My first post on this forum and a couple of noob questions

[OzzieCheese]

I’ve read this post several times and I’d thought I’d jump in and I’m going to make several assumptions. Please correct me if I’m wrong. The first assumption is that you used P&H store bought milk and two the meso you used, might not have been sufficient for the task. I make these assumptions based solely on you difficulty with the curd.
Firstly the milk. While it is possible to make cheese with this milk you need to make sure you get the best you can. One that is processed as little as possible and is fresh with a use by date of at least 10 days in the future.
I’m going to assume also that you didn’t add Calcium Chloride. CaCl2 is necessary to help repair some of the damage that pasteurisation does to the milk. If the milk is ultra-pasteurised then I would not make any sort of cheese with it as not matter what you do to it it won’t make a good curd. The next is the fat content where the milk producers will adulterate the milk with added lactate and spinning of the cream. The purpose of the rennet is the create a structure that encapsulates both the fat and moisture and over processed milk doesn’t have all the necessary ingredients left to do so.
By the look of the curds and your description of how fragile they were I would assume that the culture you used was A. insufficient in quantity and B. Not effective in producing the necessary pH drop over the course of the cheese making process. In order to set up for maturing the pH needs to be low enough to protect the cheese during the initial stages. There is a lot to write about just this stage but I’ll keep this post to the curds.
Before you cut the coagulated milk you should make sure that you have reached a clean break. With the fast coagulation time of 7 minutes I would think this was not sufficient to create the proper structure in milk. Or the milk had an original pH that was already too low - another sign of old milk BTW - and was way more acidic than fresh milk. And if this was the case then I’m afraid there was not.much you could do to save them.

[OzzieCheese]

I know I’ve skipped over several details but, I would suggest that you obtain a way to measure pH. Even if to only measure the pH at several key stages. Another common practice is adding extra cream and while this is fine, the overall starting conditions of the milk still need to be present otherwise the added cream - fats - are not captured in the curds.
A. The starting pH of the milk should be around 6.7 and if you stick to one milk source you can track that through the seasons.
B. The culture needs to drop the pH by at least .05 - this is subjective but knowing how well you culture works is key. Also there needs to be enough live bacteria in the culture to create a healthy population of Lactic acid bacteria. One of the reasons why home made meso cultures are so inconsistent.
C.  For this style of cheese the pH at hooping - putting into the molds - needs to be about 6.4. You see by my last make I didn’t quiet make the lower pH markers which is a good indication that culture stock was tired (they were over 5 years old).
D.  After the resting period in the molds, usually overnight, the final pH needs to be about 4.7 to protect the cheese and setup the conditions that make the cheese go gooey. And that is a story in itself.
I would recommending investing in a good pH meter in order to get consistency in the process. In my first few Malembert attempts I was using pH strips but were not accurate enough to measure the intermediate steps but were enough to measure the start and finishing conditions.

[InTheWoods]

OzzieCheese, yes, I need to get a pH meter, it's next on my list of stuff to get.

Here's the recipe:

1.75 gallon Clover Sonoma Organic Whole Milk.  It's pasteurized and homogenized but it's one of the best local milks in this area.
2 oz mezo frozen mother culture (expanded from New England Cheesemaking mezo)
Rind from Marin French Brie
1/4 tsp CaCl2 diluted in 1/4 cup dechlorinated water
1/4 tsp single strength animal rennet liquid diluted in 1/4 cup dechlorinated water
Diamond Crystal Kosher salt

Heated milk to 90F
Added the CaCl2
Added 2 oz frozen mezo culture
Waited 60 minutes
Added the rennet.
Started floculation test, which yielded a floculation time of 7 min, so 28 more minutes.
Got a clean cut, so cut curds, let rest 5 minutes.
Stirred gently, let rest another 5 minutes.
The curds were very fragile, but filled molds anyway.
30 minutes later flipped the molds and went to bed.

Next morning at 6:00 am flipped the cheese, it was still actively draining.
1:00 pm The cheese still looked very wet, thought about salting it, but decided it was still draining and flipped without salting.
4:30 pm salted the cheese with 1.8% salt.
12:00 pm placed the cheese into plastic container and moved it to the cool garage.

Flipped the cheese for the next 4 days, then moved it to the refrigerator set  to 47F.

The cheese developed slip skin, and I think it was because it had too much moisture.  I should have drained it longer.

I was not surprised as I winged the whole thing, didn't have the proper molds ( I improvised them), used a brie rind instead of Penicillium  and Geo cultures, etc.

The second time I tried it, I used Flora Danica, P. candidum ABL, GEo 13, CaCl2 and rennet, and waited longer for the curd to form and then followed Yoav's advice and drained it in cheesecloth before molding it.  I think I drained it for too long because it turned out too dry, but it was delicious.

As I mentioned, I have had good success subsequently  making soft lactic mold ripened cheeses since then and I have learned a lot, including not rushing draining.  I'll probably try another batch of cam tomorrow.  I'll wait longer to let the curd firm up, then drain it in cheesecloth, but not as long as the second batch.  Hopefully it will be better than either  batch 1 or batch 2.

[OzzieCheese]

Thanks for the directions. I would recommend something about the milk however and that is - if possible ring or write to them and ask if it is ultra Pasteurized. It might say 'Organic' but I have found that having 'Organic' on the label comes with a bit of an overhead. I have found that in order for the producers to make it work financially, as the turn around on the supermarket shelf can be long, they ultra pasteurize the milk. Might be worth a phone call or email. The people I get mine from here in Australia were more than happy to send me their pasteurization temperatures. There might me a few adjustments I would make to the recipe as well.

1. After you add the culture keep the temperature at 30-32 DegC for at least 60 minutes (I use 90 minutes) before adding the rennet.
2. Increase your Floccuation factor to 6 and double check it with a clean break test.
3. After you cut the curd, just gently stir the curds - very gently - a couple of time lifting the curds from the bottom of the pot.
4. Let sit for 15 minutes - this will allow the curds to 'heal'.
5. I wouldn't hang the curds to 'dry out but stir them gently for 15 minutes - and when you get a pH meter it should be around 6.4. if not stir for another 15 minutes.

This will set the curds up for putting in the molds.

[mikekchar]

I just want to reiterate what Mal says.  "Good quality" for someone drinking the milk is different than good quality for use making cheese.  We require the least processing to the milk possible.  It's very common for very high quality organic milk to be second best for cheese making, just for reasons of scale as Mal says.  Things like vat pasteurisation and lack of homogenisation brings with it a pretty high cost and so you may find it impossible to get milk that is organic, good for making cheese and also affordable.  Homogenised milk is incredibly difficult to work with for  hard cheeses, but it's not bad for cheeses where you don't have to stir the curds (and you may actually get better yield due to hanging on to more fat).

One more quick thing: skin slip is generally due to ripening at too high a temperature.  The mold produces ammonia faster than the cheese can absorb it.  Usually you want normal cellar temps until you get full white coverage and then immediately into the normal fridge for long, cool aging.  This slows down the ammonia production and gives you better distribution.  After that it's just a matter of waiting long enough.

[InTheWoods]

Thank you both for your comments.

You might be right about the milk.  The second time I attempted to make cam I made it with regular supermarket milk which was pasteurized and homogenized (but not ultrapasteurized) and the curd was nowhere near as fragile.  It was also about a third the price!

I'll do a gallon batch today and incorporate your suggestions.  Keeping my fingers crossed!

[InTheWoods]

Ok, so I started another batch with this recipe:

1 gallon pasteurized milk
1/8 tsp CaCl2
1/8 tsp rennet
1/8 tsp Flora Danica
1/16 tsp PC ABL
1/64 tsp GC 13

Heated milk to 86F (30C), added CaCl2 and all the cultures.  Let sit for 90 minutes.  Added rennet.  I finally got a flocculation time of 32 minutes.  Yes, the rennet is fresh and kept in the fridge.  I used dechlorinated water to dilute.

My question is, if I use a 6x flocculation time, I need to let it sit another 2.5 hours.  Does this sound right?