sous vide and gouda washing curds temps

[Mina]

Hi All
I have a very sweet sous vide setup and has worked really well for my very fist 2 batches of Asiago. I tend to overheat milk too easily on the stove top - even with a double boiler - too many failed yogurts
Saw some setups on this forum and bam!  I'm making cheese!!
Now - my next attempt is a Gouda.  My question is this...washing curd stage.  The books assume a double boiler setup so when I remove the req'd cups of whey and replace with req'd cups of 140F water...do I need to keep adding water to get it to the next temperature...or can i just adjust the temp on the sous vide?  I'm thinking the removing of whey and adding clean water is to change the acidity of the cheese and temperature is secondary?  Or is it the timing of increasing the temperature a critical factor?
Just basing this on the Asiago I've already made...where you have to increase the temp at a certain stage...which the sous vide does so wonderfully..over a period of time.

Love learning!!!!!

[mikekchar]

My understanding of the situation is that the temperature and amount of water you exchange is critical.  You'll make an entirely different cheese if you do it differently.  First, it's not so much that you are removing the acidity.  The milk is only down to something like pH 6.4 at the point.  What you are really doing is removing the lactose (milk sugar) that your start culture will use to acidify the cheese.  With a gouda, you remove enough lactose that the cheese will "finish" (meaning run out of lactose) and end up at something like pH 5.1.  If you don't salt other kinds of cheese, they won't finish until something like 4.6.

The other thing is that the temperature of the water is super important.  If you add water that is higher than the temperature of the curd, it will pull whey out of the curd.  If you add water that is lower than the temperature of the curd, it will pull whey *into* the curd.  If you have water that is the same temperature of the curd, then it won't promote an exchange, one whey or another :-).  When making a gouda, you add hotter water, which pulls out whey from the curd, while at the same time limiting acid production.  When making a traditional colby or jack cheese, you add cooler water which pulls the water into the curd (which is one of the reasons why you don't age colby or jack very long).

So, I don't think it would work particularly well by simply raising the temp slowly.  You would also have to be careful not to add water that is colder than the curd.  On the other hand, there is no authenticity police.  It will probably make very nice cheese -- just not exactly like gouda.  I'd be tempted to try it both ways to see if you can see a difference.

[Mina]

Thanks mikekchar!

Made the first gouda according to the directions.  Think I should just follow recipes as is until I gain some more experience and then when I make changes, I can hopefully rule out the 'newbie' factor

[mtnbikemama]

I have used my sous vide for washing the curd and it is very difficult to get the temperature correct. I heat water in a pan on the stove to add after removing the whey and still could not get it to temp in the time required. I think my recipe (monks cheese if I remember correctly) called for increasing the temperature to a certain number over a certain time (sorry at word so I don't have my notebook) and it barely increased the temperature during that time. Let me know if you have better luck