Colby #3

[Susan38]

Hello again!  I'm in the process of trying to replicate/or improve upon the same cheese to improve my cheesemaking skills, and have chosen Colby to be the recipe to do this.  I'm now reporting on my Colby #3 which I recently got out of the cave and into the frig.  To recap, my first Colby with C101 culture and NEC recipe resulted in a too-hard, bland tasting, not-very-exciting cheese.  Colby #2 with Flora Danica culture and same recipe (but with salted drained curds instead of brining) was a success!  This next #3 trial was trying to replicate #2,using the same culture and recipe. 

During pressing of #2 and #3 I tried monitoring pH with pH strips (I finally have my hands on a new pH meter,so the pH strip guessing is now a thing of the past).

With #2 after 6.5 hours of pressing I estimated pH at 5.0 and quickly grabbed it out of the press.  Thankfully it turned out quite well (and who knows exactly what the pH of it was anyway). 

#3 I watched like a hawk, and after 5 hours I estimated pH at 5.2-5.3.  So I grabbed it out of the press, thinking aha! I finally have a good pH on a cheese.  But, it had retained a lot more whey than #2.  Seemingly a lot more.  During air drying it slumped so much I thought it was going to fall apart.  It wept a lot of whey.  After 9 days it finally looked like it might be air dry and I ran out of patience so I waxed it (breaking my rule #1 of cheesemaking:  "don't be in a hurry when making cheese").  During affinage it actually wept a few tiny drops of liquid through the wax.  But I waited 5 weeks or so before opening it.  I did not know what to expect, as this was my first experience with a possibly-not-pressed-long-enough cheese.

Not surprisingly, there was a tad bit of moisture between the wax and the cheese.  The center of the cheese was quite a bit "pastier", "wetter" than what I was aiming for.  It actually has the texture of...dare I say it...I don't want to say it, but OK, I'll say it...the texture is quite like *Velveeta*. It even melts like Velveeta (which is OK I guess for dishes like mac-n-cheese). Again, not exactly what I was aiming for.  But BIG surprise was the FLAVOR.  It has the most intense, classic Colby flavor I've ever had...those who think Colby is a bland cheese should taste this one!

Pictures below show Colby #3, with the small holes from gas production from Flora Danica, tears in the cheese from cutting through the delicate structure, and the smooshy paste in the middle also shown on the knife.  The texture has firmed up somewhat, of course, after being chilled in the frig for awhile (just like Velveeta, LOL).

So...the questions for you cheesy-experts out there that care to speculate are:
1)  Would the cheese eventually have dried out more in the center if I had air dried it longer?
2)  Is the extra flavor from the pH not being too low, or from the extra retained whey, or both, or neither?
3)  If I had continued to press longer, would the pH have continued to drop as I had feared?  Or since I salted the drained curd would this not be an issue?



Now, on to Colby #4 (with pH meter in hand)...

[mikekchar]

I don't have time for a big reply (lucky you -- ha ha!).  But basically, the amount of moisture in the curd is all in the vat.  By the time you've taken the curds out of the vat, there isn't a lot you can do.  So the main culprits for moist curd is: cutting the curd too early, cutting the curd too big, not cooking long enough, getting the amount of water and temperature of water correct when washing the curd.  You can also have a problem if you press too hard when you first put the cheese in the press.

[H-K-J]

As long as the flavor is enjoyable to you then it is a success
ACFU

[mikekchar]

I have to say (Now that I have more time to look at it) it looks pretty delicious to me :-)  Maybe you have discovered a new style :-)  AC4U

[Susan38]

HJK:  Thanks for your sage, big-picture words of advice (and for the cheese!)  Sounds like this comes from someone who has a lot of successful cheese makes under the belt.  And of course Colby #3 is a success, it is being enjoyed in many dishes and is half gone already.  I'm just one of those detail-oriented people who has fun trying to get into the nuts and bolts of things, always asking "why?", and always trying to make an improvement where possible.  And where else but this forum would I find at least some of the answers to all the questions that pop up in my mind?

Mike:  So hey, where's the "big reply"?  I'm still waiting.  ha ha.  No really, thanks for your input (and the cheese!).  I do understand what you are saying, that most all what happens, happens in the vat.  It's just that the makes between #2 and #3 seemed identical, then I pressed #3 for less time and it retained more moisture.  It still leads me to think that had I pressed it longer it would have ended up drier.  And the flavor difference was a big surprise, too. 

OK, I will stop with the questions now; maybe by Colby #10 or so I will have it all figured out! 

[awakephd]

Susan, I agree with Mike - pressing does not reduce moisture in the curds. However, moisture *in* the curds is not quite the same thing as whey that needs to drain from the curds. One thing that can happen is pressing with too much weight too soon, closing up the rind before all the whey has escaped. This trapped whey can lead to a sour cheese, but that doesn't sound like what you got.

My sense is that the higher the moisture (again, in the curds, not trapped whey), the faster it will develop flavor - up to some point at which further aging tends to degrade rather than improve the taste. By contrast, a low-moisture cheese needs to be aged a long, long time to fully develop its flavor.

Since you salted the curds before pressing, you should not need to worry about pH development - there may be a small change, but in general you can press salted curds as long as you would like.

[Susan38]

OK, guys, if what you are saying is correct, and I'm sure it is, then I need to focus more attention on my cooking methods, and curd readiness checking, which I thought I had down pretty well, but there you have it.

Warning...I'm going to auger in some more...I would like anyone to point me in to further discussion about what you mean, Andy, by " moisture *in* the curds is not quite the same thing as whey that needs to drain from the curds".  I have not come across this information in either of the 2 books I have.

As for the pH-during-pressing-with-salted-curds subject, I'm still a bit confused.  For example, in Caldwell's recipe for cool-water washed curd cheese, she specifies a target pH after curd draining at 5.7-5.8.  Then the curd is salted.  Then directions are to press 12-24 hours for a final pH goal of 5.4-5.5.  So I was assuming I needed to monitor and not let pH drop too far.  I think a drop from 5.8 to 5.4 is quite significant, no?  (I am actually getting drops like this quite consistently, in only 5-6 hours of pressing, but will report back on this at another time after I've gathered more data).  And why would this pH drop occur in a salted curd, where the salt is supposed to kill/retard bacteria development and resulting lactic acid...to where, like you said Andy, it shouldn't matter how long you press, in terms of pH. 

[awakephd]

Susan, I'm probably not saying it right, so maybe someone else can help me out, but I'll give it a shot.

You can make a very high moisture cheese (the curds retain a lot of moisture), which you drain and press. Once all of the free whey is drained out of the curds, you can press all you want, and you will not press any more moisture out, even though the curds themselves retain a lot of moisture. Maybe the water is locked into the curds? I honestly don't really know, and again probably not explaining it well; I just know from experience that there seems to be a difference between the whey that drains out vs. the moisture of the curds themselves.

For me, Caldwell is the "Bible" of cheesemaking, so I would certainly trust her more than anything I have to say! But again I'll take a shot at the salt and pH question. In my experience, a drop of 5.8 to 5.4 can happen in about 30 minutes in unsalted curd, depending on the temperature, so if it is taking 6 hours, that suggests quite a bit of slow down. An even more important question is the shape of the pH curve: is the drop in pH linear over that time, or is it dropping faster at first, but then slower and slower? If the latter, there may be a .4 drop over the first 6 hours, but only a .1 drop over the next 6 hours.

Once again, the disclaimer - while I've made a lot of cheese, I am not even close to being an expert. I can report my own experience, but YMMV!

[mikekchar]

Also not an expert -- I've not even made a lot of cheese :-).  It's interesting that even with salting the curd *and* doing a washed curd method you are getting a large pH drop.  Especially since you are retaining whey, here's my guess.  Whenever you raise the temperature of the curd, I'm led to believe that it's important to do so gradually.  If you do it suddenly, the osmotic pressure pulls moisture quickly out of the curd.

You can think of it a bit like having some jello.  If you take your jello and put it in a humid room, it will eventually dry out, but it will dry out evenly.  If you put your jello in a very dry room, the water will be sucked out of the outside of the jello really quickly and it will form a skin.  That skin will get very thick and eventually you'll have a kind of jello balloon rather than something that is evenly dried out.  Cold water is more dense than hot water and so when you put cold curds in hot water, it creates a pressure differential that sucks the water (whey in this case) out of the curds and into the outside water.  If the pressure is too great, then it dries out the outside of the curd just the same way that it would with the jello.  This leaves you with little whey balloons rather than consistent curds.

So the advice I've seen for doing washed curds is to remove the whey from the vat and then very slowly (over 10 or 20 minutes) add the hot water to the vat.  This brings up the temperature very slowly and makes sure the curds don't harden (which is called "case hardening").

Now the thing about doing a washed curd is that by removing some of the whey from the pot, it reduces the amount of lactose that the starter culture can eat.  You're also sucking the whey out of the curd due to that pressure differential between the hot and cold water.  Eventually it seeps back in, but is it mixed with water and so the curd has a lot less lactose than it started with.  Because of this, you should be able to "bottom out" the pH of the curd and have it end up at about 5.5.  If you are bottoming out at 5.0, then it means that your curds are containing a lot more lactose than they should -- which is why I suspect that you have a problem with case hardening.  Of course, it could be that your curds are too big to begin with, etc, etc.  Basically, you should regularly break apart a curd and inspect it.  The curd has finished cooking when it doesn't have a "juicy" centre.  It should have a completely consistent texture from outside to inside.  When you squeeze a curd between your fingers it should have some resistance as well.

If you are having trouble getting the curd texture where you need it to be and are overshooting your pH, then you can also try reducing the amount of starter culture and/or reducing the amount of ripening time.  You may also try reducing the coagulation time of your curd and going for a slightly sloppier break -- this will help the curds drain whey easier.  It's not really a one solution problem -- there are a lot of things you can do to arrive at the goal.

Edit: I have a theory about how the "velveeta" appeared as well.  Because floridanica produces gas, you get those holes in your cheese.  Once the holes developed, whey drained into the holes, leading to the liquid you see.

[Susan38]

Thanks to you both for checking in again! 

Interesting comments about flavor and aging in association with moisture content.

Great comments/ideas about the pH...but unfortunately I have been a bit sloppy with my pH measurements...only measuring the drained curd (which was right on target for both #2 and #3), then again once or twice while pressing.  In the future I will start taking more measurements to see where I might have gone off course for Colby #3 in particular.

As for curd development, all points are well taken, and they are not new to me...in fact I have been closely monitoring temperature changes over the recommended times, and checking curds for case hardening and juicy centers and resistance and such, but maybe for #3 I was thinking the curds were at the right stage when they were not.  (And for clarification, the Colby recipe is for a cool water washed curd, the opposite of hot water washed curd Mike is describing, so some of the temperature effects would be reversed i.e. more water is introduced into the curd at the end when cool water is slowly added to the warmer curd/whey, etc...but the basic concepts are the same).

Anyway, both makes I thought went identical until pressing, but the resulting texture/moisture content was quite different between the two, so something definitely is not consistent in my methodology.  Thanks very much for the conversation, sleuthing, and ideas...all of which I will keep in mind while concocting Colby #4.

[mikekchar]

Arghh!  You are right :-)  And of course, the implication is opposite.  If you put hot curds in cold water, the cold water rushes in.  So that busts that theory...  Hope you figure it out in #4.

I had a similar situation with my Caerphilly.  The curds were too wet (I didn't cook them long enough).  I opened it today: best Tomme I've made so far ;-)  Very nice flavour and texture.  Just not a Caerphilly.  Here's hoping that #2 gets closer.

It's a fun hobby!

[Susan38]

Yes it is a fun hobby!  And I thoroughly enjoy these discussions about it with others!

At breakfast this morning I decided to flip through Carroll's book to re-read parts of it, and randomly opened it up to a page where she is quoting commercial cheese maker Abe Madey:

"First of all, it [cheese making] can be very humbling.  What goes on is so complex, yet so simple.  To govern and lead the process takes experience.  It's nice just to let the cheese 'happen', but ultimately you have to impose discipline on it and on yourself to achieve proficiency and consistency.  Everything in cheese making has consequences, including your mood and what you are thinking about". 

Cheers,  Susan