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CHEESE TYPE BOARDS (for Cheese Lovers and Cheese Makers) => RENNET COAGULATED - Hard Cheddared (Normally Stacked & Milled) => Topic started by: Likesspace on December 06, 2009, 11:14:22 PM
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First of all I want to state that the idea of pressing under a vacuum, (to achieve a totally closed curd), is NOT something that I came up with on my own.
This is something that member Wayne Harris has been talking about for at least a year and possibly longer.
Now having said that, over the past couple of weeks I've been trying to figure out how this could be accomplished in the home setting. Of course I wanted to keep costs at a minimum while also achieving the results that I would like to see on a cheddar variety of cheese.
Well I eventually thought of the vacuum storage bags that are sold at Wal Mart stores as well as other retaliers across the country and then when I saw a post by another member that has used the bags for cheese storage I thought...."Why not give it a try".
Well today I did just that.
Thanks to suggestions from other members I decided to go ahead and load my mold with the curd....seal the curd inside the vacuum bag and then use a vacuum cleaner to suck the air out of the bag.
In the below photos you can see the bag that I used (with a glass of my own home made Barolo that I've been recently sampling and have decided that it has become a very nice wine over the past year and a half to two years. It has nothing to do with the vacuuming process but I thought I'd put it in the picture anyway). ;D
I've also taken a photo of the curd as it was loaded in the mold and then photos of the entire mold in the bag.....after it has been vacuumed and finally once it has been placed in the press.
I did flip the cheese a few minutes ago (after a half hour in the press) and I did notice that the curd is slightly more closed than it usually is at this stage. I did not take a photo at this time because I wanted to get it back into the press as quickly as possible while the curd is still warm.
I am now pressing at a higher pressure for the next two hours and then will flip again. Each time I turn the cheese I also dump the whey out of the bag and upon the first turn there really was not that much whey to deal with.
I really have no idea if this will work or not but I'm excited nonetheless.
If it does work (and does not impart any undesirable taste or odor to the cheese wheel) then it will be an inexpensive way to accomplish a closed curd.
I did spray the inside of the bag with Star San and allowed it to sit closed for over an hour before using. I then wiped the inside of the bag with a paper towel but did not rinse it.
Anyway, here are the photos that I have taken up to this point.
When I give the cheese another flip I will be sure to take more photos and post them.
The real test will be when I cut this cheese in half sometime over the next week. I will also post photos at that time so that we can all get an idea of whether or not this slight amount of vacuum really does make a difference.
Dave
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And here's one more pic.......
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Btw....
I know that I'm drinking my Barolo out of a water glass but I hate the long stems on our red wine glasses. These are much easier to handle once I am about two thirds of a way into a bottle. ;D
Also, the whey that is seen in the dinner plate is not out of the vacuum bag. This is what was left over from loading the cheese mold.
I saved this whey so that I could get my final Ph reading and I have to say that I'm really excited about this particular cheese.
Not only did I hit my temperature marks correctly (thanks to a new thermometer and information that Debi supplied on calibrating my old thermometer), but I also feel that I hit my Ph markers as closely as humanly possible.
Upon draining my Ph was exactly 6.15. When I added my first addition of salt my Ph was 5.35.
When I checked the final whey Ph (that which is on the dinner plate in the photo) the reading was 5.15.
Of course anything can happen from here on out, but this is by far the closest I've been to hitting all of my markers. As I said, I'm really excited about this one.
Time will tell I guess but I've certainly spent worse Sunday afternoons than this one.
Dave
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Well you go Dave! Sounds like you are having a great make so far! Go Team!
(http://deejaysworld.net/deejayssmokepit/yabb/Smilies/Cheer.gif)(http://deejaysworld.net/deejayssmokepit/yabb/Smilies/Cheer.gif)(http://deejaysworld.net/deejayssmokepit/yabb/Smilies/Cheer.gif)
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Okay, the bottle of Barolo is now history and I'm on my first glass of a very nice commercial Pinot Noir. I'm really going to have to slow down or tomorrow will be a real.....well, let's just say that tomorrow won't be a fun day at work.
As promised, here's a shot of the wheel after spending two hours under a vacuum press. I can't say that it's drastically different from what I normally see at this point (at least not on the surface) but hopefully there are some good things happening within the interior of the cheese.
The next photo I snap will be tomorrow evening when I remove the wheel, after it's final pressing. I normally have a very nice closed surface curd by that point and I don't expect anything different on this wheel. My hope is that the interior of the cheese will be completely closed with none of the very very small mechanical openings that I've seen in the past. Again, time will tell.
Here's wishing everyone a great week.
Dave
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Very nice job on both setting this test up, and hitting your pH numbers. That only comes withe enthusiasm and attention to detail.
A couple of questions:
When did you draw the vacuum? Before or after the pressing? Or on both sides perhaps?
How long did you maintain the vacuum relative to the pressing time?
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Wayne,
First of all, thanks for the kind words. That means a lot coming from you.
As for the vacuum/pressing here is what I did....
I took the curd directly from the vat and added them to my cheesecloth lined mold. I then put them in the vacuum bag and used the vacuum cleaner to suck the air out of the bag.
I then put the entire bag under the press and began my pressing schedule.
The first press was for 30 minutes. At the end of the 30 minutes I opened the bag.....dumped the accumulated whey...gave the cheese a flip and then placed it back into the bag and sucked the air out again.
I then put the mold back in the press for two hours (at a higher pressing weight) and then repeated the above procedure.
Right now the cheese is back in the press for the first of two 12 hour presses (again, at an increased pressure setting and again, after emptying the whey).
Tomorrow morning I will repeat this same procedure and then take the cheese out when I get home from work.
One benefit to this is that we won't have to wait long to see the results. Since I am still experimenting with my Cheddars I will open this in about a week (or less) to see what the results are. Of course after cutting the wheel I will vacuum bag it to finish aging but I see no sense in continuing this method if it's not going to work.
I'll be sure to keep you up to date and a big thanks to you (Wayne) for your idea of pressing under vacuum.
I still need to give you a call concerning wine making since I'm now officially back into the hobby. I started a Pinot Noir Friday evening but I need to talk to you about acing and tannin balance once I get a little farther along in the process.
Talk to you soon.
Dave
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Great experiment Dave. I will watch with great interest. This is like a great cliffhanger. :)
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I would point out two things:
1. You should always check the pH of the curd, not the whey as the pH will be staggered (prematurely) in the whey. I realize this is probably a contraversial topic as I have seen some very epxerienced cheesemakers use whey as their measuring point. I have seen people use a mix as well. At the end of the day you care about what the curd is doing, not the whey.
2. I have played with this sort of thing on an industrial scale in two ways. We thought it might help us reduce press time if we could extract the whey faster, so we attempted something similar but pulling 29mmHg on a 50# block. The curd basically exploded inside the hoop. I suspect minor trapped air bubbles were the culprit. I also think we burst the curd walls and caused spontanious loss of yield. The second thing I have done is, in a rush, tried to vacuum a still warm wheel of cheese so I could put it in the cooler and go home for the day. The wheel exploded inside the bag, I suspect for the same reasons.
Vacuum is not the same thing as pressure in reverse, it has physically different effects on the wheels. For a tightly knit cheddar you really need to apply force, not vacuum, in my opinion. At the big cheddar plants here the blocks undergo only a few minutes of pressing because of the extreme pressure at which the curd is forced down into the hoops. Works for them. The vacuum bagging is really just to preserve the cheese and add a little extra support while the curd cools.
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Francois....
First of all, I do appreciate your insight. I've read a number of your posts and always seem to learn something new. You are a great resource for information and it is appreciated.
I've often wondered about whether checking the whey would give the same Ph accuracy as measuring the curd, but I am limited by the type of Ph meter I own (and can afford at this point).
I would love to have one of the "flat probe" meters but that's pretty much out of the question until possibly next year. My wife has been very tolerant of my cheese making expenses so I don't want to press the issue. :)
At this point I'm sort of up in the air concerning the pressing under vacuum.
Of course I'm not using much vacuum at all with this experiment, but it has been interesting.
First of all, the temperature inside of the bag is noticeably warmer than the air temperature in our kitchen. When I open the bag to give the wheel a flip it honestly feels as if it's a good 10 degrees warmer than the outside air.
Also, this morning when I removed the follower from the mold I heard a sudden escape of air, that seemed to come from the wheel. I think the technical term would be "whoosh".
I have no idea why this would happen but it did surprise me. This sound did not come when I opened the bag but only when I pulled the follower from the top of the cheese. I don't know what this means but I found it interesting nonetheless.
I've also noticed a slight amount in the increase of whey I've gotten from this wheel.
That could be because of the vacuum effect or it could be because I am finally cooking at the proper temp. due to a thermometer calibration. Either way, something different is taking place, no matter how slight that difference might be.
I will be removing the wheel from the press within the next hour or so and other than when I flipped the wheel it has spent the entire pressing time under vacuum.
My plans are to let it air dry for a day or so and then cut it open to see the results.
So far I haven't seen any type of cheese explosion and hopefully I won't!
Oh, one other thing......
I really love the type of press that I use, but there is no way that I could ever achieve the amount of pressing weight that the commercial makers use. Even if my little press could handle the structural stress my mold would no doubt collapse under 25 p.s.i. and above.
I'll update this post with a pic of the wheel once it comes out of the mold.
Thanks for your input and have a great evening.
Dave
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Reminds me of the old Saturday movie serials (Am I dating myself?).... Every moment a cliffhanger....
Thanks for the muted excitement, Dave.
-Boofer-
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LOL Boofer!
I'm really not trying to make this into a cliffhanger. I just want to give it a day or two to air dry before I cut into it.
Once I cut the wheel into wedges I want to vacuum bag it for further aging, so I would like to make sure all of the whey has been expelled before hand.
So, as promised here's a couple of pics of the wheel. I can't really say that it looks much differently than any of my other cheddar wheels, but it does feel a LOT different.
The wheel is nice and soft and ummmm...springy, when pressed with a finger.
I can't tell that there are any "off" smells from the wheel as it simply smells like cheese. I was happy to see this since I was a little worried about the bag imparting unwanted odor to the wheel.
Within a day or so we will all know if this has helped with the curd knitting issue. If it has I'm going to be one happy guy. If not, at least it was a fun experiment to do.
Sorry about the poor photo quality but quite honestly I suck at taking pictures. I really need to spend some time with my camera and learn how to use it.
Dave
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It looks really good Dave. I have to ask though do you not normally feel a kind of springiness to your new cheeses? Maybe you have been over cooking for awhile.
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Debi....
I do normally feel a springiness to my wheels, but not as much as this one has.....
I really don't know how to describe it, but there is definitely something different about this wheel of cheese.
When I loaded the curd into the mold it was different from any of my other cheddar attempts...not quite as dry and I'm certain that this is due to actually cooking at the proper temp. due to your calibration recommendations.
At this point I am not contributing any of the good qualities of this cheese to pressing under a vacuum.
I'm certain that it is due to 1. proper temperature and 2. hitting my ph markers better than I ever have.
I don't know that I have ever spent so much time drawing samples and giving them a ph check. I went into this make determined that I would hit all of the markers and this involved taking readings sometimes as little as a couple of minutes apart.
It was quite literally a PITA but if it works I guess the extra effort is worth it.
I really wish everyone could poke a finger into this wheel to see what I'm talking about. I don't have the words to describe it, but it is most definitely "different".
Darn, I'm really dying to cut this sucker open to see what is inside. I know I'm just setting myself up for disappointment but I'm really hoping for some good results.
It's going to be a long couple of days.....
Dave
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Francois....
First of all, I do appreciate your insight. I've read a number of your posts and always seem to learn something new. You are a great resource for information and it is appreciated.
I've often wondered about whether checking the whey would give the same Ph accuracy as measuring the curd,
The levels are very different. Or, I should say, the degree of their difference increases throughout the cheesemake. One middle ground you could take is to measure the whey at the closest point possible to the curds. So let the curds settle, drain whey, and instead of measuring that whey you drain, measure the whey freshly released from the curds. Same with later measurements. Reserve a small clump of curds separate from the main wheel, and stick the glass electrode bulb in there. So long as it is moist, some whey will be released and you can get a more accurate measurement.
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I've long ago given up waiting. If this batch is a test batch, designed merely to test production methods and curd knitting, i see no reason not to cut it open soon, if not now.
You can always wax, or otherwise seal the wedges.
Looks great BTW. I do see the usual mottled surface. I really wish i knew what that was....
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I think I know what you mean about the springiness. Sometimes reminds me of those fancy memory foam beds. Kind of marshmellowy yet firm. I think it's neat. I am easily amused by the magic of cheese. Don't cut it to soon we all need to sit and watch the screen to see what new developes.
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Well guys (and gals), I took Wayne's advice and cut into this wheel earlier this evening. As he said, since this is a test cheese there was really no sense in waiting. Besides the wheel was nice and dry to the touch so it was ready to be put in the cave or vacuum bagged anyway.
Basically I can't see any benefit using the amount of vacuum I was able to put on this cheese using the space bags.
Now that doesn't mean that there aren't benefits to pressing under a vacuum, but with the slight amount I was able to draw it just really didn't seem to do much good.
This cheddar looks pretty much like all of the others I've made this year. Not that it's a bad cheese, but it's just not the nice closed knit that I wanted to see.
It does slice easily and although it is dry it has a pretty nice, soft texture. It will probably turn out to be a good cheese but again not what I had hoped for.
Anyway, here's the photos. It certainly didn't help that I used a serated knife to cut the wheel, since it left those funky marks on the cheese. Also, as stated in an earlier post I'm just not much of a photographer. Regardless I think you can see that it's not what I was hoping for but it was a fun experiment to try.
Hope everyone is having a good week.
Dave
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okay I see a few tiny holes but maybe they will go away with aging. I had to magnify the pictures to see them. Everything will shrink some don't get to discouraged.
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Debi, thanks for the encouragement.
I'm really not discouraged but I was hoping for a better result. As I said, this is pretty much the same result I've seen in the past so I don't think that this is the answer for any of us.
So...
Here is a question for Francois (or any others that might have insight):
You mentioned that commercial cheese factories use a very high pressing weight for a short amount of time.
Can you give me some idea of what p.s.i. we are talking about here and also the amount of pressing time that is used?
Do they hit the wheel with an enormous amount of weight right from the first seconds of pressing or do they gradually increase the pressure over time?
I would be willing to experiment with increased pressing force but I do not want to go to such an extreme force that it will damage my press or my mold.
I've always pressed lightly at first and then gradually increased the pressure as the whey expelled. If I can get away with going to say the equivalent of 300 lbs. of force from the very first I would be willing to give it a try. I have had my press up to this amount of pressure but I've only tried this at the very end of the pressing cycle.
By the way, I use a 7.5" Tomme mold and 300 lbs. is a LOT to put on a cheese this size.
I would like to try this early in the pressing cycle if you don' t feel it would trap the whey within the curd.
If you (Francois) or Linuxboy or Wayne, Debi, Sailor or any others have opinions on this idea I would really love to hear your input.
I'd really like to figure out how the commercial manufacturers get such a nice perfect curd knit.
Thanks in advance and I truly hope this experiment has been a benefit to someone else.
Dave
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Dave from everything I have read pressing for cheddar gong back to the late 1800's was done with less presssure for the first few minutes then increased from there. The pressure we are talking about seems to average around 2400 pounds. From what I have read in recent mass production that is limited to around 15 minutes for a 10 inch wheel.
Without some sort of high strength hydraulically operated presses I don't see that as possible at home. I do think your cheese is about as perfect as I have ever seen including comercially purchased cheeses. I have always found a several randon tiny holes in commercial cheddars.
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Dave - 300 pounds on a 7.5" hoop is only 6.79 psi. Many of the sources that I have seen suggest at LEAST 10 psi if you want a closed knit. That would be the equivalent of 450 pounds on your press. Hard to achieve on a small press, but I'll bet that Carter's wonder press can easily handle that. ;) I know that 2400 pounds sounds like a huge weight, but that works out to 30 psi for a 10 inch wheel, not at all unreasonable. In her book 200 Easy Homemade Cheese Recipes, Debra Amrein-Boyes defines "Firm Pressure" as 20 to 45 psi and up.
I have posted it before, but here is my spreadsheet and a pdf that show pressing weights for various hoop sizes to achieve target psi. Just find your hoop size at the top, follow the column down to the target psi, and read the weight from the far left column.
I feel that the variable that is most neglected during pressing is temperature. We take these nice fresh warm curds, throw them in some cheesecloth and start pressing. The curds immediately start cooling down, especially with lost whey. Pressing under whey certainly helps, but even that is not enough for an overnight pressing. So, I have started wrapping a rubber seed starting/heating pad around my hoop throughout pressing. I have not tried this on a cheddar yet, but I suspect that it will help some.
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Thanks for the comments Likespace, unfortunately most of my comments are useless for a home cheesemaker.
We press at 30 psi at our plant for 1-2 hours. But our curd is preformed using a special machine that accomplishes a significant pre press. They are large pneumatic presses with commercial molds. Although we do use some Kadovas at 15 psi with no issues. We use the small 1 kg molds for one product and they do blow apart sometimes but seem to last quite a while.
The big cheddar plants will press at 50 or 60 psi for only a few minutes. They do this, again, because of the prepress. The curd is forced into hoops through a tower that is 2-3 stories high, so the pressure is extreme.
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Francois, can you explain what you mean by pre-press? What exactly is different in what this pre-press machine accomplishes and what the main press does? I add my thanks as well to what you add here on this forum. I really appreciate your input.
I for one do not think that pressures in the 30 psi range are out of the question for home cheesemaking as long as the wheels are very small in diameter. Most small dutch presses can accomplish this.
Dave, sorry it didn't work like you wanted but it was very interesting to watch. Your cheese looks just like mine always looks. Keep at it.
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Debi, Sailor & Francois.....thanks for all of the information.
The spreadsheet will be really handy since I usually have to calculate everything out when using a different pressing schedule. This will make it a LOT easier since all I have to do now is divide the amount of force (of my desired p.s.i.) by 5 to get the air line pressure I need. This is because my pneumatic cylinder has a force factor of 5.
I did a little math today and found that to even achieve 10 p.s.i. I would have to crank my line pressure up to 90 lbs. on a 7.5" wheel. I'm still not really comfortable taking the press to that extreme, since I've never used over 50 lbs. of line pressure before.
I'm really not concerned with the mold handling that type of pressure but I am concerned that the nut which holds the cylinder might give away. The only thing holding this nut in place is a couple of welds, one on each side.
My dad is a welder and farmer so I might have him take a look at the press to see what he thinks of it. Using hydraulics for many years I'm sure he has a pretty good feel for the amount of stress a weld can handle. I know Carter once told me that he had broken one of his presses (by taking the pressure to an extreme level) but I really don't know how much of an extreme he was talking about.
What I'm thinking now is that I might revert back to my 6" mold for a test batch.
That way I can keep the line pressure more along the lines of what I have been using and see if the results are better. I really hate the thought of going backwards yet it is probably the easiest way to test this out.
I guess if I would happen to break the press my dad could get me going again but I'm really in love with this thing and hate the thought of damaging it.
Using a 6" mold I can use 56 lbs. of line pressure to achieve 10 p.s.i..
If this shows promise then I can try upping it to say 11 p.s.i., 12 p.s.i. and so on and so forth.
Once I find a p.s.i. that works, I will at least then know what I need to work with on my 7.5" mold. Then I will just have to get up enough nerve to give that level a try. :)
I also appreciate the advice concerning using a heating blanket to keep the curd warm. I've tried using a heat lamp but didn't have very good results with it.
I think your idea should work much better and down the road I will certainly incorporate this idea into my cheese making.
So again, I really do appreciate everyone's input and now it's back to the drawing board. I'd really like to get this figured out since I have this little problem with wanting everything to be perfect. :)
Dave
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Oh, I'm certainly going to keep at it Farmer!
The only problem is that the family is getting a little upset that I haven't been making anything other than Cheddar so far.
Sometime within the next couple of weeks I'm going to have to take a break and make something other than Cheddar. Maybe a Stilton, or Provolone or Camembert.
Besides, it's about time to revisit my old nemesis, the Swiss so that might be what I try.
Despite the imperfections I'm still having a blast so that's what's important. One of these days, though, I'm going to make that one wheel that will keep me bragging for years. ;)
Dave
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Dave, I think you are being too hard on yourself. If the cheddar tastes good then a few imperfections are not a problem. There are a lot of things home cheesemakers just can't accomplish easily.
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Virtually every commercial yellow cheese plant I have ever seen utilizes a prepress of some sort. Prepressing is the initial knit, under whey, where the curd is matted and allowed to form under it's own hydraulic pressure. The final result is cut out in blocks and loaded into hoops where it then goes into the final press. You would be most fmailiar with this process by watching swiss cheese being made where the curd is allowed to mat on the bottom of the vat. Imagine this process in a commercial plant with gigantic automated vats. Since the system is closed, and automated, the curd can't be allowed to settle on the bottom of the vat. Instead the curd is pumped up to the top of a pressing tower and the removed whey is pumped back in to help knit. At the bottom of this tower is a cutter that blanks out your block size. As the curd progresses down the tower the pressures become more extreme and this is the prepress.
I have seen some plants with intermediate versions where the curd is pumped to another specialized vat and a pneumatic ram provdes the press. The curd is then cut up and pressed after this. It's hard to picture without seeing it.
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I am trying to get my mind around Pre-pressing.
How can a stirred curd, or traditional cheddar cheese leverage a pre-press process when, by the time of pressing the curds have been out of the whey for a significant period of time?
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Likespace,
I think I found a couple of reasons why your experiment did not go as planned. Sadly, I think I am one of those reasons.
In my readings, You probably should have waited at least 2 weeks before the curds are completely knitted together. I think I advised to cut away. (Sorry)
Second, In looking at your setup, I don't really see a place for whey, or air to escape to. In other words, there should be a reservoir, also under vacuum. that can collect whey and escaping air.
Here are some clippings from what I read.
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I found this comment interesting:
"...the use of vacuum pressing ensured the characteristic close texture of Cheddar cheese and thus eliminated the need for cheddaring."
and...
"...air can be removed more readily by vacuum from granular curd than from the closer textured cheddared curd."
They were talking about using a "granular, salted curd". Are they talking about a stirred curd cheddar and eliminating the traditional cheddaring phase? To me granular means really small - like sugar size. I know that when I make cheddar I cube the curds to about 3/4" before salting & pressing. Why not cut the cubes MUCH smaller or even shred the cheddared blocks? The cheddaring process has already expelled a lot of whey, so what's the downside to using smaller cubes?
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Its not entirely clear to me what that term meant. So much of this does go over my head a bit. But I think they are referring generally to the entire class of cheese, not a specific production method of "Cheddar" cheese.
I'm not sure what the disadvantage of using smaller cubes would be after stirring or cheddaring.
I suppose the whole point of milling the cheese into cubes after cheddaring is to provide sufficient surface area for the salt to adhere to. That said, I would guess there is a balance there between sufficient surface area, and relative (re)-knitting required. The finer the cubes, the more surface area for the salt, but more knitting that will be required. That might have an impact on texture. (I really don't know)
To me, the point of milling is to undo just enough knitting (cheddaring) to increase the surface area to the minimums required for salting. Any "gatuitous" surface area would just undo the gains made by the cheddaring process.
Would a finer cube after milling release more whey?
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Wayne,
Cheddar cheese is indeed produced like this, as are the majority of every mass produced yellow. There is no classic "cheddaring" per se, as it's completely automated and has no human inervention. The whey is drained from the vat and held seperately in a tank for later use in the tower. The cheddaring process still takes place, but it is within the vat stackup and not as sexy as stacking slabs by hand. You have to realize that these cheeses are highly engineered to the scale. Here is a link to a casomatic tower:
http://www.tetrapak.com/products_and_services/processing_equipment/cheese_equipment/draining_mould_filling/tetra_tebel_casomatic/pages/default.aspx (http://www.tetrapak.com/products_and_services/processing_equipment/cheese_equipment/draining_mould_filling/tetra_tebel_casomatic/pages/default.aspx)
Here is an automated cheddar module that would plug into the side of one of the tower and vat setups:
http://www.tetrapak.com/products_and_services/processing_equipment/cheese_equipment/cheddaring/tetra_tebel_alfomatic/pages/default.aspx (http://www.tetrapak.com/products_and_services/processing_equipment/cheese_equipment/cheddaring/tetra_tebel_alfomatic/pages/default.aspx)
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Definately out of the question for the hobbist! Impresive though.
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Wayne....
Don't worry about the advice on cutting early. I would not have waited for two weeks regardless.
I'm now convinced that my problem is not using enough pressure on my cheddar cheeses and this is a problem that I hope to solve on upcoming batches.
Today I did a Gouda and took my press to 70 lbs. of line pressure. This only translated to about 9 p.s.i. on my 7.5" mold, but it allowed me to see that higher pressures are possible with this style of press.
On my next cheddar I will try going to 10 p.s.i. and if the press handles it I will then try 11, 12 and so on and so forth. Once I hit the mark that gives me the closed curd I'm looking for I will then use that as my benchmark.
I did re-open a cheddar I made on 10-31 this weekend and I was amazed at how much the curd had closed up. There were only a few mechanical openings and these were very very small. The texture was about as perfect as I could have ever hoped for and the flavor was pretty darn good, for a young cheese.
I have a few other wheels that are in the cave and I plan on opening them at various points over the next few weeks and months.
I will be sure to snap a couple of pics when I do so.
I'm not there, just yet but with each make I seem to be getting closer to the ideal.
Thanks to all of the wonderful information on this forum I'm convinced that we are all capable of producing a product that not only matches the commercial examples, but surpasses them in quality.
Maybe it's nothing more than a pipe dream but I don't think so.
Dave