vaca al vino

[Cloversmilker]

Since Clover gives cow milk and not goat milk, I had to make vaca al vino instead of cabra al vino.    The make was Thursday, pressed until I got home from work on Friday, and then plunged into wine.  It's out now until the morning, and will then go back in for another drink. 

[Vina]

what a beauty!

[anutcanfly]

Gorgeous color! How long did you actually soak it for - 24 hours?

[smellysell]

Any chance you could post a recipe?  I have a bunch of blueberry mead I made that I was thinking of doing something similar with.

[Cloversmilker]

The recipe is based on the one for cabra al vino in Tim Smith's book.  It was adapted to fit my milk and schedule.  So here is vaca al vino.    

3 gallons warm whole Jersey milk, 1 gallon slightly skimmed warmed Jersey milk, combined at temperature 88F. 
Add 3/16 tsp mesophilic culture and ripen for 30 minutes. 
Keeping at temp, add 1 tsp calcium chloride and stir. 
Add 1 generous tsp rennet and stir. 
Floc time was 12 minutes, used a multiplier of 4.5 and cut curds  (1/2 inch) at about 54 minutes.
Let rest 5 minutes, then drain about 1/3 of the whey.  (There wasn't much whey at this time; 8-10 cups was taken off.)
Add enough 175F water to bring the temp to 90F.  (I added gradually and stirred gently.)
Keep at temp for 10 minutes while stirring gently.  (No need to stir continuously.) 
Continue adding 175F water gradually to bring temp to 98F.  Maintain at 98F for 15 minutes while stirring enough to prevent matting. 
Let curds settle in pot for 30 minutes while maintaing temp.
Strain off whey, leaving drained curds in pot.
Mill curds into about 1/4" size and blend in 4 tablespoons salt. 
Place curds in cheesecloth lined 8 inch tomme mold, and press with 30 pounds pressure (total, not psi) for 20 minutes. 
Turn, redress, and press at 85 pounds for 6 hours. 
Turn, redress, and press at 85 pounds for 10 hours.  Repeat.
Remove from press, place in container, and cover generously with red wine.  (The cheese does not float as it would in brine.)  I used an inexpensive California red that we like. 
Leave for 24 hours. 
Remove and air dry overnight. 
Return to wine bath for 24 hours. 
Remove and air dry. 
Age for 3 months at 50F and 80-85% humidity.  Wipe with brine as needed to maintain rind.

My vaca al vino is now taking its second wine bath.  The wine seems to soften the cheese.  It certainly adds a lovely color and aroma.  It will be interesting to see how this develops. 

Oh, after the cheese comes out of its last bath, I will pour the soaking wine over Mlle Clover's morning grain.   

[anutcanfly]

I think I'll do that to one of my cheddar's (the one with the bitter defect) and see how I feel about it.  The blackberry wine I make should go nice with it. 

[smellysell]

Wow, that seems like a lot of weight, though I'm admittedly very green to this whole cheese making thing.  Thanks for the recipe.

[Cloversmilker]

This is total weight, not psi.  The mold is 8 inch diameter, so the psi on the first pressing is less than 1.  The final pressings are under 2 psi.  Not so high really. 

The cheese now feels moist, but not not dense.  I'll try to post another photo tonight.

[Cloversmilker]

Here it is after the second soaking and air drying for a day and a half.  It's weighing in at 5.5 pounds.  The color can't be much more than rind deep.  You can see the lighter color of the underlying paste on the upper edge where a little particle came off. 

Oh yes, Clover seemed to like her little nip of wine.   

[anutcanfly]

Wow! That will be fun cheese to serve to impress company!

[Gürkan Yeniçeri]

Thanks for the recipe Cloversmilker, I will go and get some red wine now and will try the recipe on sunday.

[smellysell]

This is total weight, not psi.  The mold is 8 inch diameter, so the psi on the first pressing is less than 1.  The final pressings are under 2 psi.  Not so high really. 

The cheese now feels moist, but not not dense.  I'll try to post another photo tonight.

Just to make sure I'm not confused, which I probably am, the weight for my press is just putting barbell weights on top of the follower (more or less).  Is that what you're talking about?

[Cloversmilker]

Weight of barbells = total weight.  If you're making a smaller wheel with this recipe, you will want to decrease weight accordingly.

[JeffHamm]

Hi smellysell,

Although most recipies you are likely to find in books will list how much weight to press your cheese.  Unfortunately, what is really important to keep things similar from one make to the next is how much pressure to put the cheese under.  Now, the two are related, but not the same thing.  Weight is what we're used to thinking of, pounds or kilograms (actually, pounds measures weight and kilograms is mass, which is why your weight changes when you go to the moon, you shed pounds, but your mass doesn't, you have the same kilograms.  This makes sense if you think of the two kinds of scales we have, spring scales and balance scales.  Pounds is measured by how far gravity stretches a spring and mass by how many standardized things you need to stack on the other side of the balance scale - hmmm, I'm digressing).

Anyway, for the practicle cheesemaker on earth, pounds and kilos are the same thing.  Pressure, however, encorporates information about how that weight is distributed over space.  So, if you have rectangle mould of 4 inches wide by 6 inches long by some amount high (the height doesn't matter), then the area of the follower is 4 x 6, or 24 square inches.  If you put 24 lbs on top of that follower, you would have your 24 pounds spread over 24 square inches, which means you have 1 pound for each square inch.  That "one pound for each square inch" is the pressure, and we would call this 1 PSI (Pounds per Square Inch).  Now, if I were to make the same cheese, but my mould was 4 x 4 inches, then the area is only 16 square inches.  If I put 24 lbs on top of that, I'm spreading the weight over a smaller area, so I would have 24 lbs/16 sqinch or 1.5 pounds per square inch, so 1.5 PSI.  For me to put my cheese under the same pressure as you, I would only need to put 16 lbs on top. 

Of course many moulds are circular, and this is where our highschool maths come in and we remember that Pi are square not round, meaning the area of a circle is calculated by Pi multiplied by the radius squared.  So if my round mould is 8 inches across at the widest point (the diameter), then it has a radius of 4 inches (half the diameter), so square that 4 for 16.  Pi, for our purposes is equal to 3.14, so 3.14 times 16 is 50.24, so the areas of my round mould is 50.24 square inches.  To get the 1 PSI that replicates the pressure of our original cheese means I now have to put 50.24 lbs on top of my cheese. 

If you search around, you'll find an excel book I've posted called "CheeseTools" and one of the pages is set up to calculate PSI for you if you enter the dimetions of your mould and the weight.  It can also tell you the amount of weight you would require to obtain a given PSI based upon your mould dimentions.

- Jeff

[Boofer]

It's weighing in at 5.5 pounds.

Wow, from 4 gallons of milk. Must be a significant amount of residual moisture/whey still in there. After air-drying a bit did you re-weigh it?

Looks great. The Tomme I did a while back was soaked in a merlot brine and it was only a little bit into the rind when I cut it. I was a little afraid to just soak in the wine without salt added. Anyone else out there with an informed opinion on wine only or wine-brine?

-Boofer-