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CHEESE TYPE BOARDS (for Cheese Lovers and Cheese Makers) => RENNET COAGULATED - Hard Grana (Grating Cheesee) => Topic started by: Cartierusm on January 10, 2009, 05:48:10 AM
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So I'm going to go for the big daddy and make a 15 gallon batch of Parmesan. I bought the Good milk Past but not Homogenized. I cleaned 2 trader joes out of all that type of milk, I told them I was going to take a bath with it like Janet Jackson does.
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Thanks for the morning laugh!
That is a lot of milk, 15 US gallons = 57 liters!
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Cha-Ching!!!!
Let me know how it goes...
What brine are you planning on?
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Wayne, A salt brine...LOL I always go for the heavy brine on a Parmesan. So for every 2 pounds 12 hours, that would be about 4 days. I'll see how it looks after that.
John, what's a liter? LOL
Wayne yes it was expensive, just under $100. But it made a difference, check out the pics of the break..perfect, firm but not to firm no lost butter fat, beautiful. The only problem was shaking up 30 1/2 gallon containers to disperse the cream, boy are my arms tired.
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Looks great so far Carter 8), congrats ;).
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Lots of work and definately a learning curve. With this much milk and whey and curds you absolutely need an auto stirrer. Thank god I already built one but the new motor hasn't come yet. This time I just let the curds matt, I didn't a long enough spoon to reach the bottom of the vat (keg). So I had to go in with my arms and break up the curds until it got too hot.
Advice from anyone would be helpful. After I took buckets of whey out to get to the curds for pressing I noticed the large mass of curds were starting to melt a little and were a little stringy. The only problem I saw was maybe they got a little too hot at the bottom but I checked with my thermometer the temp of the whey still left and it was only 122, for parmesan you heat up to 124 which is hot enoght so maybe that's normal.
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Well as I have never made this cheese I don't have any advice for you.
So have you got this one in the press yet. Can't wait to see that.
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Here is the pressed cheese.
I'm not super happy with the outcome. First off the curds were very firm and matted together when I put them into the press this and not doing right away when it was super hot might have been part of the problem, but I don't think professionals can transfer the curd hot as they have to mill the curds. Next time I'll have my auto stirrer and that should alleviate all the clumping. The curds should be loose and small when going into the press. Second the cheese was very rubbery and kind of fragile. I think the rubbery part may be due to, too long cooking and cooking at too high a temp. I know what I'll do next time so that's good. The cheese is fragile maybe only in the respect that I'm working with such a large wheel, maybe that's why large parmesan wheels usually swell on their sides and bulg out. It smelled very much like parmesan and was slightly marbled with dark and light spots. On first examination I think I may have messed up with the heat and cooking time but only time will tell. We'll see how it tastes in a year.
P.S. The little hairs poking up are from the holes in the follower I cut them off before sticking this in the brine.
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Well you may not be perfectly happy but I think that is the best looking new born cheese I have seen to date :o! Gorgeous, both top and bottom, in fact I'd even :-* :-* that baby's bottom ;D!
OK a little bit like Hellraiser (http://videogazette.files.wordpress.com/2007/10/hellraiser.jpg) (don't click on link if U don't like horror movies, I've never seen it and don't want to), but I understand the holes in your two followers for whey drainage.
So proud Dad, how big is it, have you named it and what are your plans for brining?
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LOL, I think CH is gunning for my job as comedian. Don't waste your time Hellraiser was good when it first came out but when I start to watch it now it is soooo cheesy (no pun inteneded) I can't stand it.
It's name is Parmesan #5. I hope it tastes good. It's a long time to wait, that's one of the reason I got out of making cheese back in 2001, but I'm going to last this time.
It's 10" in diameter and just under 4" high. Smaller than I thought, I worked up figures from the mass of the other parmesan and it should have been 6" high, but who knows. I'm going to take hint from Bev People and brine 12 hours for every 2 pounds, so I'm going for 90 hours or 4 days.
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Cartier,
Looks great. The one I did in late december is about the same in raw milk input (50 Liters), I have a large onion wisk (about .75 meters long) used in industrial kitchens, that did the stiring for me. It is also very good at the early stages in breaking the curds up into the rice size pieces that you need.
My yield was slightly more (10inch x 7 inch wheel), perhaps this is because I did not press as hard as you (nice logo pressed into yours). I will take an updated picture when I get back home and post it. It seems to be aging OK, at least no apparent problems yet.
I too brined for 4 days. Although those results wont be clear for several months when it is ready to be tested.
Gerrit
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Carter..
That is one fantastic looking cheese. I'm beyond impressed. How long do you think it will be before I start begging you to make me one of those custom followers? If you keep coming up with all of these cool toys, you're really going to have my wife ticked off at both of us!
Honestly, great job. I'm envious.
Dave
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Thanks Dave, I'm still working out the kinks in the followers. It looks good but I'm sure I made a mistake with over cooking or something, this was really rubbery, but then again I don't remember what my other Parmesan felt like and they were smaller so I think after a couple weeks and the rind starts to form I'll have a better idea of what the texture will be.
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Carter as much as I love the bee, maybe for a cheese it should be a cow??
One great looking cheese there too by the way. A successful press seems to be elluding me at the moment.
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Oh make no mistake pressing is the hardest part. Mine has cracks in it and the stupid part is I just didn't examine it right out of the press to see if they were there or if they formed while in the brine. For this kind of cheese it makes no difference.
Yes a cow would be more logical but I use that same bee for all my products I make to eat. Plus a cow is so cliche!
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Yes I realise that a cow is cliche, but a bee?? To me it denotes that there is honey or some such product in the produce, which obviously there isn't. How about a clover leaf of a thistle flower which denote a pasture then? I don't know, a bee just doesn't seem right ???
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LOL, i'll take that into consideration. I could do a side profile of me.
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I could do a side profile of me.
That's it!! That's the one that got my vote. So lets see it then. lol
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Face or whole body ;D?
Another idea is your avatar of your dog?
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See Tea great minds do think alike, CH I was thinking that too awhile ago, but I like uniformity and I use the bee for all my eating stuff I make.
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Okay, here's my vote....
Put the St. Louis Cardinals "STL" emblem on your cheese. You can't go wrong with the red birds.
If that's not to your liking how about the St. Louis Blues "Blue Note". Another good choice.
If that doesn't work for you, you could use the St. Louis Rams emblem but after how they played this year you might just want to find a graphic of a lamb and use it instead. :-)
If none of these sound good, I will throw out the only Illinois team that I like: The Fighting Illini of Champaign Urbana. How can you NOT like that choice??
Dave
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OK lets get this thread back on topic.
Carter, any pics of and how has the brining been going with your bad boy that you imaginatively named "Parmesan #5"?
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Why was that Parmesan #5 imaginative, it's the truth...or did I miss something. Anyway I'll take pics tomorrow when I'm making 15 Gallon Parmesan Batch #6. I took SayCheese's advice and bought some Bayview Farms Milk at Lucky's. SayCheese, Lucky had it on sale for $2.50 a gallon, they also carry Berkeley farms (expensive) and Sunnyside (which I think is the same dairy as Bayview). Although you said you didn't seem to need Calcium Chloride in it I'm going to use it anyway, I might try another parmesan with the same milk and no calcium and note the results and see if I notice any difference. I'll start a new thread in the Parm section or as I like to call it, Home.
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Nope cheese wasn't imaginative, I was trying to be sarcastic that you hadn't given your huge cheese a more interesting name than "Parmesan #5".
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Oh, you meant George....LOL I know I'm weird but that would be over the top if I started naming them. Remember once you name them it's harder to get rid of them.