Low yield, milky whey - what did I do wrong

[cutetrill]

Ok, so I laid down my first Cheddar today, heated to 86 degrees, added 1/4 tsp MAO11, let sit 45 min, added 1/2 tablet rennet, let sit another 45min. cut to 1/4 inch, slowly heated to 100 degrees (took 45min) kept it there for 30 more minutes (So much stirring nonstop) tried to be as gentle as I could.  Drained the whey and noticed that I didn't have a lot of curds. Continued to cheddar by slicing into strips and stacking, turning every 15min for 2 hours. whey was clear at this time. Chunked it into 1/2 inch pieces, added salt and dumped it into the press. The curds barely filled half of the mold before I even started pressing. I added 10 pounds of weight and pressed for 15 minutes per directions for the recipe, and 15 minutes later it hadn't knit together at all. The whey is milky and not clear.

What did I do? Do you think I might not have let the rennet work long enough? I added 1/2tsp of CaCl to the milk, and I've used this milk before.   I just placed 40 pounds of pressure on the cheese without flipping it to see if it knits and we'll go from there. I have a feeling this is gonna be a test batch that gets opened in a couple months while I try and perfect this recipe

[cutetrill]

Sigh, unfortunately even after a few hours there's been absolutely no coming together of this cheese. It is bone dry. I'm really quite unsure as to how I could have over cooked it. Maybe I stirred it too much? Oh well going to have to try again.

[Cheese Head]

Hi cutetrill, from early milky whey and low curd yield it sounds like you had poor rennet coagulation which after cutting and cooking, shattered. How strong was your curd before you cut it?

There's some info in our Wiki: Curds, When To Cut article on different methods to test if ready to cut/good curd quality and some more info in our Wiki: Coagulation Defects article.

Also many people have problems with tablet rennet, I think due to questionable rennet strength due to uncertain providence (age, storage conditions etc). Search the forum on word "Tablet" or "Junket" and you'll find some threads including dosage rates.

On your poor knitting in the press, were the curds heated or is this a small batch and cold?

Hope helps!

[MrsKK]

Did you calibrate your thermometer before you started?  The small, hard curds that won't knit and lots of milk in the whey suggests to me that maybe the curd got cooked too hot.  It's been a long time since I've made cheddar, so I might be wrong on that.

Whenever I forget to calibrate, it seems that I end up with disasters...

[cutetrill]

Ok, so I'm trying it again, new thermometers, 1tsp CaCl instead of 1/2tsp, and stirring every few minutes while heating instead of constantly. I also removed the whey from the pot as I was cheddaring the first time. Could that have caused the knitting problem? I'm leaving it in this time. I also took pictures of my curds, want to make sure that they look right.

[fied]

I try to keep the curds warm up until at least the end of the 1st pressing. I do that by cheddaring in the pot either with a little heated whey at the bottom which can be brought up to temperature on a flame, or, more reliably, by immersing the pot in a sink full of warm water as I'm cheddaring. I then drain curds through a colander with muslin, still in the warm pot, then put the mould into the pot and fill it with the drained curds. I pour off the whey from the pot, put the mould on a warmed (in whey) board in the pot and put on the first weights.

After re-dressing the cheese and flipping it, you can either take it out of the pot and put it into your press, or press at medium weights still in the warmed pot. The third, heavy pressing I always do out of the pot at room temp. For the last three hours of pressing, I take off the cheesecloth and put the cheese back into the mould, then flip it at 1 1/2 hours. This mostly gets rid of the cloth marks and I usually have a good knit.

[cutetrill]

Ugh. It's stuck together, sort of. What did I do!? I made a Pepper Jack cheese a month ago and the steps are basically the same up until the cheddaring process and that cheese came out delicious and great!

[Sailor Con Queso]

My first impression is that your curds were too cold, especially during early pressing.

Other causes:

Over cooking the curds
Over acidification
Not enough weight during pressing
, etc...

[cutetrill]

I pressed it in the pot for the first hour in a water bath of 85 degree water at 25 pounds. Then upped it to 40 pounds for 10 hours (was supposed to be 12 but I wasn't about to stay up till 2am) then 50 pounds for 24 more hours.  I was going to just throw the brick out but I cut it open first and the inside looks fine, it's just the outside that's got all the cracks. So I waxed it anyway and threw it in the back of the cave. I'll try to forget about it for a year and see what happens.

[JeffHamm]

Hi cutetrill,

Hmmm, how much milk are you using for your make?  Did you weigh the final cheese?  How heavey was it?  Finally, what's the diameter of your mold (or cheese)?  Forty pounds on a 6.26" diameter mold is only 1.3 pounds per square inch (PSI)!  If it's an 8 inch diamter mold, your pressure is only around 0.8 pounds per square inch!  I've made a couple cheddar types, though not a true traditional cheddar, such as Cheshire, Wensleydale, Dunlop, and Caerphilly, and generally I've been going for over 2 PSI, which requires about 77 lbs on my 6.25 inch diameter mold.  A lot of people say that you really need to get the PSI up over 5 at least for cheddars, and to do that you really need a Dutch press. 

- Jeff