Liquid Animal Rennet VS French Calf Rennet problems

[AnnDee]

Looks good Danbo! It all works out in the end.

[Danbo]

Thanks AnnDee. :)

The last picture was after the first 15 minutes of light pressing under the whey.

Now it is in the press...

I'm excited to see how the final cheese will be. The make didn't quite go as planned but I think that it will become cheese... ;)

[AeonSam]

So,

I spoke to Yoav (My fear of imposing was totally unfounded) and he said that "French Calf Rennet" is slightly weaker than most Single Strength Animal Rennet. The reason being is the European/French philosophy of cheesemaking is to draw flavors out of the milk much slower. He gave the example of bread making where a person will make a fast rising, dense bread by excessive amounts of yeast and sugar, but to get real flavor a person uses much smaller amounts of yeast and ingredients and slowly develops whatever is in the grains.

So, he gave me a list of factors that could have caused such a fast floc time and firm curds. He concluded that it was a fluke and something wrong with the milk itself. The other interesting thing that he said was that the perfect target temp for Flora Danica is 86 Degrees F.

Sam

[Danbo]

Interesting (and sorry that i hijacked you thread)... :)

[AeonSam]

No problem.

It's all about the cheese  8)

[Gregore]

Danbo .

Your 14 minute floc is perfect for most cheeses go back to the 10 ml.

another option is to wait a little longer before adding rennet to let the culture drop the ph a little lower , this helps the rennet Work better thus you might be able to use less .

If you have a ph meter wait until the ph drops .2 instead of .1  if you are using a time based recipe add 50 percent more wait time.  You might have milk with a great ph buffering abilities , thus the ph is too high for the rennet to work well when waiting the normal timing .

If it still bothers you try some new milk brands 

[Danbo]

Gregore, thank you for your advise - I think that you might be on to something... I have a very good and precise PH-meter (resulution down to 0.001). Last time I noticed no change in PH from fresh milk and just before adding rennet. PH was 6.63.

Is it good practice to wait until a 0.1-0.2 PH drop before adding rennet regardless of the time it takes?

It sounds logical that the milk PH has to be optimal for the rennet to work.

Why does some milk buffer better than other regarding PH?

Sorry for all the questions. I have made cheese from hundreds of liters of milk - now I just want to be better and have more understandig of the processes involved...

:-) Danbo

[Gregore]

Usually you wait for a .1 change but I suspect your milk is good milk and thus does not readily want to change ph at first. If this true then my understanding is that it has extra buffers in the form of  casein , calcium phosphate and minerals  each of these  has the ability to absorb  acid  (positive hydrogen ions)  and thus you ph takes some time to start changing. Next time you make cheese try recording the ph every 15 minutes or so and make a graph by putting time along the bottom and ph 6.8 at the top left  then start putting the points on that you record every 15 minutes until you start your cutting of the curd .

I am sure you will see that the acid drops very very slowly at first  probably more slowly than normal  at least for milk in this country .  And then becomes a  some what steady slope downwards

I use raw milk so I have some of the same issues ,  the first time I made cheese it took 2 hrs for the ph to drop .2

so I make a mother starter each time I make cheese . I take my dvi cultures and add them to  1 or more jars of milk ( 1 jar each for thermo and meso  if both are being used in the cheese )    . I use 1.5 percent of the total amount of milk that they will be added to . I let them sit in the oven with the light on over night  , thermo is put closer to the light .  This helps jump start the culture and seems to take care of all the extra buffering .

I should add that I believe  the ph buffer it is way more complex than my description here

[Danbo]

Wow!!!

It would really make a big difference in my makes if it's just a matter of letting the culture have some more time to work before adding the rennet.

:) :) :)

And if it is caused by the milk being a good quality... Great! I use the best organic milk that I can get my hands on. Pasteurized but not homogenized or fat standardized from cows that are treated well...

I just got a new PH meter. I had an Extech PH100 but it stopped working. Now I have a Hach Sension1. The new meter is very precise and reliable but the probe is not flat as on the Extech...

It would be great to still be able to meassure PH throughout the entire process from milk to press...

How do I use the new PH meter for this - is it even possible? I cant just punch it in the curds or cheese...

I really appreciate your help!

:-) Danbo

[Gregore]

first here is a link I found be typing effects of ph on rennet  into google.

https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00895427/document

Just remember that even though rennet works best at ph below 6 , most  cheeses are hooped before that .

If you want to measure through the whole process then up until you put the cheese in the mold you can still measure curd , after that it will leave a mark . So just get a small mold a few inches across and make a mini cheese that will be poked with the meter .
( I too have a non flat meter ..... mine is pointed and about 8 mm long.)
I sometimes i make the sacrifice cheese and sometimes I just accept a mark on the  main cheese.

It usually closes up well enough even up to poking just before brining , at least with the pointed one .
Do you have a better picture of the probe ?

[Danbo]

Hi Gregore,

Thanks for the link. A bit too complicated for me but I stumbled over a graph that shows the correlation between PH and coagulation time. It seems that it is possible to reduce my floc.time quite a bit by letting the PH drop a little before adding the rennet. I can't wait to try it next time I make cheese.

I have taken two better pictures of the probe head. I would be a little worried to poke it into the cheese. The probe is quite expensive and I would be afraid to break it.

Does it make sense to just meassure the whey PH up until the curd is put in the mould (difference between curd and whey PH)?

It would be nice to be able to meassure when to brine but I'm not sure that it is possible with my new PH meter...

:) Danbo

[awakephd]

Whey pH will lag behind the curd pH by around .2, if I remember correctly. But better check that with others here -- my memory may be faulty!

[AnnDee]

I am dying to get the Hanna halo bluetooth PH meter but they don't ship to Asia...
Anyone knows any online shop that ship worldwide?

[Danbo]

Awakephd: Thanks.

[Gregore]

I think you will be forced to take a piece of curd and mash it then mix with distilled water , this should give you a correct reading .  Though I have never tried .