Manchego drying off questions

[Dulcelife]

A question for all you manchego makers out there.

I have had issues with over acidification and was wondering.  Does air drying manchego and other semi hard and hard cheeses in ambient household temperature of 75F - 77F for the one to three days required over acidify the young cheese?
I would think the saturated brine would slow acid production enough to let it sit for a few days before ripening.

Or, would it be a better idea to dry the cheese in my non humidity controlled cave before moving to the ripening box?


How have you dried your cheeses before ripening.

[linuxboy]

over acidify the young cheese?

No. If you are going to have overacidification post-brine, it will happen even at normal cave temps. Bigger concern is fatting off or excess drying, because 75-80F is getting rather hot.

[Sailor Con Queso]

There are many ways to control acidity. Tells us more about what you did, what your readings were, and why you think it's over acidified and we can give you better suggestions.

In the meantime, LB is right, 75-77F is way too warm for drying your cheeses. I dry all of my cheeses for a few days to a week in a non-humid 52F environment before moving them to my humid cave for aging. That first few days is really important for initial rind development. If your cheese is too moist going into a humid environment you will have mold problems. The books all say dry until you have a "clammy" surface. I disagree. I wait until the surface is quite dry before going into aging.

[Dulcelife]

Sailor: What you opine on drying the cheese in a cool non humid environment is along the lines of what seems logical to me.  My over acidification issues came to light when I cracked my 50 day Gouda and it came out tasting like cheddar and close to crumbly.  I then sampled my chihuahua/Mennonite cheese which tasted like Gouda.  I then assumed I had mislabeled the wheels.  But, upon sampling one of my Edam boules, again; cheddar-like.

I have been "winging it" without the benefit of pH targets until this Manchego make.  Everything was pretty much spot on.  But, I don't want to ruin it by having high post brine activity.

I conclude that first: my raw milk is pretty loaded insofar as natural lactic loving flora.  Second, leaving these makes out in my higher than ideal temperature is not helping.  I have not had any fat sweating or other defects while drying but still think I can dry in my 53F non-humidity controlled cave and keep activity nice and slow.

The make for this Manchego is here:  https://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,9743.0.html
I appreciate to taking the time to review what I've done at your leisure and shed more light on possible outcomes.

[linuxboy]

I wrote a long post before on post-acidification, can't find it now. But in short, post-acidification due to excess lactose retention happens when you brine before 5.4-ish. For a tomme type like this, 5.5 is too high, for example. And below 5.2 is too low.

As for crumbliness and paste, that's more a function of what you do before draining, those pH levels at which you add rennet, and at which the curds fuse again in the whey. Post-brine warm room is not the end of the world, but you risk flavor defects especially with raw milk because it encourages fast fermentation and growth of undesirables such as yeast.

[Dulcelife]

Thanks Linuxboy.  I have a new appreciation for the importance of a properly working pH meter.  I hope to start hitting my targets a bit better and improve my makes.

[Sailor Con Queso]

I conclude that first: my raw milk is pretty loaded insofar as natural lactic loving flora.

You are absolutely right. With raw milk you need to reduce your starter bacteria by 25% to 33%.