I'm glad you found success, Cheez! Raw milk is just wonderful, isn't it?
Yes, at least you know where you stand when starting.
Now being a life long curing/smoking of other food expert (even my wife agrees
) I decided to try something a little different with getting the salt into the finished cheese. First I used a liquid brine, terrible slime mess. Second I used Karen's add salt to the heated whey for stretching. That worked very good. Third, I used a dry rub for around six hours and then rinsed under cold water and patted dry prior to smoking. A little better.
Fourth, the one I found that worked best for what I wanted (thick rind, heavy sting cheese). I dry rubbed and then put the pieces into a food saver vac canister. Vacuumed out the air, waited about 2 hours, rinsed, dried and then cold smoked for one hour. YES, exactly what I was looking for.
I used canning salt for each trial, won't do the brine again, although I will use the cheese in cooking recipes from that batch.
A question, has anyone tried using a true curing salt? I know most are made for meat, poultry, and fish? But technically you are infusing the salt into the proteins and fats and I would think cheese would qualify. I'll probably try some on a small portion of the next mozz I make and see what it does.
Thanks.
Cheez
