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CHEESE TYPE BOARDS (for Cheese Lovers and Cheese Makers) => RENNET COAGULATED - Hard Grana (Grating Cheesee) => Topic started by: AnnDee on November 06, 2016, 08:58:15 AM
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I made this one 7 months ago with 1 gal raw milk and 3 gallons of P&H milk.
Today out of curiosity I cracked it open. I thought after 7 months it will start to taste nice, oh boy was I wrong!
This one tastes...meh to me. Really nothing to tell about. No sweetness, no umaminess of parmesan I love so much... it has slight tanginess which makes me think may be I put too much culture.
All in all, it smells good but really a dissapointment tastewise.
Do you think it will improve with time or should I not bother at all?
I have limited space in my cave, will move this into the normal fridge if it's a lost cause, I can probably use it in sauces combined with other cheese.
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Still looks a bit damp on the interior Ann. I'd give it 5 more months in the cave. 12 months is the norm for parms with Canadian parms being aged out to 18 months.
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I second Al's recommendation. 12 months is the absolute minimum for a parmesan, in my experience. 24 months is far, far better if you can stand to wait. (Make another one now, so that it can be aging while the first one is being consumed!)
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Hi Ann,
I am so very glad you posted your inquiry. I was planning to crack open my first parm:
http://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,15739.msg120314.html#msg120314 (http://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,15739.msg120314.html#msg120314)
quite simply because the aroma is driving me mad! :D It smells so parmesan-y.
It's only been three months, the springiness is gone and the overall look from the outside is attractive. What's not to put me off? In a word, your experience is what has put me off, so thanks and I will keep this one in the cave for another 9 months.
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Thank you Al and Andy!
So I vac seal the poor parmesan now and stick it in the back of the cave, I have another one undisturbed (bigger wheel). I will forget about these 2 until next year. Meanwhile, I think I will follow Andy's advice and make another tomorrow (tuesday, cheesemaking day woohoo!).
Ps. How do you wait until 24 months???
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Frodage, I know...right? The aroma is so goodddd, I thought why not open one? Then it went down hill after that...
Your parm is looking good but for now both of us has to practice a little more patience.
Happy waiting. :)
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Thank you Al and Andy!
So I vac seal the poor parmesan now and stick it in the back of the cave, I have another one undisturbed (bigger wheel). I will forget about these 2 until next year. Meanwhile, I think I will follow Andy's advice and make another tomorrow (tuesday, cheesemaking day woohoo!).
Ps. How do you wait until 24 months???
I have to confess, I've not waited 24 months for a parma ... but I have waited more than a year, and since I use parmesan fairly slowly, I've still had some left after 24 months -- and the difference in taste between 12 months and 24 months is quite significant.
For me, the key to waiting a long time -- 12 months or more -- is to do a mix of cheeses over time. One week I make a Caerphilly, which is ready as soon as 3 weeks after making. After another week or two, I make camembert or Lancashire, which takes about 6 weeks to mature. The next time around, after another week or two, I make a cheddar or a parma or some other cheese that needs 6 months or longer. By this point, I'm eating the Caerphilly, and by the time it is done, I'll have the Lancashire ready. Maybe I go ahead and make another Lancashire next, so that it will be ready when I use up the last one. But then I make another long-aging cheese or two, since I've got cheeses in the pipeline for consumption -- maybe an Asiago (good at 3 months, even better at 6) or a swiss (needs at least 4 months in my experience). Then another Lancashire or Caerphilly or Camembert to keep the pipeline going. And so on ... keep up a rotation like this, and before you know it, that cheddar has been in there for 6 months (the minimum needed for a cheddar, in my opinion) ... and after a while, you remember, "oh, yeah - that parma has been in there for a year now ..." :)
Also in the rotation for me, but much more rarely, is a Gorgonzola - this is another cheese that lasts a LONG time for me, since I'm the only one who likes it in the family, and I mostly eat it on salads. So I may only make one per year. Speaking of which ... it is about time for me to make another one, so it will be ready in 3 months or so, when the current one is about used up.
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Andy - that is a great schedule of events. Do you by any chance have a Gantt chart for it?
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Andy, that is a great rotation indeed.
I am eating my Jarlsberg, Tomme and Hispanico at the moment and lots of caprese salad as I am making mozzarella quite often now (I think I finally got the hang of trad mozzarella, phew...).
I will be hunting for your recipe of Lancashire now, I don't think I have made this one before. As for gorgonzola, I'm afraid I am the only one who eats it also :)
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Frodage, no Gantt chart, sorry. It's more of a gut decision based on what I feel like making, how much cheese is in the pipeline, what haven't I made for a while, how much time I have to work with, etc. :)
Ann, here is a "tutorial" on Lancashire, including recipe and lots of pictures, that I put together a while back: http://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,14315.msg108963.html#msg108963. (http://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,14315.msg108963.html#msg108963.) Note that each step is in a different post in the thread - to keep a single post from getting too long.
I should note that this recipe is quite forgiving; that plus the relatively short ripening period makes it a great candidate for experimenting - trying different blends of cultures, cheddaring for shorter or longer time periods, salting at higher or lower pH levels, etc. It's also a cheese that you can add lipase to without getting overwhelmed - the relatively short aging keeps the taste from becoming radioactive, though I would caution to use a LITTLE bit only. This is also a cheese that works extremely well with an olive oil and spice rub - I like to use smoked paprika as the spice, using a pretty heavy layer. This results in a cheese that tastes like it has been smoked, even though it hasn't.
I ought to mention that these days I make this just a bit differently. First, I use direct heat rather than the double-boiler approach -- I'm now doing direct heat with all of my makes, having experimented and found that I can achieve equal (or even better) results with low settings on the ceramic-smooth-top stove and a pot with a heavy bottom. Second, I usually add the CaCl first, before anything else, while the milk is warming up - I've still never been able to decide whether I think it makes any difference at all whether it is added before or after the ripening stage. Finally, I usually sprinkle the cultures on when the milk gets to about 80°; by the time it reaches the target of 88-90°, it is ready to stir in.
Enjoy!
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Thanks Andy.
I made another parm today, any pointer how to effectively separate cream from raw milk? I siffoned it out but I think the milk still had a lot of cream in it.
I am taking notes on your Lancashire, I don't think I have MD 089...will MD088 be suitable?
I am planning to make it next week.
Thank you again.
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Ann, I am afraid that, sadly, I have very little experience with non-homogenized milk, so no pointers from personal experience. But of course, not really knowing never stops me from offering my thoughts ... :) My sense is that 1) most people "skim" the cream off the top of the milk, after letting it separate (thus the name "skim milk"), and 2) I don't think you want the milk to be entirely free of fat - as best I recall, parmas are generally made with milk having 2-2.5% fat content, or something like that. (Better check that before taking my word for it, since I'm going on fuzzy memory ...)
As for the MD088 instead of 089 -- actually they are the same culture blend, just using slightly different strains or subspecies or something like that. The idea is that, in a commercial operation, they will rotate among various strains of a given culture over time to prevent problems that can occur with large-scale use of the same culture all the time. (Not sure exactly what those problems might be ... build up of "resistance" to a given strain??) Thus, Danisco offers MA011, MA012, MA013 ... all the same culture, but slightly different strains. Likewise they offer MD088 and MD089, and MA4001 and MA4002, and so on.
And again, this is a very forgiving cheese, good for experimenting. If you don't have MA011 and/or MD088 and/or TA061, don't hesitate to use other mesophilic blends. For example, MA4001 (or MA4002) would be a good blend to try with this. Flora Danica would work as well, but will acidify much more slowly, so may benefit from longer cheddaring. And there are any number of others ....
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Thanks Andy!
I'll let you know how it goes next week :)
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Update on this. Now this parm is 10 months old and I took another sample to try. More crispy and crunchy crystal but to me the taste is just alright. It is not bad but nothing special.
So because I feel kinda dissapointed, I opened another 10 months old parm, this time made out of raw Jersey milk. Oh my goodness, what a difference! It has crunchy crystals too and it taste really sweet and umami. I really wish I made a bigger wheel!
Here's some pics, the first one is the pic of the parm I made from P&H milk, the others are of the raw milk parm.
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Looks great Ann! AC4U
IMO, raw milk is the only way to go. Yes, it is expensive for me but I don't have to use Calcium Chloride anymore and the results are always far superior to p/h milk. The only thing I do now is a low temperature pasteurization for young cheeses. Anything aged eight weeks are longer, full raw all the way.
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They age the Italian stuff 1 year minimum, 18 months for export to Canada. I guess there's a reason. The one I did was also alright but no where near the awesome taste of real Parmigiano Reggiano. Looks like you did manage to save it though Ann. Great job! AC4U! ;D
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Looks great Ann! AC4U
IMO, raw milk is the only way to go. Yes, it is expensive for me but I don't have to use Calcium Chloride anymore and the results are always far superior to p/h milk. The only thing I do now is a low temperature pasteurization for young cheeses. Anything aged eight weeks are longer, full raw all the way.
Thank you John. I agree with you, I normally use only raw milk but there was few times which local milk supplier sent gallons of milk for me to try and I supposed now we know the difference.
They age the Italian stuff 1 year minimum, 18 months for export to Canada. I guess there's a reason. The one I did was also alright but no where near the awesome taste of real Parmigiano Reggiano. Looks like you did manage to save it though Ann. Great job! AC4U! ;D
Thank you Al. I think with more time it will get better, I am hopeful now. I vac seal it and age it longer now, hopefully after 3-4 months it will get even better. What is funny, the PH milk parm has a lot of more crunchies than the raw milk but really lacking in taste, so I will start using it now for cooking. I actually was not planning on cutting it opened but after taking a core sample, I decided it was time ;D
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I have been reluctant to make a parm because I know they need to age a long time and I may have to move in such a way that my cheese caves may be compromised. Happy for you though! AC4U ;D
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Hi Ann,
I couldn't wait the full year, but it sounds like you and I have had similar experiences. Hope you enjoyed yours.
At 11 months, I just couldn't wait. :( So I followed the example on the videos and I cut and cut and cut, and squeezed and sure enough - It cracked! :D What beautiful insides! And the aroma was even better than in November! Well, the taste wasn't as good as Reggiano, but I wasn't really expecting that. It's good. Umami, and salty, and just a hint of "where have you been all my life?". If I can do this on a first attempt, just imagine my second!
FYI, I've just started a new position in Washington and Oregon, so I expect to meet up with my cheese-friends in the coming months. See you soon!
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Ah...yours looks devine! I love that it looks like tasty rocky nuggets.
I make bigger wheels of 4-5 kgs but I made a mistake of forgetting a wheel of 6 months old out in 29C for 1 whole day and it puffed up a bit. What say you?
Hi Ann,
I couldn't wait the full year, but it sounds like you and I have had similar experiences. Hope you enjoyed yours.
At 11 months, I just couldn't wait. :( So I followed the example on the videos and I cut and cut and cut, and squeezed and sure enough - It cracked! :D What beautiful insides! And the aroma was even better than in November! Well, the taste wasn't as good as Reggiano, but I wasn't really expecting that. It's good. Umami, and salty, and just a hint of "where have you been all my life?". If I can do this on a first attempt, just imagine my second!
FYI, I've just started a new position in Washington and Oregon, so I expect to meet up with my cheese-friends in the coming months. See you soon!
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Rocky nuggets - that's pretty good. I'm going to call this "Rocky Nugget Gold"! O0
Not sure why your cheese bloated, but others suggest bad smelling bacteria can cause that. I think it's called late blowing.
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I am thinking 6 months old is past late blowing . cut it and smell / taste it .