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CHEESE TYPE BOARDS (for Cheese Lovers and Cheese Makers) => RENNET COAGULATED - Brine Ripened (Aegean Sea) => Topic started by: riha on September 16, 2009, 11:48:38 PM
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Well, perhaps not great, but experiment anyway.
I have made 3 batches of Feta and have been very pleased with the results. I have read several Feta recipes and they have basically three different methods of salting the cheese before storing: sprinkling, brining, and skipping the salting step.
As a curious cheese scientist student I want to know how the different salting methods effect the outcome. So I decided to divide my next batch into three different ways of salting. Furthermore, I will store half of each in strong brine and half in mild brine.
The recipe I used:
ingredients- 10 liters fresh milk
- 1/4 tsp MM4001 mesophilic starter
- 1/2 tsp mild lipase
- 10 ml liquid rennet
procedure- Heat milk to 32°C
- Add the starter and the lipase, stir well. Let the milk ripen for 60 minutes.
- Add the rennet, stir well. Let the curd form 60 minutes.
- Test for clean break. Cut into 1cm cubes.
- Let the curds heal for five minutes.
- Heal for 30 minutes stirring every 10 minutes.
- Let the curds settle for 5 minutes.
- Pour into a colander lined with a cheesecloth. Tie the cheesecloth to a bag and hang for 4 hours.
- Turn the cheese. Let it hang for 24 hours.
- Cut the cheese into smaller pieces, salt and store in brine.
After hanging I divided the cheese (1650g) into three not-so-equal portions. My guesstimation missed a bit and I ended with one 400g block and two bigger ones. No matter.
The first one (exhibit A) I chopped into 3cm cubes and stored half of it in 14% brine and half of it in 8% brine. No additional salting.
The second one (exhibit B) I dumped into a saturated brine for 5hours and 30 minutes. This estimate is based on Peter Dixon's “8 hours per pound of cheese”. I had two 330 gram blocks. After brining, I chopped them into 3cm cubes and stored in 8% and 14% brines.
The third (exhibit C) one chopped into 3cm cubes (surprise), and salted by sprinkling the surfaces with salt. I used about 10 grams of salt for 400 grams of cheese. These cubes were left for 3 days in room temperature to mature and then stored in 8% and 14% brines.
Now they are all happily in their brines, waiting to mature. I was thinking I'd test the taste/structure every two weeks. Starting now.
Pics:
Everything ready.
Handy spoon holder & too much milk.
Curds cut.
Draining.
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More pics.
After 4 hours of hanging.
After turning and 24 hours of hanging.
In 6 pieces.
In brine.
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Still more pics.
Salted by sprinkling.
All the cheeses in a row. Two rows actually.
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Very nice lookking cheese and a really good write up there gal!
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Just to set things straight, am a male. Even if I do have a ponytail :)
Or did I you mean I should get a life?
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LOL That's twice now I got the genders wrong. Sorry! I have a cousin named Ryha and she's a girl. Silly me. I'm sorry!
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riha, great review, looking forward to your tasting results!
You used "fresh milk" assume it was cow's milk as you added lipase? Also, was it raw or store bought past & homogenized milk?
Like your hanger and especially your spoon/ladle holder!
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Really wonferful looking feta! I had the same questions as John about the milk.
Christy
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Sorry, I mixed up the terms. I meant raw milk when I said fresh milk. It's organic milk from a nearby farm. No pasteurization or homogenization. And from a cow, yes. Unfortunately no goat or sheep milk available here.
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I use the recipe from Fias Farms website. I use store bought milk with calcium chloride and after it sits in my rubbermaid container for about five days I put the pieces in a gallon size ziplock and throw the bag in the freezer. This has worked out well. Ginger
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What's a rubbermaid? I have never heard the word.
Also, do you freeze your feta? Those ziplock bags sound like a good idea. I'm always out of glass jars, even if I like them for all preservation purposes.
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riha
Rubbermaid is a brand name for those plastic products like bowls and boxes and everything else made today from plastic. A big company here in the states that's been around forever. They've all but put Tupperware (another plastic bowl company that speciallized in home party sales) out of business.
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After the cheese is hung for 24 hours, I cut it into cubes and it sits in the container for 5 days. I drain it every morning and evening and after the 5th day I put the cubes in the plastic bag and put the bag in the freezer. I don't brine the feta. It thaws out quickly and is always handy when I need it.
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Debi, thanks. We have Tupperware here as well, but Rubbermaid was a mystery.
Tomhog, I thought you froze a bags full of brine and Feta. That's more logical. But why don't you brine your Feta? I think it's very handy. Ready to eat all the time one piece at a time and (practically) never spoils.
Do you make soft or crumbly Feta?
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It is crumbly when it thaws out. I guess when I started making feta I was very leary of the brine and didn't want to worry about the cheese dissinigrating in it. I froze it and that is the way I always do it now. Maybe the next batch I make I will try the brine.
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Okay, here's some results. Time flies when you're having fun and this Feta got to the age of four weeks before the first taste. For some reason it feels my cheddars and goudas are not aging as fast as the rest of the world.
Anyway. Opened all the cans today and took test bites out of every one. There was a very direct correlation between saltiness and hardness. The saltier cheeses were harder.
All cheeses in 8% brine were softer than their counterparts in 14% brine. Also the batch that had not been salted, just dropped into the brine was a bit softer than the other batches. The one salted by soaking in saturated brine was hardest and also saltiest.
There was no other difference in taste or structure. (Except in one jar where there seemed to be some blue mold and the cheese had a slight taste of it). I didn't really expect any differences in taste the recipe being the same. I did think the structures would have been a bit more varying. All the cheeses taste very good and beat most shop-bought stuff hands down.
This being said, they are all still too salty for my taste. I rinse them before use but I'd really like a feta that wouldn't be so salty but would still be solid and crumbly enough to stay in cubes when I use it in a pizza or salad.
Today they made an excellent salad and now they are back in my basement for further maturing.
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Morning Riha, I cant' remember if I said this earlier, but traditionally fetta is stored in a 12-15% brine solution. If the cheese is too salty for your taste, just soak in milk for an hour or so before using, this will draw out some of the salt.
Glad to see that the experiment was worth it for you.
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I've read this advice before from this forum but the problem is that I don't really want to soak my cheese in milk before using. Call me silly :) I accept rinsing it under running water, which doesn't really do anything to the saltiness of the cheese, just gets rid of the brine.
Do you know why it's soaking in milk, not water that works? At least that's what's recommended here often.
All experiments that leave me edible cheese, are good experiments. I'm wondering what to do with the one with a mold problem. Sort of blue feta. Weird.
I was thinking of trying to make firmer curd by either cooking a bit longer/hotter or draining longer. Of course there is the problem of how low can you drop the brine concentration without compromising the shelf life of the cheese.
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Riha, great experiment and interesting results, so in general 1) lower the brine % salt the softer the cheese and vice versa and 2) the one pre-soaked in sat brine was the hardest.
I'm with you, seems wrong to soak in milk to reduce saltiness. Not wrong in that it doesn't work, just wrong in that I don't feel good about discarding that milk and that's not what you do with Feta's from store.
I think the control of the hardness needs to come in the cheese making stage, not so much in the salting/brining. My Feta's are also too soft whereas Tea were initially too hard. Maybe somewhere in there is the clue.
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Nice thread Riha. Very informative.
I think the saltiness is what I don't like about feta. A few bites and I feel like I've been hiking through the desert for hours.
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I like feta very much, but mine seems to be a lot saltier than any shop-bought variety. Same thing with halloumi. I know they are supposed to be salty and I like them that way but too much is too much.
John, nice to hear I'm not alone with my opinions. What comes to your conclusion number two, I think it's just the fact that the pre-soaked was the saltiest. I have no way of controlling how much salt is absorbed in brine soaking compared to dry salting. So I guess I would just say lower the salt %, softer the cheese.
Quest continues. These made an excellent feta-paprika pizza yesterday. It's awesome to make a pizza using cheese you have made yourself!
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The stuff in stores sometimes comes in a vac pack with a little brine in the pac I wonder if you mixed the brine and just poured a little in a bag and sealed it, if if would be enough to brine the cheese?
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Another key to saltiness is how much extra room you have around the cheese for brine. The cheese should fit the storage container snuggly, then just fill around with brine. It shouldn't be swimming in brine.
CH with my recipe I have found the more I play with the curd during cooking, the harder the resulting cheese. It I only turn the curd twice during cooking, (IE: once every hour) the result is a lovely creamy cheese, which personally, I prefer.
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Those are lovely fetas Tea what's in them?
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Chopped basil and garlic.
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Ahhh a girl after my own heart!
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It's getting to that time were I need to make some more fetta, so I should do this one again. They disappeared super quick.
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I can see why!
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Tea, you said:
CH with my recipe I have found the more I play with the curd during cooking, the harder the resulting cheese. It I only turn the curd twice during cooking, (IE: once every hour) the result is a lovely creamy cheese, which personally, I prefer.
After letting the freshly cut curds rest, I only cook for about 30 minutes at 32°C/90°F, how long and at what temp are you cooking for and are you still using raw cow's milk? Thanks, John.
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Mine comes to the same temp 32C, 60-90 mins to set, then turn over gently every hour for two hours, then drain whey. It is during this period if I play with the curd that the result is a harder cheese.
Yes, if I can get it I use raw milk, otherwise it is the Mungully which is pasteurized only.
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I made a 2 gallon batch of feta with goat's milk a few days ago using the Fias recipe: Hang for 24 hours, cut into chunks, salt them and leave in a covered container for 3 days at room temp. Today I put them into brine with a little CaCl. They are firmer so far than any other batch I've made. My last attempt turned to mush in the brine. I'm hoping firming them up first helps.
Pam
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Apparently if you make your brine out of the whey, it can reduce/iliminate the "melting".
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Thanks, I'll try that next time.