My first Jack...need help

[Jeepyj]

I'll post my notes and y'all can help or ridicule.  . I'm in the middle, maybe it won't die.

Combine three gal whole milk, one pint heavy cream, all store bought, but not ultra pasturized, and 1-1/2 teaspoons CaCl in 1/4 cup tap water. I live in the country where water goes from the ground to the sink without filtering or chlorinating or softening. It is hard water. PH 6.66

Heat at medium to 88 deg stirring, removed from the heat and it stabilized at 89 deg.
added 1/4 teaspoon of meso culture at 10:21, stirred in at 10:24 PH 6.61
Put in water bath. temp was 87.5 to 89 for 45 min

Added rennet at 11:15. 1/2 rennet tablet in 4 tbsp tap water, probably way to early, i prepared it at 10:15
at 40 minutes (11:55) there is NO CURD.

I added another half tablet of freshly prepared rennet at 12:00, fixed the water temp in the sink and checked PH. PH 6.65

Came in here to type up this predicament and haven't been back to the sink yet. going now. worried.

edit: so at 1:00 I added 1/4 tsp liquid rennet diluted in 4 tbsp water. This is probably more of n experiment now than a cheese.

Did I use enough mesophilic culture? Can it be saved?

Another thought. This is the culture I bought online. Any chance culture does not ship well? It's kept in the freezer at home, not in the post office or truck.

edit 2: 1:45 pm added 1/4 tsp of culture I know is good. It worked yesterday. PH was at 6.55
Stirring was a little thick, no where near yogurt though.

edit 3: 2:48 Theres curd now. I think it was either bad culture or not enough. I'm going to continue and see what happens.

[Stinky]

You want to dilute the rennet right before adding it, as it loses effectivity rather quickly. What I'd also try -it works great for me- is adding a few drops of milk to the water. According to Pav, who should know, this neutralizes any chlorine. Before I started doing this my rennet times were always too long, but since I've started it's worked very well. Also, next time you make Jack I shouldn't think you'd need to add cream.

[Jeepyj]

cream is in the recipe so i added it. Um... 37 minutes after second 1/2 rennet tablet and still nothing. I'm gonna wait 8 more and do SOMETHING. What? Can I add my liquid rennet which has worked in my other cheeses? I didn't use it this time because I have no idea how to convert 1/2 tablet rennet into amount of liquid rennet. What do I do? Can it be saved or do I dump it in the ditch?

[Jeepyj]

Did I use enough mesophilic culture? The recipe calls for 1/4 teaspoon, so that's what I used. The package says 1/4 teaspoon will do 2 gal pasteurized milk or 4 gallons fresh. I was at three gal pasteurized/homogenized. PH is 6.61. I feel bad

[Stinky]

I don't think that it should really affect rennet ability to coagulate, but the ripening culture should have lowered the pH somewhat...

[Kern]

Did I use enough mesophilic culture? The recipe calls for 1/4 teaspoon, so that's what I used. The package says 1/4 teaspoon will do 2 gal pasteurized milk or 4 gallons fresh. I was at three gal pasteurized/homogenized. PH is 6.61. I feel bad

1/4 tsp of culture per 2 gallons of milk is about right.  My guess is that there is a problem with your rennet.  I use single strength calf's rennet that I store in the refrigerator.  It is diluted with distilled water which I boil as it contains added ozone for "freshness".  I also add a bit of P&H milk (enough to make it cloudy).  This sits covered overnight in the small pan it was boiled it.  I always dilute it within a minute of adding it to the cultured milk.  Never had a problem doing things this way.

[Jeepyj]

OK. So I figured out at least one of the problems. Newbie mistake. I used Junket rennet not knowing that there was a difference. Now I know.

[9mmruger]

OK. So I figured out at least one of the problems. Newbie mistake. I used Junket rennet not knowing that there was a difference. Now I know.

Junket lives up to it's name.  Junk.  I have never had any luck with it.