Today, following for the most part the NE Cheesemaking recipe, I made a Tilsit. I did a few things differently in hopes of improving my yield and to get the kind of cheese I am hoping for. My 4 gallon pot does not fit four gallons. So, I had to reduce the amount of milk a bit, thus the odd milk volume. Something to note in this recipe is the cook temps of 90 & 100. Other recipes I have read for Tilsit use temps of 95 and 105.
I am hoping to have something resembling Tilsit. But only time will tell. If you see any issues in the make, let me know!
2 Gallons Raw Cow Milk
1 1/2 gallons + a bit :-) gallons Pasteurized Cow Milk
3/4 packet C201 Thermophilic. My calculations had .9 of a packet but since I am using also raw milk I reduced amount slightly.
3/4 packet Buttermilk Culture
3/32 + 1/64 tsp B Linens
1/2 tsp Rennet. (This is a very low amount of rennet)
Heat the milk to 90F.
Stirred in 1/2 tsp CaCl2 in 1/4 cup distilled H2O
Sprinkled on the cultures and let hydrate for 5 minutes.
Stirred everything together.
Let ripen for ~ 1hour. T=90F
Then mixed in Rennet in 1/4 cup distilled H2O
At 18 minutes the curd was set. I used a factor of ~3 and cut at 60 minutes.
Cut horizontally, let heal 5 minutes.
Cut vertically, let heal 5 minutes. T=88.
Put back into double boiler to raise to 90F
Did a nice easy stir for 20 minutes at 90F
Ladled off 6 quarts of whey. Replaced that with 2 quarts of water at 125F over 20 minutes. Tried to raise temp slowly to 100F.
After 20minutes Temp was on target.
Added 1 TBS non iodized salt to the pot.
I then just stirred. keeping curds at 100F.
The recipe said to stir for 40-50 minutes. However after 20 minutes the curds were looking pretty good to my untrained eye they passed the grip test. So, I opted to stop the stir in hopes of preserving some yield and to keep the cheese from being dry.
I then ladled whey down to the curds and then put the curds in a lined colander to drain a bit.
After most of the whey was gone I put the curds in a large Tomme Mold.
After 15 minutes I realized I forget the caraway, so I took the curds out, broke them up the best I could and added 1 1/2 tsp caraway.
I then put it all back into the mold.
30 minutes of draining, flipped the cheese.
30 more minutes, flipped again
Added ~10lbs and Flipped every hour.
After two hours Curds did not fully knit so increased the weight to 15. Flipped every hour or so for 4 more hours and finally the surface seemed better. I didnt want to press any more so the surface is not completely smooth. However, the pics in the recipe also showed a similar surface so it might be ok
The whey still tasted a bit sweet so I left the cheese in the mold out overnight
The next morning, the taste of the whey was rather neutral. I brined it for 7 hours. The recipe for a 3 lb cheese called for 5 hours, so I increased the brine time for my larger cheese.
After brining cheese weighed just over 3 lbs. A 10.4% yield.
