I've been a little reluctant to add anything to my curds for fear of corrupting the cheese and relegating the expense and effort to the garbage bin. I finally bit the bullet and committed to this cheese. It offers some variety to my little cave effort.
There are two spellings for this cheese style: Leiden and
Kind of stretching here.... The recipe I followed was from 200 Easy Cheeses.
Note: Edited thread title to correct spelling of cheese per member hoeklijn.
Calibrated Exstik PH100.
4 gallons Twin Brook Creamery whole creamline milk (pH 6.76)
1/4 tsp Aroma B (meso)
1 tsp CACL diluted in cool distilled water
1/16 tsp Renco dry calf rennet
1 TBS cumin seeds, boiled in 2 cups water, allowed to sit covered overnight to soften
8:00AM - pH 6.57 @ 85F <<== dropped from 6.76...Wow!!
No preripening here. Added 1 cup of the cumin seed liquid, culture, allowed to rehydrate, stirred it in.
Added CACL and rennet, stirred in.
8:27AM - floc'd in 20 minutes; I'm using 3.5x so that's 70 min to wait.
9:40AM - pH 6.55 @82.8F; cut the curds to 1/2 inch; rested 10 min.
9:50AM - Whisked down to 1/4 inch...recipe said "navy bean"; rested 10 min.
10:00AM - Stirred and began to raise temp.
10:05AM - Removed 1 gallon whey in two actions, saved 1/2 gal for whey-brine.
10:10AM - Replaced lost whey with 140F water to raise temp to 98F; stirring.
10:20AM - Curds @ 98F; held at that temp, stirring, for 20 min; let curds settle.
10:40AM - Drained whey; added cumin seeds and rest of liquid on top of curds; mixed in by hand.
10:50AM - Put the curds into the prepared mold with Plyban; seeds had fallen through curds to bottom of pot. I had to collect them and press them with spread fingers into the molded curd mass to distribute them.
11:00AM - Pressed under whey, using my Dutch press with just the weight of the lever arm and piston (11lbs) for 30 min.
11:35PM - Rewrapped and pressed under whey for another 30 min.
12:10PM - Drained whey, rewrapped and pressed with 5lb and 2 pulleys (which delivers ~ 1.9psi) for 4 hours.
4:15PM - pH 5.56 - Rewrapped and pressed @ 1.9psi.
11:00PM - pH 5.15 - Removed from press; into whey-brine in refrigerator.
2/5/20125:00AM - Flipped and back into the brine.
10:00AM - Out of brine to air-dry at room temperature; 11 hour brine.
I reduced the 2 tablespoons of cumin seeds down to one. Even that may be a little much. I do believe the overnight soak helped to soften the seeds. The knit seems decent although there are a few Plyban marks. Those will probably fade with wiping, washing, and rubbing. The Plyban does stick a little, but it doesn't wedge itself into the curd like muslin or cheesecloth. It sticks lightly to the
outside of the cheese. Nice stuff.
-Boofer-