After my new cultures arriving I decided to tackle another cheese, the other one that I didn't choose last time Caerphilly.
I combined the ingredients and directions from Tim Smith's and Karlin's books.
2 gal whole p/h milk (Oberweis)
1/8 t MA 4001
1/4 t Aroma B
1/2 t CaCl2 solution (Hoegger)
5/8 t veal rennet (increased because of slow flocculation I had with it last weekend)
Initial milk pH 6.71
After cultures grown for 50 minutes 6.67
At curd cut 6.68 (
?)
Then I forgot to take any readings for a while.
Before last press 5.88
Accidentally forgot to check and not only over shot flocculation I also left stove on!!! Got up to 98 but I quickly cooled it down to 94 degrees and it dropped during the stirring to 88 degrees.
Tried to cut into 1/4" squares and wasn't very successful I cut a lot with the perforated ladle.
Cheddaring it didn't go so well. it drained whey very slowly (I used muslin, my mistake) It was very crumbly throughout and while I was able to slice it into slices, it fell apart readily so in the end I was just piling curds one
Once again had too many curds. I milled the curds and then took handfuls and pressed it into my little mold as best as I could and the rest of the unpressed curds are in the fridge. I'll use it in pasta or something. I did the first two pressings for 10 minutes under 10 lbs of weight under whey, the next press was under 15 lbs of weight for another 15 minutes and now it's sitting at 15 lbs of weight for the next 16 hours. After pressing I'll be brining it.
This time (despite what the picture shows) there is no leaning! Huzzah!