Well, we've never been here before. Let's try this door....
"The adjective double refers to the fact that the traditional recipe for the cheese relies upon the milk from both morning and evening milkings. Double Gloucester has a flavor somewhere between Cheshire and Aged Cheddar. It has a hard, close, satiny texture and a pronounced but mellow taste that holds up well in cooking."
I had milk for making a cheese today but I had real trouble deciding what to do with the milk. I pondered over another Jarlsberg (using mesophilic as the Danes prescribe), Reblochon, Cantal, another Beaufort, another Tomme, a lactic, or another delightful excursion into
Washed Rind Stinkyland (I think those are my favorites.). What difficulty!!
I had looked at the recipe for the Double Gloucester in the 200 Easy Cheeses book. I had even bent a page corner over. I waited until this morning when I finally decided I would like to try a Cheddar family cheese. Then too I have wanted to push my Dutch press a little harder than it's ever been pushed before.
Initial pH reading: 6.73 @ 6:30AM
1 gallon Dungeness Valley Creamery whole raw milk
1 gallon Twin Brook Creamery 2% creamline milk
2 gallons Twin Brook Creamery whole creamline milk
8 cubes (8 oz) Alp D mesophilic
1/2 tsp CACL diluted in 1/4 cup distilled water
1/2 tsp Annatto diluted in 1/4 cup distilled water
3/32 tsp dry calf rennet, dissolved in 1/4 cup cold distilled water
3 TBS of pickling salt
Followed recipe in 200 Easy Cheeses book.
Here are the highlights:
6:30AM - added cubes to cold milk, began heating to 90F
7:15AM - pH 6.65 @ 90.5F
7:50AM - pH 6.64 @ 92.1F
8:30AM - stirred in annatto
8:45AM - pH 6.57 @ 91F
8:48AM - stirred in CACL and rennet
8:57AM - floc'd in 9 min; using a 3x multiplier, I wait for 27 min and cut at 9:24.
9:35AM - delayed a bit; cut with knife to 1 inch; rest curds for 5 min.
9:40AM - using whisk, cut to 1/4 inch size, stirring gently
9:45AM - began heating to 99F; should take 45 min.
10:05AM - pH 6.43 @ 94.3F
10:30AM - pH 6.34 @ 98.4F; hold for 20 min.
After draining the whey, I formed the curd cake, cut it, salted the cut curds, and placed them in the Plyban-lined Tomme mold. I then pressed the cheese on the Dutch press using a 5lb weight and 2 pulleys which delivered 80lbs (1.9psi). After two hours pressing using the kettle inside the double boiler pot to maintain warmth, I flipped and redressed the cheese, and removed the kettle from the pot.
I wrapped the kettle with the seed warming mat and shrouded the kettle with a clean towel to retain the warmth. I applied a 25lb weight with 4 pulleys for a calculated pressure of 575lbs and 13.7psi. I find the pressing business is an inexact process. A close guesstimate. The highest calculated weight I have recorded is 356lbs, measured in the real world with a health scale using an applied weight of 350lbs. That's pretty close.
8:45PM - pH 5.20; flipped, rewrapped, and continued pressing.
My house setback thermostat turns the heat down to 65F at night. Currently, at 11:50PM, the temperature of the room with the press is 67F. The wireless humidistat shows the temperature on the cheese at 76.8F. Nice.
I included a pic of my vacuum-sealed cultures that live in my freezer. It occurred to me shortly after I started this cheese making adventure that the dry cultures in the freezer might pick up moisture if not properly sealed against it. Vacuum-sealing helps to keep them at optimum quality.
-Boofer-