I didn’t like how fast the pH drop during milling & salting on my last cheddar, so I used a tad less culture and I drained at 6.3, and milled at 5.8. It dropped to 5.2 whey pH anyway, so that didn’t help much!
Far as I can tell this make went well.
5th Traditional Cheddar #56 3/3/12
Floc x3
pH targets:
pH at drain 6.3
pH at milling 5.8
4 gallons raw Brown Swiss cow milk, pH 6.6
Tad less than ½ tsp MA11
¼ tsp x3 rennet
1/8 tsp annatto
2-½ tablespoons salt
Warm milk to 88 degrees, add culture, let sit 5 minutes, then stir in and let ripen 40 minutes. Temp 88 degrees, pH 6.5
Add annatto and stir. Add rennet and wait for floc. Floc in 8 minutes x 3=28. Check for clean break in 28 minutes and cut curd into ½ cubes. Let rest 5 minutes. pH6.5 temp 87 degrees
Raise temp to 102 degrees, taking 45 minutes to get there. Temp 102 degrees, pH6.4-6.3.
Held for 30 minutes at 102 degrees. Temp 102 degrees, pH 6.3 – 6.2
Drained whey and began cheddaring. Turned every 10 minutes until pH was 5.8.
Milled, salted, and hooped. pH after hooping was 5.2.
Pressed for ½ hour at 70 lbs, redressed and pressed another ½ hour. Redressed and press at 204 lbs overnight.
