Pitching Curds?

[MrsKK]

Hey, Fied, I really enjoyed your thread on Cheshire cheese but have a question for you.  What do you mean when you say to pitch the curds?  Anyone else with a knowledge of the vernacular?

In the US, when we pitch something, it usually means we throw it away!

[linuxboy]

It's a British cheesemaker thing. When you take the curds and whey and pump them to a table from the vat, where the whey can drain off, that's the pitch. You pitch it to the table. It's what I usually call whey drain point with the associated pH marker for quality control. Sometimes Brits will say stuff like time-to-pitch or rennet-to-pitch to explain the time it takes from when rennet is added to going through the process of coagulation, cutting, healing, scalding, and stirring.

I've found old-timey recipes from the 1800s and 1900s, especially for milled curd types will sometimes call it pitching.

[fied]

I use the term slightly differently from LB, KK. In the Cheshire recipe, it's the final stir, leaving the curds to settle so that they mat and then draining the whey. It's a cheddaring term, really, but differs slightly for different cheddared cheeses.

[smilingcalico]

Heaven forbid I don't defer to LB, but I concur with Fied.  I refer to it in my post on Lancashire.  It's a term I learned from a traditional Lancashire recipe.

[linuxboy]

Thanks guys, never realized that. Always thought it was pitching the curds and whey to the table or that point at whey drain.

[smilingcalico]

Your explanation makes sense of course, LB.  Especially when one considers that we often say things like, "I pitched the cultures at 9 am, then I pitched the rennet at 10:15."

[MrsKK]

Thanks so much for the clarification!