I opened a 4.5 month old gouda yesterday. Everything about it (texture, taste, moisture, salt, flexibility, meltability) is spot on! According to my notes, I overpressed by about 0.02 PH, so I kind of caught it on time.
This is my standard make, except for one attention to detail I tried on this one. It seems to have worked (see bellow).
Milk 14 days from expiration @ 1.1 P:F Ratio
17.7 litres
Millk PH 6.74
Added annato 12 drops
Start @ 87F
1/4 tsp MM100 + 1/4 tsp Aroma B
Ripen 30 mins
3/4 tsp CaCl2
3/4 tsp calf rennet
x3 floc = 46 minutes
cut 1/2"
Whey PH 6.62
stir 15 mins and settle 5 mins
drain 5.7 litres (1/3 original milk content)
add 134F water until 95F in 5 minutes, stirring continually
stir another 5 mins
add 134F water until 100F in 5 minutes
Stir at 100F for another 40 minutes
Whey PH 6.52
drain to 3" above curd level (not much of a drain)
Now here's what I did something new: I read that for a pre-press under whey to work properly to avoid excessive eye formation, the curds must not get out of the whey for even a few seconds. So I meticulously scooped most of the curds into the mould while under whey. Only te last 3 scoops of curd got out of the whey for a second or two.
press under whey 5lbs for 15 minutes
6 additional presses from 1PSI to 3.7 PSI in 3.5 hours
Whey PH 5.38, Curd PH 5.18 (just a tad too low)
weight 2,044g
Brined at 12C in 22% brine for 15.5 hours (flipped half way)
dried 2 days at 12C, RH average 76%
cream coated and aged 3 weeks at 10C, RH average 82%
vac sealed and aged another 4 months.
I'm pretty certain the care I took into not allowing the curds to leave the whey prior to the pre-press had something to do with the lack of eye formation. My other makes were significantly more "hole-y".
With this one I learned that overshooting PH targets by a minuscule margin isn't something worth worrying about.