Manchego 5.2 PH

[cheesehead94]

I am new to cheese making, and yesterday made my first cow milk manchego, using raw jersey milk. This is only my 2nd aged cheese attempt ever, so I am still learning the ropes!

The recipe I used said the PH should be 5.3-5.4 at the end of pressing. I overslept a little and the PH was 5.2 for me...what kind of effect will this have on the cheese, and how big a deal is a PH change of 0.1? Also, I left it in the brine about 20 minutes too long, which isn't much but it is only a 1.1 pound wheel, so I feel like 20 minutes extra in the brine may be significant.

Thoughts? Thanks in advance!

[GortKlaatu]

Welcome
Congrats on using Jersey since Manchego is a sheep milk cheese and sheep milk has a high fat percentage, so the Jersey gets you pretty close there.
Don't worry about the 5.2--sure it would be better at 5.3 but you'll be ok with that.
Don't worry about the 20 minutes...it will be ok...that's not a huge boo boo.
BUT, trying to age a 1 pound wheel....now that's gonna be hard.  Because Manchego needs to age several months and at only 1 pound you're gonna have problems with it getting too dry because your surface area to paste ratio is so low.

[cheesehead94]

Thanks for your response! That makes sense. So with such a small wheel am I better off going for a 3-4 month aged cheese? What Is generally a safe aging range for a 1 pound wheel?

[cheesehead94]

Part of the reason this wheel is smaller is that my first cheese attempt, a Tomme, yielded a lot more curds than expected, which is cool but I had to quickly make a makeshift second mold to put the extras in. I think I overcompensated this time and used too little milk

[GortKlaatu]

How much milk did you use?  There will be some variance based on the type of cheese and the type of milk, but on average I get a yield of slightly more than a pound per gallon. Maybe you can use that for a ballpark idea.

[cheesehead94]

I used one gallon of milk, so my 1.1 lb yield sounds like it is right where it should be for that much milk?

For a 1 pound yield how long do you think I can get away with aging it before it becomes unpalatably dry?

[GortKlaatu]

Partly it depends on the humidity of your cave. Partly it depends on the shape of your cheese....a one pound flat disc will lose moisture much faster than a 1 pound block.
I would suggest that you consider giving it only 3-4 weeks to develop a good rind and then either wax it or vac it for the remainder--otherwise it will turn into a dry chunk that will probably be good for grating but not much else.  Of course, you could just eat it at 2-3 weeks--that variety is never available in the States, but very common in Spain where it is called Manchego Fresco.  It's a very different thing than Manchego Curado or Viejo but I don't think you'd ever be able to age a one pound piece that long and still have it be used as a table cheese.

[cheesehead94]

Right on, thanks for the tips!