Wayne's Cheese: Parm021309

[wharris]

Well I am starting my 1st batch of Parmesan cheese. 

I am still putting my recipe together.  With Carter's help, I have chosen a 6 gallon batch.  (doing 2 batches)
8 gal 2% pasteurized/homogenized
4 gal Whole pasteurized/homogenized

Batch1:
4 gal 2% and 2 gal of whole
3/4 tsp Lipase
3/4 tsp TA 61
3 tbsp CaCl2
1 1/2 tsp of animal renet




Some pictures:




The curd:


After 15 min pressing with 5lb (.39psi)

After 30 min pressing with 10lb .8PSI

After 2 hours of pressing with 15lb (1.2psi)

[Likesspace]

Wayne....
This is actually sort of funny.
Tomorrow you give your first parmesan a try. Tomorrow, I give me first traditional cheddar a try.
Just as you are feeling nervous about the parmesan, I'm feeling nervous about the cheddar.
I have made a few batches of farmhouse cheddar and more than a few batches of stirred curd cheddar but I've never tried the true "cheddaring" steps.
Well now that I have my new PH meter, (thanks for the recommendation on the Hanna model), and information that I got off of Carter's post about the University of Gelph site, (thanks to Carter), I think I'm finally ready to take my cheese making to the next step.
I think you will find that parmesan is a fun cheese to make and hopefully my cheddar will be the same.
I've made exactly two batches of parmesan in my cheese making life and the first was a disaster.
The second attempt seemed to have gone perfectly but of course you have to wait a minimum of 5 months to find out if this truly is the case.
If you have any tips on a "true" cheddar, I'd love to hear them.

Dave

[Cartierusm]

Parm021309, sounds like a Chicago song, "Wayne is sitting on the floor 25 or 6 to 4"

Good luck both of your, Dave and Wayne, what I've learned just recently and reunderstood what my good text books talk about. You don't care what PH is at the beginning or PreRipening stage. You still take the readings but you just ripen by time in your recipe. What I haven't figured out is the part after during cooking when it ripens a lot, do we adjust time to conicide with the changing of the PH. So what this all means is by all means take 10 reading during the making and take explicit notes, but don't worry about reaching target PHs, just make it.

[Cartierusm]

Looks good Wayne.

Choosey Mothers Choose Choozit (jiffy).

[Likesspace]

Carter..
I'm still working on my first traditonal cheddar and I decided to hit my target PH readings at each step.
Actually, by just following the recipe I was pretty close. The only measure I've had to take (so far) was during the secondary cooking stage when I was forced to raise the temp to 104 degrees (from 102 degrees) to retard the culture. This did work nicely at slowing down the PH drop so the reading I did on the university of Gelph paid off.
I am now cheddaring and the PH is dropping nicely. Right now I am about 10 minutes over on my target time but I am not going to mill until I hit the target.
My wife asked what I  was going to do if I didn't reach a target PH at a certain point in the recipe.
My response was that a PH meter is not there to tell you that you are screwing up. It is there to KEEP you from screwing up.
Because of that, even if I did start the next process 10 minutes early, or 10 minutes late, I was still moving to the next step at the proper PH.
Of course you should all listen to me since this is my very first experience at using a PH meter. I'm sure that qualifies me as an expert on the process. 
Honestly, I"m just doing what makes sense in my mind. I could be completely off base here but I've always been one to follow my instincts.

Dave

[Cartierusm]

Good job Dave, seems like your progressing faster than me. NOW WE NEED TO KNOW, what PHs you have on paper and at what stage, then what PH you got at what stage and at that stage if it didn't match your paper what you did. This will be very helpful. Maybe this should be a thread of it's own.

[Likesspace]

Wayne...
Didn't mean to hijack your thread!
I mean to post this in my last response but I had to take a PH reading which turned into milling the curd on my Cheddar.
Your Parmesan is looking great.
It looks as if you've gotten a perfect knit on the curd at this point.
Great work and keep us posted as to how it comes out of the brine.
Thanks for the pics, also.

Dave

[Likesspace]

Okay, like I said, I don't want to hijack this thread but Carter...ummm.....did you really look over the university of Gelph website that you posted (just kidding).
The one thing that I really liked about that site was the recipe section.
They have recipes for Cheddar, Romano, Provolone, Colby, Gouda, Blue and and many others that give the proper PH readings at every step in the process.
Yesterday at work I copied all of the recipes and followed the Cheddar recipe for what I am doing today. It also tells you that if you are having problems at a cetain step you can do "such and such" to remedy it (for instance increasing the cooking heat to retard the culture and slow down acid production).
I've decided that this little PH meter is going to change EVERYTHING that I have done in cheesemaking up to this point.
Yeah, I'm pretty excited right now (imagine that). :-)

Dave

[Cartierusm]

Crap I missed the entire recipe section I think, I haven't look at it in weeks, I guess I missed the best part...I feel stupid. I'll go check it out.

[wharris]

This is looking real good.

6gal of milk yielded 5.11lbs of Parm.

[Likesspace]

Wayne, it's looking fantastic!
Make sure you post some pics once it's out of the brine.
Isn't parmesan a fun cheese to make?
The process seems fairly easy but it is fun.
Of course seemingly easy and great aging are two different things. Hopefully we'll both have luck with our first attempts.

Dave

[Cartierusm]

What's with the teasing, I want more pics!

[wharris]

It is a fun cheese to make.  And I finally got a good curd set.  I had to reduce slighly the CaCl i had to add.

[wharris]

Some picts.   
I pulled them out of the brine to take a picture.

I added a drop of annatto per gal on the second batch. I just don't like bone white cheese.  Also, I opted to not use cheesecloth on the final press on this one...

[Cartierusm]

Looks good seems as though one has Character.