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Dubliner vs Manchego Taste Test

Started by rsterne, October 31, 2022, 05:59:05 PM

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rsterne

We purchased some Kerrygold Dubliner a month ago, and it is a really lovely cheese.... It tasted really familiar, and yet very different to most of the cheese we have tried; nutty, sharp and yet a bit sweet.... After some discussion, my wife and I thought it reminded us of Manchego, so the next time we were in our favourite Deli in Penticton, we bought some authentic Spanish Manchego Curado (3-6 mon.) to do a comparison test with a new package of Dubliner.... Now I realize that Dubliner is an Irish cheese, made with cow's milk, in the Cheddar family, and Manchego is a Spanish cheese, made from sheep's milk, but both of us were shocked to find out that they were essentially identical in flavour....  :o

The primary difference was that the Dubliner was just a bit drier, firmer, and had a few crystals in it.... When bent, it broke just before the Manchego did, along the curd lines like a Cheddar.... On the other hand, we have had an older Manchego Viejo (1-2 yrs.) that had those same properties.... Manchego uses a blend of Mesophilic and Thermophilic cultures, and is not cheddared.... Dubliner is described as a Cheddar, but the type of cultures and the process is proprietary.... If you have a recipe for it, please provide it or a link!....  ;)

Here is the description from Cheese.com for the Dubliner:

Quote
Dubliner
Made from pasteurized cow's milk
Country of origin: Ireland
Region: County Cork
Family: Cheddar
Type: hard
Texture: close, crystalline, firm and smooth
Rind: natural
Colour: yellow
Flavour: nutty, sharp, sweet
Vegetarian: yes
Producers: Kerrygold
Dubliner is a sweet, mild and mature cheese taking over 12 months to develop the sharp robust flavour and texture of mature cheddar, the nuttiness of Swiss cheese and the bite of Parmesan cheese. It has a high content of calcium, due to the calcium lactate crystals in the cheese.

Here is Cheese.com's description for Manchego

QuoteManchego
Made from pasteurized or unpasteurized sheep's milk
Country of origin: Spain
Region: La Mancha
Type: semi-soft
Texture: firm and supple
Rind: waxed
Colour: pale yellow
Flavour: fruity, nutty, sweet, tangy
Aroma: grassy, pleasant
Vegetarian: no
Curado: Semi-firm cheese aged for 3-6 months. The flavour is caramel and nutty.
Viejo: Firm cheese aged for 1-2 years. The flavour is sharp with a crumbly texture. It has a rich, deep pepperiness to it.

Now I'm sure some of you will tell me that these can't possibly taste the same because Manchego is made from the milk of La Mancha sheep!.... All I can tell you is that if you did a blindfolded taste test to compare Dubliner to a Manchego of similar age, you would be hard pressed to tell which is which, IMO....

Bob
Cheesemaking has rekindled our love of spending time together, Diane and me!

mikekchar

Based on your other post, you probably know that Dubliner is an "adjunct cheddar".  If you search the archives, I'm pretty sure Linuxboy had a commend about how to approach something similar to Dubliner.  I *think* he suggested a normal farmhouse blend and then use acidophilus as an adjunct.  You can probably just find any old acidophilus based yogurt at the grocery store.  It will likely acidify very quickly, so you'll have to keep an eye on it.

rsterne

Yep, I understand Dubliner is an "adjunct cheddar", and is indeed cheddared during the make.... It has also been compared to a BellaVitano, but the recipe I found for that has no cheddaring stage.... so just how "alike" are they, really?.... The BellaVitano uses TA61, Flora Danica, LH 100 and FLAV 54, and cooked to only 100*F.... Manchego, of course, uses both Meso and Thermo cultures, and again is only cooked to 102-104*F.... I would assume Dubliner would use an Meso, such as MA 11, and not be cooked over 104*F ?.... or does the Acidophilus take the place of the MA 11 ?.... I have never used it....

A while ago I made a "Cheddasiago", which is my Asiago make that I cheddared, and of course that has only Thermo cultures.... At 3 months it was very nice, but needed more aging, next taste test will be in about 3 weeks, at 6 months, and I am looking forward to seeing what that is like.... The last quarter will be aged a year, with sampling also at 9 months.... Once I assess a good length of time for aging, I will target that with the next make....

I plan to get some FLAV 54 which I understand is the "sweetest" version of LH to try.... If you want that nutty flavour from LH, can you just use FLAV 54, or do you have to also use LH 100 ?.... I know they are different strains of LH....

Bob
Cheesemaking has rekindled our love of spending time together, Diane and me!

mikekchar

I think all cheddars should be cheddared by definition  >:D But I think we can back up and see what the purpose of cheddaring is.

Normally you would take the tomme (ball of curds), stick it in a mold, let it drain while it is knitting and at the same time let the pH drop.  You then salt it when it hits the pH you want.  I've found that the pH in which you start draining/pressing is cruicial.  For reasons that I don't quite understand, when you drain the curd at a higher pH, more calcium is retained in the curds.  Even after it has finished draining and you hit your target pH, the total calcium level in the cheese is apparently *higher* than if you started draining at a lower pH.  To some extent that makes intuitive sense, but I don't really understand what's happening physically and chemically.  Possibly because you create the tomme (ball of curds) early the calcium gets filtered out (and remain in the curds) as the curds are draining.  If you leave the curds in the vat, they are all still small and the calcium can leave the curds more easily, but I really don't know.

Anyway, the result (that you can test by trying it many times) is that curds that you drain early will be more pliable and stretchy than curds that you drain late.  More calcium remaining means that the when the curd gets down to 5.2 or so, it still has a lot of connection points and so it doesn't get brittle on you.  You can especially see that in alpine cheeses.  You drain at a very high pH and even though it's a very low moisture cheese, it's almost comically flexible when you get it down near a pH of 5.0.

Enter cheddaring.  To my mind (and to be clear, this is my own imagination here), cheddaring is mostly a texture building technique (well Caldwell says the same thing in her book which is what got me thinking along these lines).  You make a tomme, then you cut, stack and drain the cheese.  Because you have cut the tomme, (and you are keeping the temperature high), the curds drain easily and quickly, but because you have stacked them, I *think* they will probably retain calcium.  As you cheddar, you'll see that the curd forms layers.  This is (in my mind) assisted by the fact that you aren't pressing it (except under its own weight).  When the curd has finished cheddaring, if you tear off a piece it will have striations like a cooked piece of chicken breast.  I've posted it before, but Caldwell has a really dramatic picture of a well cheddared slab of curd.  It's got 30 or 40 layers in it.

After that you mill the curds.  There are 2 different ways of milling the curd.  One is to mill it in large pieces. This retains moisture, but also retains that original structure.  The second way is to mill it fine.  This allows the curd to drain very well, but it looses the original structure.  If you do it the first way you will end up with kind of boulders inside the cheese that all have striations oriented in different directions.  As the cheese ages, the proteolysis breaks down the striations, but you still end up getting a lot of variation in the "grain" of the cheese.  For that reason, when you cut the cheese, it will tend to break apart in large chunks.  If you go the second way, you will have a more uniform structure that is grainy and will break apart into small crumbly bits.

If you were to take the same cheese and press it like a tomme, you would get a texture like a tomme.  It is practically the same cheese after all, except for the cheddaring!  But the thing to consider here is that the tomme will have *much* more moisture because it hasn't drained in the cheddaring process.  Both will have a good amount of calcium and have a pliable texture, but the cheddar will break apart, while still being  rubbery and pliable (if you know what I mean).

Now imagine a "stirred curd cheddar" (which is not a cheddar in my books, but... oh well).  Here you keep the curd in the vat for an extended period and drain the curds extensively in the vat.  They are mostly drained of whey before you drain them out of the vat and so you put them in the press immediately, press and then salt.  This gives you the same moisture level as a cheddar, but you lack the texture of the cheddar.  Importantly, I think you also will lack the calcium content of the cheddar and so you will end up with a more crumbly, less pliable curd.

Now, you can do a kind of hybrid approach, where you intentionally case harden the curds (by raising the temperture quickly), or by doing something like washing the curd.  Here you maintain the moisture level of the curd and stop it from draining easily.  If you look at a Colby, the traditional technique is to spread out the curds, let them dry out a bit (to further harden the curds and stop them from draining to much) and then press.  It's kind of like an anti-cheddar.  However, I think it produces a similar result.  You retain calcium and you give structure to the curd so that it crumbles while maintaining pliability.

So I think some of the Dubliner approaches are closer to that hybrid approach (if I remember correctly).  They want a higher moisture level.  They want high calcium content.  They want a crumbly curd.  It's one of those thins that I think you would really have to watch videos of real production to be able to reason effective about what they are trying to do.  It's super subtle.  I don't think it's a thing you can reasonably get from a recipe.  I feel the same way about good Colby.  It's a cheese that's so dependent on technique to get the properties that you are going after.

But... To be fair.  You can probably ignore all of that and get very yummy cheddar-like cheese without over thinking :-D.   Of course, that's absolutely no fun.

rsterne

Mike, as usual, I will have to read your reply several times to even partially understand it.... This is not because of your writing, but rather that you have so very much information packed in there.... and I really appreciate it....

Once again, a cheese for you for being so helpful....  8)

Bob
Cheesemaking has rekindled our love of spending time together, Diane and me!

rsterne

Thanks to paulabob, I now have a copy of the flavour profiles of the various Choozit adjunct cultures....



As you can see, the FLAV 54 is the sweetest, and at the opposite end of the sweetness scale from LH 100, even though they are both strains of LH....  8)

Bob
Cheesemaking has rekindled our love of spending time together, Diane and me!

Aris

#6
Quote from: mikekchar on November 03, 2022, 03:16:18 AM
I think all cheddars should be cheddared by definition  >:D But I think we can back up and see what the purpose of cheddaring is.

Now imagine a "stirred curd cheddar" (which is not a cheddar in my books, but... oh well).  Here you keep the curd in the vat for an extended period and drain the curds extensively in the vat.  They are mostly drained of whey before you drain them out of the vat and so you put them in the press immediately, press and then salt.  This gives you the same moisture level as a cheddar, but you lack the texture of the cheddar.  Importantly, I think you also will lack the calcium content of the cheddar and so you will end up with a more crumbly, less pliable curd.

But... To be fair.  You can probably ignore all of that and get very yummy cheddar-like cheese without over thinking :-D.   Of course, that's absolutely no fun.
Cheddar cheese in the past weren't "cheddared". Joseph Harding known as the father of modern cheddar didn't do any "cheddaring". Other old methods of cheddar making such as Canon and T.C Candy also didn't do any cheddaring. My latest Cheddar was made using Joseph Harding's method where the curds are just left to mat together and free drain. So yeah cheddaring is not mandatory to make Cheddar since the pioneers of Cheddar didn't do it imo.
https://westcombedairy.com/blogcentre/making-historic-cheddar?fbclid=IwAR0QwBaXJgSod_ymeabxLw7LqxedrSLv6fx_UBNYTKJApRWSmVY9MGmzhrw

mikekchar

Cool article!  Thanks for that :-)

For me, though, just like the Colby, I kind of think of this as cheddaring.   To me, cheddaring is removing the curds from the vat, letting them drain,  letting them hit the desired pH out of the press, then salting to slow down the bacteria and to further drain before pressing.  I don't think of stacking the slabs as cheddaring (though it can be part of the process, depending on what you are trying to do).  However, I appreciate that some people feel pretty strongly that cheddaring *is* stacking.  These kinds of definitions are tricky, I think.  So, usually, when I talk about this stuff I'm pretty wishy-washy...

However, I still feel that "stirred curd cheddar", which removes the curds directly to the mold, acidifies in the press, and then salts after pressing is not a cheddar.   Other people obviously disagree.

Aris

Quote from: mikekchar on December 04, 2022, 05:24:03 PM
Cool article!  Thanks for that :-)

For me, though, just like the Colby, I kind of think of this as cheddaring.   To me, cheddaring is removing the curds from the vat, letting them drain,  letting them hit the desired pH out of the press, then salting to slow down the bacteria and to further drain before pressing.  I don't think of stacking the slabs as cheddaring (though it can be part of the process, depending on what you are trying to do).  However, I appreciate that some people feel pretty strongly that cheddaring *is* stacking.  These kinds of definitions are tricky, I think.  So, usually, when I talk about this stuff I'm pretty wishy-washy...

However, I still feel that "stirred curd cheddar", which removes the curds directly to the mold, acidifies in the press, and then salts after pressing is not a cheddar.   Other people obviously disagree.
So your method is similar to Harding. I don't think the word "cheddaring" even exist in his time. Cheddaring isn't just stacking according to the videos of professional cheddar makers I saw. It also depends on the producer which do it with slight variations.

If you get the right pH and moisture content of a Cheddar (young or aged) despite doing it differently it will have the characteristics of Cheddar (young or aged). I've had cheeses that turned into Cheddar despite making them totally different, unpressed and without cheddaring.

My cheese below that is supposed to be a Caciotta and it is unpressed. At 4 months old it had a texture very similar to a mature cheddar (firm and crumbly) and similar to sharp cheddar in flavor. I think the starter culture, pH, ambient temperature and syneresis played a big part.
https://i.ibb.co/4F2cnhr/DSC-6508.jpg