all looking to perfect our craft in whatever version of perfection we choose.  From the most basic of turning out a edible cheese that we can impress our friends with to the more complex understanding of the entire process and controlling each factor to continually reproduce a desired result.

[Likesspace]

I agree 100% Chilipepper. Very well put.

[Cartierusm]

Dave, what are some of those little things? Maybe we should start a list of operations we all find to be useful, but are really 'read between the lines' kind of things. Here's what I gathered from this forum.

1. Rest time of at least 5 minutes after cutting curds.

that's it, that's all I got, the rest is up to you guys.

Oh, I just thought of some more.

2. Add all extra ingridients, Mold, Anatto, CaCl or Lipase, right before rennet, mix in well, then add rennet. This is a preliminary statement, but it's here to remind me when I try it next.
3. Add 1 cup of Heavy UHT Cream for every gallon of milk to get a better setting curd.
4. Don't shock the milk. Let warm up to room temp before starting to heat, this usually takes about 1-2 hours, for me and I'm making 15 gallon batches.
5. Learn to feel and taste your curds as they cook so you can stop cooking when they are the right consistency. This one takes much experience.

6. Dave's Wrinkled Alien Cheese Might Attack you in the night so lock your bedroom door.

[Likesspace]

LOL at #6!
I'm pretty sure that everyone is safe since I gave up and threw the alien out last night. Of course it could possibly still live through the fridgid temps we've been having so you all might want to still follow Carter's advice.
I think you've pretty much summed up what I've found so far.
This is a good thread though, that hopefully will expand as others give thier ideas.

Dave