This was made using Spoons' recipe.
8 litres standard Homebrand milk
1 litre Homebrand fresh cream
1/16th teaspoon Meso 704
1/2 teaspoon Calcium chloride
6.3ml Renco rennet at 65 IMCU
2% Salt by weight
Set milk at 88F for 1 hour with 704 meso
add Calcium chloride
5 mins later add rennet
3.5 floc factor
Floculation came after 16 mins (normally get floc at 14 mins...not sure if it was longer because of the cream)
56 mins total set time
Cut to 1/2" cubes (curds seemed a little mushy at the bottom (see pic)
rest for 5 mins
heat curd for 45 mins to 102F (went well for a change!)
Maintain at 102F for 45 mins while stirring
Rest for 15 mins
Lower whey level to level of curd (couldn't work out how to do this-ended up scooping out cup fulls of curd and whey into a sieve, then depositing curds back into pot
add 60F water to reduce vat temp to 86F (easier than I thought it would be)
Rest for 5 mins
Drain curds for 5 mins. Lots of whey..twist and squeeze !
Weigh to add 2% salt
(I couldn't believe the weight...2102 grammes!!! HUGE cheese. Either I have done something very wrong, or maybe got it right for a change!)
Next;
Add chillies and chilly water
Add 42 grammes salt
Mix and into press.
Cheese so big it barely fit my mould
Pressing;
10kg for 30 mins
22kg for 60 mins
42.5kg for 14 hours
Weight 2102 grammes
Cheese quite soft out of mould. Smells wonderful.
Notes:
1) Normally if I use 9 litres milk, I get a 900 gramme cheese. This time I got a cheese weighing 1649 grammes (after pressing), almost double. I really don't know why, unless because of the cream?
2) Cheese took a long time to make, and expensive ingredients. 1litre of cream was NZ$9...US$7.66 more or less. (I've never bought cream before, so the price was quite a shock). :o
However, as said above, at the moment, fresh out of the mould, smells delicious. ;D
Footnote: I noticed in Leeners Monterey Jack recipe they give the cheese a salt water wash after it comes out of the mould.
Nice cheese Rizzo! Putting those home-grown chilis to some good use :)
Quote from: Rizzo on August 03, 2014, 04:08:42 AM
8 litres standard Homebrand milk
1 litre Homebrand fresh cream
I think that's the reason why your cheese weighs so much. I'm not familiar with NZ milk, but standard homebrand is a partly-skimmed or full fat milk, right? Add 35% cream to that and you've got a very rich milk. In this case, the protein-to-fat ratio may be off and will be different from expected. Maybe a little softer and creamy?
Yeah, the price of 35% cream is quite expensive. I pay about $9 US/litre for non-homogenized cream, I add it to fat free milk which is only about $3.50 per litre. In my case, a cheese made from regular milk costs about $4.5 per LBS. If made from un-homogenized 35% cream and 0% milk, it comes to $7.1 per LBS on a 11-12% yield.
Rizzo, I've never tested this before, but cold-washed cheeses like Monterey Jack and Colby apparently don't keep well after 90 days. I don't know why or what "doesn't keep well" means. In any case, I always end up opening mine at 6-8 weeks. Just a heads up.
Nice cheese, Rizzo!
Hi Spoons
Thanks for the input. Hombrand is a standard basic no frills milk in NZ. Unhomogenized milk is of course more expensive again. The mix did smell/taste very creamy, and the drying cheese seems softer and more blamange-like that usual, but by no means unstable.
Aging wise - I will be eating this as soon as I get to the 6 - 8 weeks as recommended by you!
I hope to age it with a natural rind up until that time, if that's an option. As I said sure smells great and creamy, I'll be shooting for 14th or 21st September! lol
Btw chilly/pepper wise I wanted to stuff it full like yours, but we ran out of green chillies, and I'm not too fond of capsicums so I have a token gesture of chillies this time around, but next time........
Picture of the almost dry cheese after 6 days. The white parts are the sticky parts, (but not too sticky now). Cheese looks healthier in reality than the photo!
Looking good, Rizzo!
yes, very creamy rich looking cheese! Nicely done Rizzo. Looking forward to the tasting result report. A cheese to you.
- Jeff
Well I finally opened this tonight at 5 and a 1/2 weeks old. I gave it a brine wash, from which it was a bit slimy, dried it off a touch and allowed it to get to room temperature.
On cutting in, the texture is quite soft, a little crumbly, but also reasonably firm. Not quite as soft as a blue but not far off. As I had put one litre of cream too much in this mix I prepared myself for th worst.
However I was pleasantly surprised. Mild but creamy, the chillies were few and far between so didn't really affect the taste one way or another.
Bear in mind I have never tasted Monterey Jack in my life, so I have nothing to compare this to. However I think it will be well worth making this again, but with the correct milk/cream ratio.
Pix below.
A cheese to you for a successful mild cheese! Nicely done. It's good to have a few cheeses that can be ready quickly. Helps a lot when you're trying to age out a cheddar or two! :)
Great result and a cheese as well. Maybe you had it in the details and I missed it but how much chillies (green?) did you use and how did you prep them? I want to do another peppered cheese and we have some fresh jalapenos but is it best to boil or pan-toast, or just use fresh if you're doing a short-aged cheese like jack? Also I've heard that you can boil the peppers and incorporate the "extract" into the curd. Is that a good idea or is it best to just add the diced pepper (and pepper flakes cause I love red pepper :D).
Nice creamy jack, Rizzo!
A cheese for you!
Quote from: John@PC on September 10, 2014, 12:12:56 AM
Also I've heard that you can boil the peppers and incorporate the "extract" into the curd. Is that a good idea or is it best to just add the diced pepper (and pepper flakes cause I love red pepper :D).
Adding the water the pepper boiled in works for me. I do it all the time. Just make sure it's down to room temp when you pour the whole thing into the draining curds. Also, do it BEFORE salting, you don't want to loose salt content. I also add about 1/64 tsp baking soda once cooled down to lower the acidity of the water as the water becomes very acidic with the peppers and I don't want the cheese to over-acidify. Don't know if it's necessary, but I do it anyways.
Thanks Eric. I'm going to do a jalapeno / crushed red pepper jack today - will post details.
Quote from: John@PC on September 10, 2014, 12:12:56 AM
Great result and a cheese as well. Maybe you had it in the details and I missed it but how much chillies (green?) did you use and how did you prep them? I want to do another peppered cheese and we have some fresh jalapenos but is it best to boil or pan-toast, or just use fresh if you're doing a short-aged cheese like jack? Also I've heard that you can boil the peppers and incorporate the "extract" into the curd. Is that a good idea or is it best to just add the diced pepper (and pepper flakes cause I love red pepper :D).
Hi John, I used 2 green chillies as that was all I had. I would have put 4 or 5 in had I had them. I did as Spoons recommends, took out the seeds, and steeped in hot water. I did have some red thai chillies prepared as you see in the pix, but these were too hot even for me.
This cheese just seems to get tastier! Now I've cut into it, and exactly 6 weeks old, its delicious. Its a little bit sharp, creamy, (owing to the extra 1 litre of CREAM that went in by mistake!!!) I will definitely be making another, but daren't put the same amount of cream again...or maybe I should! ???
pepper jack never lasts very long. Now I have to try me some creamy jack :)