I'm hoping to get some thoughts from the collective wisdom on the board as to the fate of my Stilton. I used a combination of Duntov's #4 recipe https://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,15724.0.html (https://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,15724.0.html), comments from carpentersbug, some slight changes of my own mostly reated to the cultures I used and the strength of my rennet, and scaling for the size of my batch. The resulting recipe is at the bottom of the post along with pH readings and other data. I apologize if this post is long and overly detailed, but I'm an engineer and I like to have as much information as possible.
So first the problems I see:
- The curds are very wet. Also, the consistency is more like soft cream cheese or freshly churned butter than the squeaky cuds I'm used to.
- After cutting the curds and resting them in the whey, they didn't really sink to the bottom like I'd expect. They were also very soft.
- The cheese is draining slowly and when I flip it in the mold it tends to fall in stages to the new bottom as the curds are not as tall as the mold.
[li]The curds in the mold are very dense. I wasn't able to mill them due to the consistency, and therefore there aren't many, if any, pockets of air in the paste.[/li][/list]
And the (possible) mistakes that might contribute to the problems:
- I misread Duntov's recipe, or it is flipped in one place as the pH report and the instructions contridict. Instead of letting the culture ripen for 3 hours and the rennet work for 90 minutes, I flipped the durations and ripened for 90 minutes and coagulated for 3 hours. The pH after ripening was higher than expected after ripening, likely due to a shorter duration. Would this result in a curd that retains more water and is softer? Flocculation occurred at 15 minutes, so this is either a multiplier of 12 in what I did, or 6 in the recipe.
- I used the wrong amount of Flora Danica. I don't this this is the case unless this cheese needs an amount different than the manufacturers guidelines. I weighed the entire package, scaled for 50 UC, calculated UC based on my batch size, and weighed out the resulting amount.
- I mixed the rennet with water too soon. Wasn't thinking and prepped all the ingredients just before milk was at temp. So the rennet mixture sat around 90 minutes. I did used distilled water.
- I used a larger amount of cream. Would this resulting more retained whey?
- Too much rennet? I calculated the rennet usage based of the IMCU strength, so I think I got this right.
- I salted to early. I did this to help expel whey. I figured once I got the curd drier, I could mill them properly. They never got dry enough. I also wanted to stop the pH from dropping anymore and the salt should slow down the culture to prevent further drop.
- I didn't drain long enough. Measuring the whey drained I didn't feel like there was going to be significant drainage the longer I waited. I was guessing I'd get 2 cups of whey with 16 or so more hours of draining. I'm not sure why I thought the molds would drain better, but I think I just wanted to move ahead anyway.
At this point, I'm pretty sure I'm not going to get a Stilton, but could this be edible? Or am I better off feeding it to the garbage disposal and not wasting space in my cave?
Recipe:
9 gallons 3.25% fat P&H milk
1 gallon 35% fat P(&H?) (Not Ultra) cream
36.25 ml 33% CaCl in 1/2 cup cool water
0.75 g Flora Danica - Fresh package
0.75 g LyoPro PR - Fresh package
2.75 ml 580 IMCU Calf rennet in 1/4 cup cool water
125 g Kosher salt (2.2% by weight)
Steps:
1. Slowly Heat milk to 86F in water bath.
2. Add CaCl and integrate, wait 5 minutes.
3. Sprinkle culture and PR on surface of milk, let rehydrate for 10 minutes.
4. Integrated culture and PR into milk. Wait 90 minutes at 86F. This ended up being 120 minutes as I was attempting to get pH reading before 90 minutes, but meter would not settle but was slowly dropping. After waiting 30 minutes, decided to proceed to rennet.
5. Add rennet and integrate.
6. Flocculation at 15 minutes.
7. Wait a total of 3 hours at 86F after adding rennet.
8. Cut curds in 12.5 mm pieces.
9. Rest 90 minutes at 86F.
10. Drain whey down to level of curds. Drain again after curds settle in 30 minutes. Maintain 86F.
11. Turn off heat and rest 4.5 hours. Curds appear to be single mass aboce why. Whey only visible when curds are pushed down.
12. Transfer to colander (steaming basket lined with grade 60 cloth).
13. 2 hours later, 3.5 quarts of whey drained with a pH of 4.70 pH (meter is seems off at this point and I am trying to recalibrate often). Curds are still very wet. Place 8 pounds of weight on top of a plate to hopefully expel more whey.
14. 1 hour later, 1 quart of whey drained with pH of 4.55.
15. 1 hour later, 1.75 cups whey removed with pH of 4.53.
16. 30 minutes later, mill and salt. Curds are too much like soft cream cheese to be milled.
17. Return to colander, and place 8 lb weight back on top.
18. 1 hour later, 1.5 cups of whey drained with pH of 4.54. Increase weight to 25 lbs.
19. 1 hour later, 1.25 cups of whey drained with pH of 4.48.
20. 1 hour later, 7 oz drained, pH of 4.51. Tastes a little like unbrined feta.
21. Attempt to mill again. Transfer into two 8 inch diameter by 8 inch height hoops .125 cups at a time, trying to form voids. Total curd weight of 17 pounds, 15.5 ounces. 5.25 inches in each mold.
22. Flip after 1 hour. One of the cheeses seperates in the middle while falling. Gently compressed by hand to heal the tear with a follower.
23. Flip after 1 hour. Both cheeses tear in middle. Seem to be sticking to mold. Corrected with follower. Decided to flip every 24 hours to allow curds to knit and firm and not tear.
24. 24 hours later. Total weight 16 pounds, 9.3 ounces. Total wehy drained is 14 oz, with pH of 4.45. Whey and weight change equal between molds. Looks like there might have been some slight tearing, but if so it is minimal and hard to see through mold.
Alright, there it all is. Would love to hear thoughts and if you need any more info, let me know.
Damian
I'm guessing that the very long coagulation time is to blame. Cutting the curd that late would trap a lot of moist that is hard to drain.
A stilton requires small air pockets inside as the blue mold requires oxygen to grow. Therefore I think that you will end up with something different than a Stilton.
I wouldn't throw it out... Maybe you invented something great... ;)
:-) Danbo
I too wouldn't throw it out - always worth seeing what new thing you may have invented. In general, I agree with Danbo that the overly long coagulation time is causing the excess moisture. I'm wondering if that is a misprint in Duntov's post ... but in light of your recipe, there are a couple of other possible issues:
You are using about 4x as much CaCl as I usually do. The "dosage" that I am used to is 1 tsp (5 ml) per 4 gallons of milk.
You are using about 1/2 as much rennet as I usually do - for most recipes I use about 1/2 tsp of liquid calf rennet for 4 gallons of milk. (For some recipes/types of cheeses, the amount goes as high as 3/4 tsp per 4 gallons of milk.) (Note that this is "single strength" rennet; if you were using double strength, your amount would be more in line with what I would expect - but the rennet you describe sounds like single strength.)
If I am remembering correctly, too much CaCl can interfere with coagulation. That combined with the too-little rennet could certainly result in mushy curds, even after leaving it to coagulate far too long.
Keep in mind that there are several factors that can affect the amount of moisture in the curd: coagulation time, size at which the curd is cut, how much stirring, and how much heating of the curds. I note that the recipe called for no stirring at all, so this is a major factor in the moisture left in the curds.
I'm wondering if the next effect of what you have gotten is something akin to a semi-lactic cheese. You could try to slice it into 1.5 - 2" thick rounds, and spray them with PC in hopes of getting something like a Camblue out of it ...
The Call amount is a scaled amount from Duntov's previous recipe https://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,15545.0.html (https://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,15545.0.html), but that could still be wrong. I'll check some other recipes to see where it falls, but it wouldn't surprise me if it's at fault.
The rennet I have is listed as double strength, and comparing IMCU strength with single strength backs that up. I calculated the amount from the definition of an IMCU I found online as I wasn't sure the exact strength of the rennet Duntov useded.
On stirring, the recipes and carpentersbug notes conflicted, with no stirring and stirring once. Since the curds didn't seem very firm after cutting, I figured stirring would give me soup and didn't stir.
One thing I'm considering with the two molds I have right now is taking one and milling it again once it seems dry enough and rehooping. My main concern is getting it to knit after that. Would I need to leave it in the mold extra time, or would the remaining time be enough to get it to stick together? If I do keep it in the mold longer, should I keep it at room temperature until knit, or transfer to the cave while still in the mold. My two concerns are getting it to knit and not being at room temperature long enough to get significant PR growth to early or other growths. Room temperature here is 62 F and 60 - 65 % RH. They have been in the molds about 72 hours and will be flipped in about 3 more hours. After that, they would be in the hoops for roughly 48 more hours for around 5 days total. If I milled one in 3 hours, it would get about 48 hours before being taken out of the mold. I could even do some light pressing, 5 to 10 pounds over 50 Sq in, so 0.1 - 0.2 psi.
Thanks for all the ideas so far.
Damian
I agree with awakephd , it seems that your best bet is to make it into a thinner cheese and ripped out as a blue cam /Brie .
I seriously considered the Camblue idea, but I'm still new to P. roqueforti and adding P. candidum would just make it harder for me to understand what was causing what. I just think I'd be better off trying to save the cheese as a blue even if it means it fails.
With that in mind, I went ahead and re-milled the curds, put them back in the mold, being careful to preserve the voids, and then did some light pressing (max 4 pounds per mold) in hopes that it would help the curds knit after they were milled without destroying the newfound voids. I took them out of the molds last night, and while they still aren't knit as much as I'd like, they do seem firmer. I rubbed the cheeses up and despite it being like frosting a cake with thick icing, they turned out pretty decent I think. They will likely be very soft and delicate in the end, but I think the voids they have after the extra milling will allow enough blue to grow that they will have some flavor and be edible. Next time I should do better now that I have the durations sorted out. Aiming to pierce in 7 weeks from being placed in the cave, but I'll double check that duration a few times and pay attention to the hints the cheese gives. Will let everyone know and update this thread with pictures as things progress.
Now to research the brie recipes for this weekend. Since I've decided to cave the garage fridge, I need to fill it up whenever I can, right?
Oh, and here are a couple pictures of them after rubbing.
Damian
The good thing about a blue cheese is that if you inoculated the curd before pressing and then later give enough piercing to let the oxygen in you "will " get a blue cheese even if it is not the exactly blue cheese you were shooting for .
That is the best part of blues
It looks a lot like a frosted cake , yum.
Quote from: Gregore on December 17, 2016, 04:51:40 AM
It looks a lot like a frosted cake , yum.
Cream cheese frosting too! Wonder if they make cream cheese frosting in Stilton flavor? Could be a whole new market and a million dollar idea. But first, I need to see where this cheese coated rabbit hole leads.
Quote from: nosphalot on December 17, 2016, 06:05:09 AM
Quote from: Gregore on December 17, 2016, 04:51:40 AM
It looks a lot like a frosted cake , yum.
Wonder if they make cream cheese frosting in Stilton flavor?
Maybe they don't, but you just did! 8) Keep up the good work and here's a cheese for you.