Gruyere does anyone cook at 110 and then raise temp to 130

[tnbquilt]

I love to read recipes. In my Gruyere recipe I cook it at 122 for 30 minutes, after I get it there. I have several recipes where they say to raise it to 110 and then during the last 15 minutes you raise it to 130 real fast. Does anyone do this? And what does it do to the cheese?

My recipe comes out really good, but I can't leave anything alone. Since Olivia shared her year old Gruyere I know it's supposed to be a year old now, because it is so much better. But at the same time I'm reading a book with old recipes in it and they made the cheese this way, so I started looking on the internet.

Any thoughts on that? I think that one time Al (Alpkäserei) posted something about raising to one temperature and waiting awhile and then raising it some more, but I don't remember which cheese we were discussing.

[Alpkäserei]

Gruyere is a very standard Alpine style. Not really anything special.

So we would warm it to about 91 degrees or something in that range (this depends on air temperature, humidity, weather conditions...) for adding the rennet. Then after it sets, the curd is cut and stirred for some time, we will VERY SLOWLY raise the temperature. I don't know who would say to raise the temperature quick, but that is not good. It will cause the curd to contract and might scald it so it won't ever knit right.

I use Celsius and there we say that for the first 10 minutes we should raise the temperature by 10 degrees. So that would be nearly 20 degrees F meaning after 10 minutes, your cheese should be like 105 degrees (because you will have lost some temperature before heating it back) then after that you aim to hit 122 after another 20 to 30 minutes. I can see where this might be taken by someone to mean like you posted. The goal, however, is to stress that at the beginning we start slow and gradually put on more heat. We have to ease the curd into the whole process.

Here is is very important to establish a few targets. Pick an exact temperature (like 122) to heat to and an exact time to reach that temperature (somewhere from 30 to 50 minutes I think is the standard for gruyere) so say you pick 40 minutes as an example. But be very consistent with this time target because more than anything else it defines what your final cheese will be. Longer times will make a harder cheese, shorter times a softer.

[Stinky]

Gruyere is a very standard Alpine style. Not really anything special.

So we would warm it to about 91 degrees or something in that range (this depends on air temperature, humidity, weather conditions...) for adding the rennet. Then after it sets, the curd is cut and stirred for some time, we will VERY SLOWLY raise the temperature. I don't know who would say to raise the temperature quick, but that is not good. It will cause the curd to contract and might scald it so it won't ever knit right.

I use Celsius and there we say that for the first 10 minutes we should raise the temperature by 10 degrees. So that would be nearly 20 degrees F meaning after 10 minutes, your cheese should be like 105 degrees (because you will have lost some temperature before heating it back) then after that you aim to hit 122 after another 20 to 30 minutes. I can see where this might be taken by someone to mean like you posted. The goal, however, is to stress that at the beginning we start slow and gradually put on more heat. We have to ease the curd into the whole process.

Here is is very important to establish a few targets. Pick an exact temperature (like 122) to heat to and an exact time to reach that temperature (somewhere from 30 to 50 minutes I think is the standard for gruyere) so say you pick 40 minutes as an example. But be very consistent with this time target because more than anything else it defines what your final cheese will be. Longer times will make a harder cheese, shorter times a softer.

Hmm, so you're saying it's not a huge deal, but rather somewhat expected, that the temperature will drop and you don't have to be overly careful about maintaining it at just the right temp?

[qdog1955]

The recipe I have been using----starts at 90 degrees-----slowly raising to 126 to 130 ( lower range for Jersey, higher for Holstein ) in a 40 to 60 minute time frame----my last one crept to 130 degrees in 45 min.---I was shooting for Alps 126 to 128----but the cheese turned out wonderful.
Qdog

[tnbquilt]

My last one was wonderful also, but after I read a few people stating to raise the temp like that I wondered what it did for you. I understand what Al is saying and how that could have been misinterpreted so people wrote down to raise the temp quickly at the end. I'm glad I didn't try it!