Author Topic: Ellen's Caerphilly #2  (Read 1831 times)

ellenspn

  • Guest
Ellen's Caerphilly #2
« on: December 18, 2011, 05:04:10 AM »
We won't count the attempt with the bad cream  :P  I'll be calling a grocery store manager on Monday to complain. 

7 quarts of skim p/h Oberweis milk
1 quart of cream p Oberweis (they sell cream in 1/2 gal containers! the rest went into cream cheese)
1/8 t MA 4001
5/8 t calf rennet

Followed directions in Tim Smith's book except I used MA 4001

12 min flocculation time 3x multiplier

Accidentally overshot curd cut by 10 minutes! And forgot to add CaCl2 solution, curd was soft but still workable.

pH 6.51 at curd cut. Forgot to measure pH after that, sigh

Heated my water bath and used that and my pot to cheddar the curds (pictures later).

After milling curds used my new mold I got from The Cheesemaker last weekend to press under whey with 10 pounds.  Hmm, not a very good knit.  Pressed again under whey after turning with 18 pounds of pressure for 20 minutes....still not a good knit. 

Duh, my mold and follower are larger, duh.  I'm now pressing with 41.1 lbs of weight with my new dutch press.  One of the sturdy presses (pictures later).  My cheese will be pancake-like in the end.  It reminds me of the proportion of the cheeses that are shown in The Cheese Nun videos.  The tommes they make seem to be a similar proportion.

It seemed like a good idea at the time to get the larger mold...that I think is too large for 2 gal of milk. 

ellenspn

  • Guest
Re: Ellen's Caerphilly #2
« Reply #1 on: December 18, 2011, 09:14:11 PM »
Pictures!

That's 2.5 lbs of cheese coming out of the mold looking very pancake-like.

It's brining now.


JeffHamm

  • Guest
Re: Ellen's Caerphilly #2
« Reply #2 on: December 19, 2011, 02:27:45 AM »
That should still turn out ok.  I made a Dunlop, which is a Scottish cheddar, in a pancake type shape.  Aged it for 75 days natural rind and it was fine (i.e. wasn't dried out and all rind, etc).  So, a caerphilly should be ok being short and wide. 

The larger mold will be good for things like brie, or washed rind cheeses, things that ripen from the outside in.  They should ripen to the centre more quickly because the centre is not so far away.

- Jeff

iratherfly

  • Guest
Re: Ellen's Caerphilly #2
« Reply #3 on: December 19, 2011, 03:30:53 AM »
2 gallons in a 7.5" Tomme mould will give you about 1.5"-2" tall cheese so you are on target id that's what you used. These moulds are made for 4 gallons so it's half a Tomme really.  This may still work as Jeff says, just beware that your ratio of mold to paste is twice in this form factor so surface ripening will happen faster than you want and you need to slow it down. Wrap with foil earlier and move to a cooler refrigerated temp earlier too.

You can reduce rennet to 1/2 tsp for this quantity

I personally find Tim Smith's book a bit inaccurate and blurry at times.

ellenspn

  • Guest
Re: Ellen's Caerphilly #2
« Reply #4 on: December 19, 2011, 04:06:09 AM »
Using 1.5 lbs of curd in my 5.25" mold his instructions worked, but I should have pressed with about double the weight on the first press to get a better knit on this large mold.  Which is too large. But I abhor throwing away curd.

Luckily I have time to think, I'll be out of town the next two weekends and won't have much time for cheesemaking :)

iratherfly

  • Guest
Re: Ellen's Caerphilly #2
« Reply #5 on: December 19, 2011, 05:57:14 AM »
If this is 5.25" than I suspect you may have overcookked/overstirred your curds until they drained too much. Your knit looks very good actually (one piece cheese, tight and smooth).  Traditionally you would always begin with light pressing and continue to heavier pressing so that you won't expel too much whey early on. Eliminating too much whey too early will effect your acidity and change the cheese size and density too much.  I think by keeping the first weight lower you did the right thing, but overcooking or overstirring can cause this, as well as low calcium or weak rennet.  You also mentioned that you had 1.5 lbs curd. That's about 25% less than what I would expect from this amount of milk (unless you meant that this was the amount after some pressing or cheddaring)

ellenspn

  • Guest
Re: Ellen's Caerphilly #2
« Reply #6 on: December 19, 2011, 01:38:29 PM »
Actually it was 2.5 lbs of curd 25% more than I would have expected and this was after the final press.

ETA It's actually not smooth, you can see the chunks where I milled it.  So could I have applied too much heat when I cheddared it?  Also what I meant it I can only get about 1.5 lbs of curd in the 5.25" mold.  This is consistant for me for both Caerphilly and Gouda. 

iratherfly

  • Guest
Re: Ellen's Caerphilly #2
« Reply #7 on: December 26, 2011, 06:17:26 AM »
Hmmm.... I don't really get it. How can 5..25" cheese so thin weigh 2.5 Lbs?  And if you got so much out of your milk quantity after milling/cheddarring/pressing than you are definitely on target as far as yield.

Unsmooth press is usually more typical of pressing too cold but your cheese looks fine to me except from some reason something about this curd formation seems a bit too dry to me. That's usually consistent with overcooking and overstirring the curd, a final cheese that is too flat, unsmooth surface etc. However when that happens you also get low weight/yield -which doesn't seem to be your issue at all based on what you are saying; so I doubt if there is any problem at all.  I just can't imagine a cheese the size of a Reblochon weighing 5x as much

ellenspn

  • Guest
Re: Ellen's Caerphilly #2
« Reply #8 on: December 27, 2011, 02:05:33 PM »
It doesn't, it's an 8.25" diameter mold.

And speaking of mold, I'm already fighting mold growing in pockets in the cracks.  Not sure how this one will turn out.  It's black/grey mold btw.