Direct Salting a Grana? - My "Grana Vecchio" Recipe

[rsterne]

All the recipes I have looked at for Parmesan, Asiago, Romano, Sbrinz and Grana Padano are brined.... What would happen if you direct salted the curds before pressing instead?.... Have any of you ever done this?.... What were the results?.... What changes are needed to the make?.... Do you need more salt (greater than 2%?)....

Bob

[mikekchar]

I think those cheeses are brined mainly because they are so huge.  It's just convenient.  Packing on the pounds of salt you'd need is not really reasonable.  I think Beaufort is sometimes dry salted and they do several applications over the course of a few days.  I dry salt all my cheeses and I don't notice any difference at all.  I make small cheeses, though :-)  The one problem with dense cheeses is that you need more salt.  I'd definitely go with 3% with most of these (and considerably higher for a Romano, which is meant to be quite salty).  I would not salt the curds before pressing because you'll inhibit the culture and slow the acidification.  These cheeses are not my forte, but I *think* the speed of acidification is crucial to the texture of the cheese.  They are all quite slow to begin with because you raise the temp very high.  Parmesan, in particular, is drained at a surprisingly low temperature with the *intent* to keep the pH high for a longer time.  This allows the curd to knit with much less weight than would normally be needed.  I've read somewhere that Parmesan typically only has something like 24 kg on a 45 kg wheel.  I may be misremembering that, but I don't think so.  If you watch videos of professional producers, they pitch the curds a vase shaped vat and by the time they take it out to drain it's already mostly knit.

So if you want to dry salt, I'd go for it.  For larger cheeses I would be tempted to salt a few times over the course of a few days (so 1% per day over 3 days) to ensure that the salt actually gets into the cheese.  Again, I'm not that experienced with these kinds of cheeses so take this advice with a grain of salt (ha ha ha).

[rsterne]

Thanks for that, Mike.... I have done enough brining I am more comfortable with that than dry salting the exterior after pressing.... I would love to try salting the curds before pressing, but I know that if I do that too early the pH would not be down to what you want a Grana cheese to end up at.... What about allowing the curds to sit, either in a small amount of whey, or drained first, at about 86*F to get more acidic before pressing?.... I have a "warming cabinet" made from a bar fridge with an aquarium heater in the crisper tray with 10 L of water in it.... It will hold that temperature indefinitely, and works great for pressing Cheddars, or keeping the curds warm during the cheddaring process....

My concern is that I don't want to turn my Grana into a Cheddar....  .... I know I'll be using a Thermophilic culture (ST + LH), what do you think would be the outcome?.... I don't really care if it ends up like a Parmesan, a Romano or an Asiago, I just want a Grana style cheese that I can age at least a year and will grate well.... If you think this will work, about how long should I keep the acidification going before salting and pressing?.... I managed to get a Cantal to knit.... cooked at 89*F and then acidified overnight at 72*F, then milled, salted and pressed to eventually 7 psi.... I successfully press Cheddars at 86*F, after cheddaring at 86*F, and it only takes 3.5 psi.... Unfortunately I don't have a pH meter....

So, if I make basically a Parm, small curds and cook it at ~130*F, then drain or partially drain and let it sit at 86*F for "X" hours to acidify, then salt and press, what would I get?.... I know it would be a LOT harder to press than a Parm usually is, but assuming I can get it to knit OK, what do you think the result would be like?.... 

Anyone else ever done something similar?.... Success?.... Failure?....

Bob

[Bantams]

Almost all of the pH development in a grana style comes after it leaves the vat. Salting the curd will prematurely halt the acidification.  Additionally, these high pH cheeses like Alpines and Granas are quite large, so not only are they brined 12-24 hours after molding, but the salt takes a long time to reach the interior of the cheese. 
The curd/cheese needs to stay quite warm to knit and develop that acid - leaving loose curds in a vat means they will loose even more moisture, and not want to knit since they'll be cooling off rapidly. And they won't reach the right pH.

[paulabob]

I'm curious how fast salt penetrates with dry salting versus brining.  I know the recipe I used for parm on cheesemaking.com called for 6.5 hours brining per pound.  I think my parm needed 20 hours.  Just not sure if you would get even salt penetration or how many days it would take for a dry salt to work?

[Bantams]

I think dry salting and brining have similar rates for salt penetration, but not sure. Normal Parm wheels are brined 21 days.  When I did a 20# wheel I think I did 7 days and it was fine, maybe needed a bit more salt. 

[rsterne]

Thanks for those thoughts, Bantams.... All of our cheeses are 8.5-9 litre makes, so in a Parm that ends up being about 1.25 lbs (a 6-7% yield is what we got before).... I can keep the vat at 86*F for as long as I want, in our heated cabinet.... With those things in mind, do you still think this idea is a dead end?.... Our first Parm turned out excellent (conventional make), I am just curious if we can salt before pressing if we get the timing right....

Bob

[Bantams]

I'm curious why you would like to salt the curds before molding?
It would change the overall cheese quite a bit - maybe good, maybe bad, though I suspect it will lose its ability to knit and so you will have a mass of curds that doesn't want to adhere.

[rsterne]

Simple curiousity.... I don't think I will have a problem getting it to knit, but it will obviously take a lot more pressure to do so.... I can get to 10 psi with my press maxed out and the small cylinder mold.... I am wondering if the final result would be basically like a stirred curd Cheddar, or if using a Thermo culture and cooking it a a high temperature will make it more like a Parm in taste....

I did find one reference, in a stirred curd Cheddar, that said the pH was down to about 5.4 after 2 hours of stirring.... Of course how fast the pH drops will depend on temperature.... Any guess on how long it will take to hit a pH of about 5.2 starting out after the normal cooking at 128*F, then allowing it to cool in the vat to 86*F, and then holding it there?.... At what pH do curds start to "Squeak"?....

I'm aware of the pitfalls, but my gut tells me it's worth trying, if for no reason other than it seems nobody else has tried it (or at least come forward).... I even have a name picked out for it.... "Grana Vecchio" as I plan to age it up to 2 years.... I just hope it ends up with a texture that will grate, rather than just crumble to dust....

Bob

[Bantams]

The thermophilic cultures need temps of 108°+ to acidify.  So you won't be getting the correct acidification at 86°. And the curds are super dry once they reach that temp - stirring them in whey any longer will further dry them out.
But I'm not going to tell you not to try it!

[rsterne]

I have been scouring my books for Parmesan recipes.... In Paul Thomas' book "Home-made Cheese - Artisan cheesemaking made simple" he calls for leaving the curds in the vat to cool after cooking (at 131*F), with the lid on, for 60-90 minutes.... He then presses at only 2 lbs, tuning a few times, and says the pH should reach 5.40-5.00 "within a few hours".... No other recipes I have state a rest time after cooking more than 5-10 minutes, other than the one from this Forum, which was 20 minutes.... Anyways, it would seem that I can let the curds sit in the whey, cooling slowly, for at least 90 min. without causing an problem....

If I do this make, I will keep track of the temperature as the vat cools.... I thought Thermo cultures were at there optimum acidification rate between 95-105*F.... http://artisancheesemakingathome.com/pdfs/cultures.pdf

Bob

[Aris]

The thermophilic cultures need temps of 108°+ to acidify.  So you won't be getting the correct acidification at 86°. And the curds are super dry once they reach that temp - stirring them in whey any longer will further dry them out.
But I'm not going to tell you not to try it!

From my experience, thermophilic cultures are still active even as low as 80 f. I use yogurt most of the time in cheese making and It takes 6-10 hours (room temperature 80-95 f) to get the right acidity for a melting pliable cheese. It ferments faster if my yogurt is fresh.

[Gregore]

Traditionally a lot of the large mountain cheese where made twice a day as their would be too much milk if you held over the evening milk , so they had a slow acid curve with fresh milk  thus a slow acid drop at first  and they would mold before 6.4 ph , thus the curds had lots of calcium still and this allowed for a great knit of the curds.   

You need to get the moisture out of the curds before salting by cooking small grains , salting and pressing to get the moisture out will not give you what you want , it might taste pretty good , but I suspect it will be more crumbly than you would like

In the book American farmstead cheese my paul kindstedt they have a chapter on how cheeses where shaped by geography, climate, and economics.  It really gives one an understanding of how to start creating ones own cheese when you understand why the cheese is that way , especially when you realize that they had no cultures to add only what the milk provided and the above mentioned .  If you want to understand grana cheese look into why it is that way .

Gregore

[Chetty]

The local college dairy were I'm from makes a Grana style cheese.  The recipe is based off a cheddar full fat low moisture.  They were proving that with the same cultures and a few changes to the make can change the cheese completely.  The changes are as followed. 
They use a little more culture then in cheddar, lactis and cremoris adjunct with lactobacillus helveticus.  ( due to cooking to 105 degrees)
Cook to 105 degrees
Drain at 6.3 pH
Warm water wash by spraying with 100 degree water for 15 sec twice. 
Drystir till ph 5.4
Then salt and press

The idea is to get the moisture under 30 percent to produce the flavor esters that give the fruity  pineapple flavor.  The aging is 10 -12 months. 

[rsterne]

Well, today's the day!.... I am going to make a "Grana Vecchio", which loosely translates to an "Aged Grating Cheese".... 

The recipe is my own, altered from the Parmesan one in Paul Thomas' book "Home Made Cheese" by (possibly) extending the 60-90 minutes that the curds sit in the whey until the curds squeek, at which time I will salt them before pressing.... It may or may not be much like a Parmesan, but as long as it tastes good and grates well after aging a year, I'll be a happy camper.... This is my first attempt at making "my own" cheese type.... 

Bob