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CHEESE TYPE BOARDS (for Cheese Lovers and Cheese Makers) => RENNET COAGULATED - Hard Grana (Grating Cheesee) => Topic started by: mavmd on January 31, 2013, 03:23:42 AM

Title: parmesan too hard
Post by: mavmd on January 31, 2013, 03:23:42 AM
I have made parmesan 8 times using Ricky's recipe and the first 4 after 8-12 months of aging are so hard I have to hack tiny pieces off with a clever.  The wine cellar cheese cave stays at 56F and 76-78%RH.  Is the cave too dry or did I make a big mistake over and over again?  Thanks
Mike
Title: Re: parmesan too hard
Post by: Al Lewis on January 31, 2013, 03:38:27 AM
Tim Smith's book calls for ten months at 55F and 80-85% RH.  It also calls for rubbing with olive oil after two months and several times thereafter to keep the cheese from drying out.
Title: Re: parmesan too hard
Post by: Boofer on January 31, 2013, 06:12:54 AM
Parmesan cheese may be hard. If you look at a typical Parm knife (http://www.amazon.com/Parmesan-Cheese-Knife-Set-Coltellerie/dp/B003JNGNK6), you can see it's short and stout to cleave off hunks of the hard cheese.

-Boofer-
Title: Re: parmesan too hard
Post by: Tomer1 on January 31, 2013, 09:44:59 AM
If you dont want a rock hard parm, vacuum bag or wax after a month or two when you think it has reached the desired "firmness" and continue aging it.
Title: Re: parmesan too hard
Post by: mikemd on January 31, 2013, 04:45:38 PM
I used olive oil after 3 wks on all of them.  I guess I will try the vacuum bag method.  When I say rock hard I mean rock.  You can't really eat the cheese.  I just wanted to make sure that I was not doing something wrong making it.  Thanks
Title: Re: parmesan too hard
Post by: Alpkäserei on January 31, 2013, 05:10:08 PM
Also,
hardness on a cooked cheese is a result of curd size and cooking temp/time.

If you are too hard, then these three things are out of proportion to the size of your cheese.

And the situation may be aggravated by too low humidity.

A parm should be tall, this also helps keep it from drying out.

IF you adjust your cooking temp and time slightly down (like, half a degree down, and no more than 5 minutes change in time) and increase your curd size, you will have a softer cheese. But be careful with this, on a cheese like parm SLIGHT differences in these things make HUGE differences in hardness.

So the best advice I can give you is, be EXACT.
Title: Re: parmesan too hard
Post by: green zebra on January 31, 2013, 09:41:06 PM
Hi All
These are all good suggestions. Being a newbee, i have made 4 parms using 4 different recipes. All of them were small amounts of milk; 2-3 gallons. Two recipes were made with cow's milk (2%) and the remaining two recipes were made with a mixture of cow and goat milks. I too, used Ricki's recipe, once. All 4 recipes were made roughly a year ago.

By the time i chose to consume them (at a year old) i found the results to be pretty much the same. Too hard for my liking. The cantina's temp was pretty steady except for the summer months where the temperatures rose to about 60°.  Humidity had fluctuated as well anywhere from 70-85%. Again, being a newbee i did not pay close attention to the numbers. The heads ended up being very small measuring at about 5" diam x 1 1/2". Compared to the starting size, this is significantly small! I'm learning. I did expect shrinkage, i just did not know how much.

I had read once in Jim Wallace's articles on parms and he said when making  one, you'd be almost wasting your time using recipes with only small amounts of milk as "a larger cheese has a better surface to mass ratio for aging"...of course i read  this AFTER the fact!  My cheese texture was like glass!! Very dangerous to grate on a rasp or a box grater, yielding too little cheese for my poor arm. The grated cheese was not fluffy, although, the aroma and taste were good.

Next time, i would rather use 6 gallons of milk, and watch the temps and humidity closely. In my case, i allowed the cheeses to dry too long for their environment.
Title: Re: parmesan too hard
Post by: margaretsmall on February 01, 2013, 01:46:34 AM
What you can do is age it for a while and then vacuum pack. It won't lose any more moisture, but will still age if kept at the right temperature  in your cave. Disclaimer: This is on the basis  of my two romanos.  I made them in March, aged until June then vacuum packed and put them back into the cave. Some time later found that there was some moisture in the bag of one, took it out, dried it off at room temperature for a few days, cut in half (tasted it!) and bagged again. I opened one half at Christmas and it was just right for grating, and deemed sensational by the family. I thought it was pretty good too.The other half, and the other whole romano are now in the regular fridge, still in their bags, mainly because my cave couldn't cope with the exceptionally hot weather over Christmas.

This is what they looked like in June before they were bagged the first time, and after some rubbing with olive oil.These were both 8l makes, but the smaller one was a mix of milks with a lower fat content, and I was a bit more successful in driving the whey out, I thought. It's therefore surprising to me that the smaller one is the one which was weeping moisture.
Margaret
Title: Re: parmesan too hard
Post by: mikemd on February 01, 2013, 05:35:54 PM
Ok, I guess I will go with vacuum packing.  I assume any reasonably cheap machine will do the job or is there a specific one that people use?  Also, I recently made a Hispanico about one month ago.  Should I vacuum pack that one also?  The chiller in the wine cellar is only going to keep the room at a certain humidity and I do not have the where with all yet to make an exclusive cheese area since all I have been making is meteorites.  I made two provolones but they turned to bricks also.  Milk is 5.50 a gallon and I must say I am quite the failure at making cheese.  I will also try to shorten my cook time 5 mins but there is no way I can decrease the temp by 0.5 degrees(thermometer reads every 2 degrees).  I also have a few questions about the gorgonzola dolce I made but that will wait for another day.
Title: Re: parmesan too hard
Post by: mavmd on February 01, 2013, 08:37:44 PM
I worked open 2 more of the parms and these have some voids in the middle of the cheese.  Is this a problem with the cutting of the curds, overcooking, not pressing enough?  No mold or anything and it tastes like a parm just extremely mild and chewy like rubber. I did not add lipase to the first 6 and this one is only 6 months along.
Title: Re: parmesan too hard
Post by: margaretsmall on February 01, 2013, 09:37:31 PM
mikemd -I've got a Sunbeam vacuumer and I'm happy with that.   Cost about A$200 with  two rolls of plastic. Useful for things other than cheese. No doubt cheaper in US, everything in Australia costs more than everywhere else.
mavmd - Someone more expert will have to advise on this, as its not happened to me (yet). Posting what you actually did when you made the cheese would be helpful.
PS are mikemd and mavmd the same person? :)
Title: Re: parmesan too hard
Post by: bbracken677 on February 02, 2013, 12:08:42 AM
I worked open 2 more of the parms and these have some voids in the middle of the cheese.  Is this a problem with the cutting of the curds, overcooking, not pressing enough?  No mold or anything and it tastes like a parm just extremely mild and chewy like rubber. I did not add lipase to the first 6 and this one is only 6 months along.

I would assume (depending on what age you cut at) that this is 2 potential problems: 1) too much moisture left in cheese     2) not enough pressure while pressing

if you have managed to work your curds into rice sized pieces and have expelled enough moisture and have aged appropriately then you should not have moisture issues and the void would be as a result of a combination of too much moisture as well as not enough pressure.
Title: Re: parmesan too hard
Post by: Boofer on February 02, 2013, 01:44:49 AM
I used olive oil after 3 wks on all of them.  I guess I will try the vacuum bag method.  When I say rock hard I mean rock.  You can't really eat the cheese.  I just wanted to make sure that I was not doing something wrong making it.  Thanks
Mike, would you please update your profile to include where you are? Thanks.

-Boofer-
Title: Re: parmesan too hard
Post by: mavmd on February 02, 2013, 02:11:10 AM
Yes mikemd and mavmd are me. Just different computer. I did the Rikki recipe and have followed the same recipe the same way everytime.  So if my cheese is too hard because there is not enough moisture but there is too much moisture so it forms voids.  The pressure is the same as she states 12 lbs then 25 lbs flipping every 15 min for the first hour then 4 hours.  Cooking 93-131 degrees in 20 minutes.  Curd size always the same.  So would it be appropriate to try to decrease the cook time and add more pressure?  Or should I just continue doing what I normally do and then vacuum bag it? I live in NC. Will update the profile, sorry.
Title: Re: parmesan too hard
Post by: Boofer on February 02, 2013, 06:56:39 AM
Yes mikemd and mavmd are me. Just different computer.
Um, why not just one identity? :-\

The pressure is the same as she states 12 lbs then 25 lbs flipping every 15 min for the first hour then 4 hours.  Cooking 93-131 degrees in 20 minutes.  Curd size always the same.  So would it be appropriate to try to decrease the cook time and add more pressure?  Or should I just continue doing what I normally do and then vacuum bag it?
You didn't say what size mould you were using or what volume of milk/curds you were dealing with. Seems like a Parm should have more pressure applied to knit together the small curds. Possibly less cooking time would help retain some moisture. I wouldn't be in a hurry to vacuum bag the cheese. It should have a natural rind and then possibly be oiled or waxed.

-Boofer-
Title: Re: parmesan too hard
Post by: george on February 02, 2013, 11:32:25 AM
Ummm ... is the parm recipe one of the one's in Ricki's book that has a typo?  I know there's one in a Swiss type, thought there was at least one more.  Could it have been the parm?
Title: Re: parmesan too hard
Post by: mavmd on February 02, 2013, 06:36:28 PM
No, I just use the online recipe from the website and follow the directions as written.  It is for three gallons of milk and the e28 mold 7"Hx5.5"W.  I will try to delete the other identity when at work.  I have no idea why there are two identities.  Probably registered twice and forgot my password and username.
Title: Re: parmesan too hard
Post by: margaretsmall on February 02, 2013, 08:47:41 PM
Not split personality then? :)
Title: Re: parmesan too hard
Post by: mavmd on February 02, 2013, 10:07:40 PM
I keep telling him to stop making cheese and stick to bread but he will not listen.
Title: Re: parmesan too hard
Post by: Boofer on February 03, 2013, 03:20:18 PM
I keep telling him to stop making cheese and stick to bread but he will not listen.
;D

-Boofer-
Title: Re: parmesan too hard
Post by: feather on May 24, 2018, 07:22:35 PM
This is an old thread. The hardness of parmesan.

Reading up on large 100 lb parmesan wheels they age and lose approximately 17% of their moisture. So when I make it, and I've made it 15 times, it can age for a few months in the cheese cave. When it has lost 17% of its moisture, then either wax it or vacuum pack it. This worked well for me and I make 4 gallon batches.

I prefer the parmesan to be softer for easier shredding/grating. For this, I dry it for a week or so, then wax or vacuum pack it. The only issue with this 'wetter' parmesan is that it will mold easier too, so keep it frozen or in the refrigerator after shredding/grating if you do it in advance of using it.
Title: Re: parmesan too hard
Post by: Andrew Marshallsay on May 25, 2018, 07:39:44 AM
A point which has been touched on in a few of the replies and I think is an important one, is that the cheeses that most amateurs make are significantly smaller than commercial cheeses. This means that they will dry out faster.
We may want to stay true to the traditional methods for the cheese, be it Parmesan or something else, but this is not realistic with small wheels. That is where the waxing or vacuum bagging, as Feather and others have suggested, becomes important.
Title: Re: parmesan too hard
Post by: River Bottom Farm on May 25, 2018, 03:48:24 PM

How do you measure or decide what is 17% of the moisture? Do you weight the cheese and let 17% of the total weight go or do you calculate the moisture level to start? Just wondering how you do it?
Title: Re: parmesan too hard
Post by: feather on May 25, 2018, 06:33:10 PM

How do you measure or decide what is 17% of the moisture? Do you weight the cheese and let 17% of the total weight go or do you calculate the moisture level to start? Just wondering how you do it?

Yes that is exactly what I do. I measure the weight going in, calculate the weight at 17% less, when it weighs that and it will have a hard rind, it is ready to vacuum pack or wax. I find that even though the rind is rock hard when sealing it up, it softens from the moisture in the middle and at the end of aging, it is uniformly moist enough, not rock hard and I'm able to grate it.

I wouldn't know how to measure the moisture level to start with.