Oh boy, a busy weekend while the wife is out of town.
Friday: Esrom #4
Saturday: Double Gloucester #1
This particular make introduces me to the use of mother cultures. I have resisted the call to move to them for quite some time, but decided 2012 was the time to get into it. This and the Gloucester prove to me that I should have started using mother cultures a long time ago.
Starting pH for the milk: 6.72 @ 6:20AM
1 gallon Dungeness Valley Creamery whole raw milk
1 gallon Twin Brook Creamery 2% milk
2 gallons Twin Brook Creamery whole creamline milk
8 cubes (8 oz) Aroma B mesophilic
1/16 tsp PLA (I liked the rind treatment that I got from using this on my last Tilsit.)
1/2 tsp CACL diluted in 1/4 cup distilled water
1/16 tsp dry calf rennet dissolved in cold distilled water
1 TBS Organic Herbes de Provence, boiled in 1 cup distilled water and cooled
6:30AM - began heating milk and culture cubes
7:35AM - pH 6.65 @ 88F
7:53AM - pH 6.60 @ 89F - added CACL, rennet, and herbes water (I think my meter is fooling me)
8:12AM - pH 6.67 - floc'd in 21 min - using a multiplier of 3.5 gives me 73.5...make that 74 min to wait
9:26AM - cut curds to 1 inch; rested curds for 5 min
9:31AM - using whisk, cut curds to 1/4 inch, stirring gently
9:35AM - replaced 1 1/2 gallon of whey with 98F water, stirring gently for 60 min
9:36AM - reserved 1 gallon of whey for whey-brine
10:45AM - drained remaining whey from curds and mixed cooled Herbes de Provence with curds
11:00AM - using hands, placed curds into prepared brick mold with Plyban, pressing down into corners to ensure a good knit
11:15AM - pressed in pot with lid on using 10lb weight for 30 min
11:45AM - flipped, redressed, pressed in pot with lid on using 10lb weight for 30 min
12:15PM - pH 6.37; flipped, removed Plyban, pressed naked in pot on press with 22lbs for 5 hrs
3:30PM - pH 5.60; flipped, continued pressing
5:30PM - pH 5.41; removed from mold; into whey-brine for 6 hrs
11:30PM - flipped in whey-brine
3/10/12
5:30AM - out of whey-brine (total 12hrs); into minicave to dry
pH targets:renneting: (6.55) 6.60 actual (according to my meter
)
cutting: (6.50) 6.60 actual (again, according to my meter
)
draining: (6.45) tough to do because the whey is washed
molding: (6.40) 6.37 actual (hey, what a surprise!)
demolding: (5.40) 5.41 actual ( I guess the planets are lined up.
)
-Boofer-