Beginner looking to know where to start

[broombank]

these are very accurate as I cross reference them with the meter

https://cheesemaking.co.uk/product/ph-sticks/

[Tara_H]

Thanks both, I'll save my money so!

I did end up making cream cheese yesterday since I'm still waiting for the cultures to arrive but I was able to buy some buttermilk with live cultures to get that one going.  Smelling and tasting were perfectly sufficient for that at least, although I guess it's a pretty long and slow ripening period so not a lot can go wrong?  I got almost exactly a kilo and a half from 3.7 litres of milk; definitely going to need to practice scaling down these recipes since it's just me and my husband and we're going to get very fat at this rate 

I split it up into one quarter garlic and herb (1/4 teaspoon of garlic powder, a pinch of thyme, and a sprinkling of parsley), one quarter black pepper (basically ground pepper into it until it looked and tasted right), and the other half I left unsalted and we're going to use that for cheesecake. I'm very much looking forward to that since I haven't found a good soy-based recipe for a baked cheesecake so normally there's a bunch of messing around with gelatin.  (This is the one I'm going to attempt: https://www.seriouseats.com/lemon-ricotta-cheesecake) of course now I'm going to have to make some more ricotta since the first batch a) already got mostly nommed, and b) I'm starting to suspect I could do much better!

[broombank]

sounds delicious - well done . I have cultivated a large circle of 'cheese tasting' friends to distribute my creations to as otherwise we would drown in cheese !

[Tara_H]

Well the ricotta cheesecake turned out very well! Although it was a little rich for my husband's taste; I guess he's used to the gelatin kind.

Today I'm trying a halloumi per Aris' recommendation. My cultures still haven't arrived so I'm currently trawling for recipes that only need buttermilk culture. (I do have the possibility of buying soya yogurt with live cultures a week so slightly tempted to try this recipe next: https://cheesemaking.com/products/mozzarella-pizza-recipe-instructions)

The halloumi seems to be going well so far - although I scaled it down to 1.9 litres of milk, it still filled my little mould twice over, so I tipped the first one out into cheesecloth and refilled it with fresh curd.  Then when turning every 15 mins I alternated which one was sitting in the mould.

Rather than "cook" and then flatten the entire thing, I opted to slice up the two blocks before putting into the reheated whey.  The slices have literally just come out and are cooling on a draining rack, then I'll brine them in the fridge for a couple of days and then possibly vacuum seal; does that sound reasonable?

[B e n]

Is this a storage brine or a salting brine? Little slices are going to brine out very quickly, so if its a heavier solution you will want to knock back the time.

[mikekchar]

You should always salt cheese at room temperature since it affect absorption.  Also, even if I'm brining cheese for storage, I'll dry salt first.  Salting and storage are 2 different things.  If you put your unsalted cheese in storage brine, it will likely start to fall apart because of ion exchange with the brine.  You want to make the inside of the cheese and the outside of the cheese (brine) as similar as possible.  If I'm using a 7% storage brine, I'll dry salt to 5% of the weight of the cheese for 3 days or so and then add it to the brine.

Having said all that, I don't brine halloumi.  It doesn't last long enough :-)

[Tara_H]

Oh oops.  I hope I haven't screwed it up then!  I was going on a combination of https://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,9364.0.html and https://cheesemaking.com/products/halloumi-cheese-making-recipe and that seemed like a reasonable approach...

Edit: I just checked on it and it seems fine?  At least it looks, feels and tastes exactly like what I'd expect from halloumi.  It's very firm and kind of squeaky on the teeth, and what I would consider a reasonable amount of salty.  Given what Ben said maybe I should take it out today instead of tomorrow then, if it's going to continue getting saltier, which I imagine it would?

I'm afraid I don't know enough to answer if it's a storage or salting brine but I *think* salting... It was a 15% solution by weight, per the forum thread I linked above.  I made it with boiled water from the kettle that was still very slightly warm and by the time it had cooled to room temperature some of the salt had I guess come out of solution so probably not exactly that, but very salty at least.

I think what I'll do is take it out of the brine today, eat some for lunch to see how it fries up, and vacuum pack the rest to share with my family when I meet them later in the week.

[B e n]

If you are going to eat it fast and are happy with the salt level just go ahead and pull it. You don't need the preservative effect if you are eating it within the week.

[Tara_H]

If you are going to eat it fast and are happy with the salt level just go ahead and pull it. You don't need the preservative effect if you are eating it within the week.

Ok thanks! If I was looking to store it for longer then, what should I be doing differently? Leaving it in the brine longer? Or salting it before that?

[mikekchar]

If you've brined it for 24 hours or so, then take it out of the brine and let it sit/dry for 2-3 days.  Then put it back in a 7-8% brine for storage.  It can stay like that in the fridge for months and months.  I've aged feta like that for over a year and the result was heavenly    But halloumi lasts about 2 days in my house 

[Tara_H]

If you've brined it for 24 hours or so, then take it out of the brine and let it sit/dry for 2-3 days.  Then put it back in a 7-8% brine for storage.  It can stay like that in the fridge for months and months.  I've aged feta like that for over a year and the result was heavenly    But halloumi lasts about 2 days in my house 

Thanks! Yes, I suspect this will all be eaten very soon    but also it was a small batch as a proof of concept to of I can store it for a decent amount of time I'll scale up the next lot and keep a stock of it to save myself a bit of work 

[Tara_H]

Below is a cheese pH guide from Jim Wallace of cheesemaking.com.

This came in very useful! Thanks again for sharing 

So I decided to try again with mozzarella, but I wanted to aim for a pizza one again to see how my last attempt could be improved.  I bought some soya yoghurt with live cultures and used it to make a batch of yoghurt from our own milk, then used some of that as the culture for the mozzarella (the ones I bought still haven't arrived!)

I guess that culture was much more lively than expected, or I used too much, because there was a point where I was meant to wait 2 hours, but I was keeping an eye on it and my mind on this chart.  About 20 mins in I started thinking maybe... so I did the stretch test and the curds were already stretchy!  I stretched the whole lot then in hot whey and everything else went exactly according to what was meant to happen, so I'm pretty excited about it now!

Halving the recipe still made a decent amount, and it says to age for 10 days but I don't think I can wait that long, so will probably try half on Friday (pizza night) and half the following week to see if I can notice a difference.

[Aris]

I am glad it turned out good. I am impressed you used your intuition and didn't blindly follow the recipe. What you learned is very important and it will help you a lot in your cheesemaking journey. It is nice to know you can use soya yogurt to culture milk and use it as a starter culture. Back in the day, I used yogurt to ferment soya milk and it was delicious. It was sweet with some tartness and it curdled.

[mikekchar]

A cheese for you Tara_H!  (That's when we hit the thumbs up button -- it increases your cheese counter).