How to make a moister Tomme

[dmitrig01]

Hi forum! I have two Nigerian goats in my backyard that I milk. I've been making a few tommes over the past month using this classic recipe: https://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,1591.0.html. I follow the measurements pretty closely, and tend to get a 15 min flocculation time after renneting, after which I do a 3x floc multiplier for a total of 45 minutes from renneting to curd cutting.

I finally gave into temptation and tried the first one this past weekend, at about a month old. It was delicious, if young, but a lot drier than I was expecting. I am aging it in a pretty high humidity environment (90%+ RH), so I doubt it lost too much moisture to its surroundings. I think the cheese itself is just dry. I'd love to figure out how I can retain more moisture in the cheese.

From what I've read, it seems like the biggest contributor to moisture is a high protein-to-fat ratio. Is this true? Perhaps because the goats' milk is so fatty, that lowers the ratio, causing a drier cheese? I've looked into cream separators to try and improve the ratio, but honestly all the setup and cleanup doesn't seem worth it at my small scale.

Are there other things I can do to improve the moisture of my cheese?

[MacGruff]

I make Tommes from supermarket cow's milk and have the same observation. I've been experimenting with different cultures. Do not have a solution - yet.

If you find one, please share. I would love to make mine more melty, if you know what I mean!   :-)

[Bantams]

First of all, double check the amount of rennet - that's 0.8 ml of single-strength rennet per gallon. I personally use 0.7ml/gallon for my Tommes.
Also, I've seen that sheep milk recipes often call for a bit less rennet and NG milk might be more similar to sheep than cow/reg goat milk.

Many cheeses are rather plastic-y and don't have a great mouth feel the first couple months. Then the enzymes start breaking down the proteins and the texture becomes more supple (around 3 months).
I think this is mostly a matter of trying it too soon.  Age your Tomme 3-5 months.
You can also make small changes like cutting the curd a bit larger, stirring less vigorously, and lowering your target tempt by a degree or two.

[mikekchar]

Bantams suggestion of  too much rennet is a good possibility (raw milk requires less rennet.. but if you are really getting a 15 minute flocculation, that sounds fine to me).  Over stirring or over cooking the curds is one other potential problem.  Another is over acidifying the curd (waiting too long to salt).  When you first start making cheese, you see instructions to stir the curd.  It's important to realise that the curd is *fragile* at the beginning.  It will "shatter" when you stir it.  At the beginning, don't stir.  Just lift one spoonful of curds from the bottom of the pot to the top.  Wait 2 or 3 seconds.  Do it again.  If the curds break apart a lot, then wait longer between "stirs".  Over time, the curds will get more robust.   Once they get rounded edges and look a bit like marshmallows, then usually you can stir them fairly easily without them breaking.

Cooking/stirring the curds is a bit tricky and there is an art to it.  You goal is to get to the end of the stirring period: 1) at the right acidity 2) with the right texture of the curds 3) with the correct moisture content in the curds.  The longer you cook, the more acidic the curds will get.  The more acidic the curds, the faster the whey will drain and the drier the resultant cheese.  So it's very important to drain the whey at the right acidity level.  For a tomme, that's way above a pH of 6.0.  The whey should be quite sweet and still basically taste a bit like milk.  If you get to a point where the whey is losing its sweetness, you've cooked too long.  Raw milk can acidify very quickly, so if you are finding that you are acidifying too quickly, you can reduce the amount of starter culture (lots of people using raw milk use about half) and/or you can omit the ripening time for the milk.

Texture and moisture is also tricky.  There are a couple of things.  First, even when using the flocculation method, you should check the break by cutting into the curd, twisting the curd knife and lifting up to see the cut extend.  The cut should be "clean" in that the edges should be sharp.  If it looks ragged, then you have over firmed the curd.  If this happens, the curd tears when you are cutting it and it drains whey faster than it should (a bit paradoxically since you have more moisture).  Also check the whey seeping back into the cut.  It should still be a bit milky looking.  If it is completely clear, you've gone too far (for a tomme).

The amount of moisture in the curd is mostly controlled by the size of the cut.  You can experiment with different sizes.  Once you cook the curds for about 15 minutes, take one and break it apart in your hand.  You will see that it is a bit like a water balloon.  It has a relatively thick outside and the inside is basically water/whey.  As you cook the curd, the outside part will get thicker and thicker and the inside part will get smaller and smaller.  Eventually, there will be no watery bit on the inside.  This is when you stop cooking for a tomme.  Personally, I don't like the method of squishing a handful of curds and breaking them apart with your thumb because it's more difficult (for me) to see exactly where in the process I am.

Normally for a tomme you "pitch" the curds meaning that you let them settle to the bottom of the pot for 10 or 15 minutes.  Then you collect them *in the whey* and transfer them in one big blob to the mold.  Do not drain the curds in a collander (or similar).  The name "tomme" is actually what a slab of curds is called.  The whole technique is to make the tomme in the whey and transfer it into the mold in one go.  That's why it's called a tomme :-)  You can gather it up in your cheese cloth if it makes it easier for you, but I find that it's generally pretty easy to just make a big slab with my hands.  If you find it difficult (and the curds never knit together in the pot), then you have over acidified/overstirred your curds.

Finally, a tomme needs *very little* weight on it.  You should drain it in the mold for 15 minutes with no weight.  Then flip and drain with no weight for 15minutes.  Flip and drain for 30 minutes with maybe a pound or so on it (though usually I find it's not necessary).  After the first hour you can put a tiny amount of weight on it if the rind is not closing and after 2 hours you can up up to the total weight of the cheese on it (just a few lbs).

Usually you salt/brine after about 4 hours in the mold.  What you can do is take the cheese out of the mold.  If it slumps (starts getting bowed out sides), then it hasn't acidified enough.  Let it rest in the mold for another hour.  If it doesn't, then you are pretty good to go.  The more acidic the cheese, the more crumbly it will be.  A tomme is usually  about a pH of 5.3 or 5.4 which is just at the threshold of where the cheese will slump for something with that level of moisture.  You can taste the whey coming out of the cheese.  You want to stop just before or just when it starts to get some tartness (depending on what you are going for).  The whey will taste sweet and milky at first.  Then just sweet.  Then neutral (and usually you can start to taste the fat at this point).  Then you will just start to taste acidity.    If it tastes clearly acidic, then you have gone way too far.  You want somewhere between neutral and just barely detect acidity.

[Bantams]

Great points Mike!
My experience does differ on the pressing aspect, however.
I like to press Tomme at somewhere between 0.6-1 psi. My cheeses would never knit properly if I used as little weight as you.
Also, cheese slumping seems to correlate more with curd temperature than anything else. For example my Alpine wheels would slump if I took them out of the molds at a couple hours simply because they're still 100+ degrees and butterfat/curd is more malleable at that point. The pH certainly hasn't dropped much by then (~6.5).  Not saying that your pH rule doesn't hold true in your case, just that there likely are more variables at play (temp, height of wheel, etc) that would affect slumping and using it as a measure of pH could be misleading.

[MacGruff]

Great tips. Thanks guys!

I am already planning my next make, and will use those tips. Of course, it will be a few months before I report back here on how it all came out...    ???

[dmitrig01]

This is super insightful – thank you for the advice! I'll give it a try this weekend. The closest proxy I have for moisture for now is measuring yield.

When it comes to rennet issues, I should have mentioned – I am not following the recipe at all. I just did some trial and error until I came to a 15 minute flocc :-).

It will "shatter" when you stir it.  At the beginning, don't stir.  Just lift one spoonful of curds from the bottom of the pot to the top.  Wait 2 or 3 seconds.  Do it again.  If the curds break apart a lot, then wait longer between "stirs".

This is really good advice. I think I am in fact being too aggressive with my stirs. I'll give that a go!

One other thing this is bringing up for me is, I don't have a great way to cut the curds horizontally. I have been using an offset spatula for all my cuts, which works great for the vertical cuts, but the best I can do horizontally is a diagonal pattern, which often creates very uneven sized curds. Some are nicely 1/2" in diameter, but some are tiny flecks and some huge pieces. I've been putting off creating a horizontal harp thing, but this is good motivation to do that.

First, even when using the flocculation method, you should check the break by cutting into the curd, twisting the curd knife and lifting up to see the cut extend.  The cut should be "clean" in that the edges should be sharp.  If it looks ragged, then you have over firmed the curd.

Pretty sure this is not happening – but I'll check!

Also check the whey seeping back into the cut.  It should still be a bit milky looking.  If it is completely clear, you've gone too far (for a tomme).

Definitely need to check this.

The more acidic the curds, the faster the whey will drain and the drier the resultant cheese.

This one, I'm not so sure about. I thought this was the case too, but I started reading more about it, and now from what I understand, the acidity determines other factors like how crumbly vs plastic the paste is, how well it melts, and of course the taste. But the moisture seems more related to the other factors we've talked about.

See here: https://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,5673.msg41451.html#msg41451

From my understanding, the trick with managing the acidity curve (in choice of culture, amount of culture, timing of pre-ripening, etc) is to align the pH targets with the moisture targets (through stirring/cooking/etc) of the cheese.

For my first few cheese, including this one I described, I was following the pH targets without realizing that they had to be timed with the moisture targets (which are usually just given as a time-based thing – "stir for 5 min" etc) – this makes it super hard to follow. I'll have to take all this back to the cheese and give it a try.

The amount of moisture in the curd is mostly controlled by the size of the cut.  You can experiment with different sizes.  Once you cook the curds for about 15 minutes, take one and break it apart in your hand.  You will see that it is a bit like a water balloon.  It has a relatively thick outside and the inside is basically water/whey.  As you cook the curd, the outside part will get thicker and thicker and the inside part will get smaller and smaller.  Eventually, there will be no watery bit on the inside.  This is when you stop cooking for a tomme.  Personally, I don't like the method of squishing a handful of curds and breaking them apart with your thumb because it's more difficult (for me) to see exactly where in the process I am.

This is invaluable advice. Thank you! I am looking forward to trying this out. I agree that the "squishing and breaking apart" has generally been hard for me to get any meaning out of, so I've been looking for another way to understand where I am in the moisture process, and I think this is it.

[dmitrig01]

Oh – and one last thing: I'm not expecting an amazing cheese at 1 month :-). I opened it to see if there were any defects and to learn how I can improve my process. In this case, I'm glad I did – I learned what I need to correct. I ate half and vac-bagged the rest to try at 3 or 6 months.

[Bantams]

You can actually just use a large whisk to cut the curds. Even commercial cheesemakers often use a giant whisk to cut the curd. You can find one at a restaurant supply store. Look for one with fairly thin wires and snip out some of the wires if needed.

[John@PC]

You can actually just use a large whisk to cut the curds. Even commercial cheesemakers often use a giant whisk to cut the curd. You can find one at a restaurant supply store. Look for one with fairly thin wires and snip out some of the wires if needed.

Just saw this flat whisk on Amazon that looked interesting.  Might be less prone to push the curds??