Just made my first manchge, recipe with ph marks

[vertlook]

Just made my first manchego, based on the recipe from this site.
Thanks a lot to linuxboy and zenith1 for their input on PH marks.
Here it goes:

Manchego 12/17/10
2Gal homo past. whole milk , measured 7.2 PH
Warmed to 86,
Added ¼ t lepase powder, mixed in ¼ cup water, 20 minutes
Added 1 pkt DS thermo, 5 minutes
Added 6 T meso mother culture
65 minutes, PH 6.5
Added ½ t cacl, dissolved in ¼ c of dist water
Added ½ t rennet, dissolved in ¼ cup of dist water
Flocc in 14.5 minutes, factor 3-3.5
Letting it set for 15+35 = total 50 minutes
Checked for clean break and it was not very good, added another 10 minutes.
Cut the curd, 5 minutes,
30 minutes stirring with a whisk
Heated to 104, took me 45 minutes, PH is 6.2
Covered colander with a double lined cloth,
Poured curds with a whey there, drained for a few minutes and then moved to a tommie mold.
The curds are quite dry look a lot like a cooked rice.
Wrapped, pressed for 15 minutes with ~15 lbs
Rewraped, pressed for 15 minutes with ~15 lbs
Rewraped, pressed for 30 minutes with ~30 lbs
Rewraped, pressed for 8 hours with ~30 lbs (ovenight).
Prepared brine of 250gm kosher salt and 750gms water,
put a cheese in it, turned every 2 hours for 6 hours total.
Here it is draining.

One concern I have is would not cheese be too salty from the saturated brine?
One of my cheeses (taleggio from 200 cheese)  was actually way to salty after brining in 18% brine.
I guess I will post a tasting notes in a month or so.
Thanks a lot guys for your suggestions and help!

[Sailor Con Queso]

Looks really good but here are a few quick observations.

A starting pH of 7.2 is really high. Normal should be around 6.6-6.7. I generally won't use milk that is over 6.9 or under 6.4. Either the pH meter was off or your milk was questionable. If your pH meter was off from the beginning, then your pH targets are off as well. Generally what you are looking for is a pH drop of .1-.15 after letting the starter bacteria ripen. SO that would be around 6.5 or so. In your case, it dropped from 7.2 to 6.5. That's a drop of .7. You may have hit the 6.5 target, but the bacteria are way more active and are rapidly acidifying the milk. That changes the pH curve for the rest of your make. I would check the calibration on your meter.

Which flocculation factor did you use? 3.0 or 3.5? That choice will make a difference in the moisture and texture of your cheese. A 3.0 would be 44 minutes. A 3.5 would be 51. By Adding 10 minutes you effectively used a floc multiplier of over 4.0 and added even more moisture. Forget about a "clean break" if you are using the flocculation method. Just trust the timing and cut the curds at the appointed time.

Curds that are "quite dry" are probably overcooked. Either from heating too fast or for too long.

Follow the brining suggested in the recipe.

Manchego REALLY needs at least 3 months to even be decent. 4 to 6 months is much better. Give it time to mature.

[vertlook]

Thank you Sailor,
Regarding starting ph of 7.2 I think I messed something with PH meter, using it for the first time.
Anyway, as other member said "I will eat the evidence".
Considering this is my first manchego, I do not think I will be able to wait for 3 month. My plan was to cut it in half at ~1.5 month, vacuum and continue ripening one half and try the other one, hope it will be eatable by then.
Stay tuned ....

[Sailor Con Queso]

Vert,

Be sure you calibrate your meter with both 7.0 and 4.0 before every make.

The hardest lesson that you will learn is patience. Manchego is NOT a good cheese when it is young. With all of your hard work on this, why ruin it. Let it go at least 90 days before you cut the wheel. As an alternative, you should consider buying a cheese "trier", a stainless steel gizmo designed to take a small core out for sampling.

[zenith1]

Vert- nice going. I agree with Sailor- stick to whatever the calculation is using the flocc method and forget about checking for a good break. As far as the brine soak goes you might be a little too long in terms of time. You have to weight the wheel before you place it in the brine. Do this once and you will have a guide for future makes. Then to figure the soaking time 1hr X Weight X the thickness of the wheel. The smaller wheels always trip you up in the brining phase because the curd mass is so small and it is easy to end up with too much salt.

[Alex]

One concern I have is would not cheese be too salty from the saturated brine?

A general rule of thumb is to brine for 3-4 hours for every 1 Lb of cheese.

[vertlook]

Just wanted to report back on the cheese:
It was aged in my cave for ~7 weeks now, I applied some olive oil on it at weeks 2, 4 and 6.
Cut it today - very pleased. It is a bit softer than the commercial manchego (need to work on my press) but the taste is much richer.
Kids loved it.

[Boofer]

Added ½ t cacl, dissolved in ¼ c of dist water

Just curious. Is this dry CACL2? If so, you're probably adding a bit more calcium than is customary. It's probably CACL2 solution and I got hung up on your "dissolved" wording.

-Boofer-