I gotta say, having free milk is a great way to enable experimentation! For this I will volunteer to muck many stables! At any rate, I came home Friday with 2.5 gallons of Jersey and .25 gallons of Nubian (she was stingy). I did not chill the milk fast enough, and I think there was already quite a bit of native LAB activity going on by the time the milk got into the pot. It was 6.5 to start off! I followed my usual caerphilly approach, but just bumped every target down one notch. Probably the wrong idea, because the final whey pH in the press was 4.9. Next week, I will try to chill the milk better before transport home.
Pretty cheese and nice yield; free milk is as good as free cash money ::). 6.5 sounds a bit low but the milk I use (a low-temp pasturized, non-homoginized) is typically 6.6 to 6.7 when fresh but I've had a couple of batches start that low. I've been wanting more to understand more about the chemistry involved with milk fermentation / lactic acid generation as it relates to cheese making and just purchased this book (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0199922306/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1). It's first publication was last December so I'm curious if anyone else has read this. As to pH changes over time I found an interesting paper with a graph which helps to understand the time vs. pH during the fermentation phase. A lot to learn and a short time to get there :P.
I cut into this for Thanksgiving. Lost about 10 ounces in aging. It was a very nice cheese, though not as crumbly or tart as usual. Not as much flavor as the prior caerphillies which had pretty wild rinds on board. This one started growing a lot of stuff, but I scrubbed it with salt and vinegar, and after about 4 weeks, the rind seemed very stable and much as it is in the images. The divots on the top were from the cheese resting on a wavy draining mat - not a great idea because the depressions were great for growing stuff. Maybe the colorful rinds on the prior makes added to the flavor. Or maybe since I was relying on a faulty pH meter, rather than trusting myself, the make notes are invalid!
Good cheese either way though.
Very nice! :-)
Free milk? >:( Life is unfair. ;)
Quote from: scasnerkay on November 28, 2014, 06:26:21 AM
The divots on the top were from the cheese resting on a wavy draining mat - not a great idea because the depressions were great for growing stuff.
Susan, I can guess where you got those mats :). Looks like you fended off the nasties and came up with a nice result. A cheese for your perseverance.