As planned, I ventured into Havarti land today and it was a challenge. As I had indicated in my prior thread asking for advise I intended to heat treat my raw Jersey milk so I would not have concern about trying the cheese in 30, 40 or 50 days. Well let’s say I will not be doing this again. I will simply have to wait it out from here on in.
Heat-treating took forever and it simply took too much time to cool it down to 90F despite ice water baths and using sanitized frozen water bottles to help it along. It just adds to much time to the make.
Another issue was the faster than expected floc time. I should have stuck to the 1/8 tsp of total cultures for 3 gal milk. I used scant 1/8 tsp of MM100 and a full 1/8th of FD. Acidification was faster than expected. I also should have cut the rennet to ½ tsp. I drained the whey based on pH versus time: recipe’s called for 30 minute stirring. Target pH was hit at around 14 minutes.
2.80 gal heat-treated raw Jersey milk. ( 12 quart stock pot used to heat-treat left 3 cups behind.
1/8 tsp MM100 (scant)
1/8 tsp Flora Danica
½ tsp CaCl
20 drops annatto coloring
¾ tsp single strength veal rennet (actually a bit less).
June 9, 2012
11:44am: Cool heated pH 6.7 milk to 90F. Inoculate milk. Let hydrate.
11:54am: Stir down 20 strokes. Let ripen to 6.5 or about 30 min.
12:24pm: pH 6.63. Let ripen further.
12:40pm: pH 6.53. Added CaCl, stirred down, added coloring stirred down.
12:43pm: Added rennet, stired 20 strokes, set timer, floated cup.
12:50pm: Flocced in 7 min. x 3.5 = 24.5 min = 1:08pm curd cut time.
01:08pm: Checked for clean break, No-Go: milky.
01:15pm: Clean break, start cutting curds to .5 inches.
01:17pm: Finish cutting curds, let heal 5 min.
01:23pm: Stir curds 15 minutes.
01:38pm: Rest curds 5 min.
01:41pm: Pitch 1/3 whey.
01:46pm: Gradually add 170F water to get to 100F
01:50pm: Added ¼ cup salt and stirred every few minutes. Stir to pH 6.4 or 30 min.
02:00pm: pH 6.4 Drain curds and stirred to release whey.
02:14pm: First light press.
02:40pm: flipped and press for 6 – 8 hours or until pH 5.15-5.45 Decided to turn about hourly first three hours.
04:00pm: flipped and returned to press. pH 6.18
05:10pm: Flipped and returned to press at about 75% of 100lb spring. pH 5.77
09:15pm: Flipped and returned for one last press to at about 80-90% of spring
pH 5.24 on smaller wheel and 5.28 on larger wheel.
10:00pm: Place in brine.
June 10, 2012
12:15am: Took small wheel out of brine to dry.
02:00am: Took larger wheel out of brine to dry.
Very moist flexible wheels.
11:00am: Place wheels in non humidified cave to speed up drying. Relative humidity in Plant City is the 90s today.
04:30pm: Vacuum packed the wheels after carefully checking and figuring they had dried sufficiently.
06:15pm: On second thought: placed in ripening container at 54F 90% relative humidity for a couple of weeks.
Note: during pressing I got lots of extruded curd to taste as I did not fully dress the curds until the final press; just a plyban sheet on top and bottom. Must say I enjoyed this press and taste experience as I got to tast the cheese as it acidified. Ate maybe, 1/4 lb of curd.
