My First Cheddar

[erfurkan]

Yesterday, I made my first cheddar.

And of course I had an accident during cheddaring but it seems to be ok now

I used :

• 10l of raw full cream milk
• Flora Danica
• 2.5ml of 30% CaCl
• 2.5ml of rennet
• 35g of salt

Recipe I followed :

• Heated the milk to 31C added Flora Danica(ph : 6.59) waited 1 hour
• Added rennet and CaCl and waited 50 min (ph : 6.45)
• Clean break, cut the curds into 1-1.5cm cubes ( ph : 6.4 , T = 29.5C ) 
• Heated the whey to 39C while stirring constantly over the period of 40 mins ( curds shrunk considerably )
• Let the curds settle for 40 mins at 39C
• Drained the whey for ricotta and split the curd in half, set it sit on top of each other for 10 minutes ( cheddaring )
• Turned the curd halves and let sit for 10m ( T = 36C )
• Some whey has come out, heated them a little to get the curds to 39C
• Turned the halves again let them sit for 10m (T = 37C)
• At this point I wanted to heat the curds a little bit more but I got distracted. Curd half in the bottom reached to 42C in the middle, bottom side is starting to melt
• I quickly removed the hot whey and washed the curds for 10s in cold water, added some whey back in from the whey I saved to make ricotta, so that the curds do not lose calcium and acidity
• T = 40C now at the bottom half, I removed the cool whey after 2 mins and make the final flip
• 15 minutes later I cut the curds into 1-1.5cm thick square prisms
• I crumbled these pieces into cubes and put them in a pot. They were squishy at this stage
• Milled these pieces with the salt
• Put the curds into the gouda mold
• Applied 10 kg pressure for 1 hour
• Flipped the cheese and applied 20kg pressure for 13 hours
• Let the cheese dry for 2-3 days

I've seem to lost a bit more moisture and the curds are a bit dry. The yield is 920g, which is less than usual. 

Right now, it is drying.

After drying I will vacuum pack it and mature for >6 months.

I will add updates as I go.

[erfurkan]

Very early update :

- It started to crack all around, it has been drying for 9 hours
- Since it was feeling dry to touch, I vacuum packed it so the cracks doesn't get bigger and gets infected with some mould

[Lancer99]

Seems like you did everything right, even though you had an accident.

IME cheddar-types are pretty hard.  Sometimes they need a LOT of pressure to get the curds to knit. And probably harder in a globe-type mold than a standard circular mold.

I question whether it's a good idea to vacuum-pack a cheddar.  It's precisely the succession of molds that contribute to their depth of flavor.  I would have either cloth wrapped it or left it alone.

-L

[mikekchar]

I always think that making cheese and aging cheese are two completely different skills (although it's *very* hard to age cheese if you haven't made it well ;-) ).  You can make very, very good vacuum packed cheddar.  If good cheese is your goal, not need to add an extra complication to it.

Of course, I *never* follow my own advice and pretty much only make natural rinds :-)  I just want to say that it's perfectly OK to work on the make side if you want to.