I am in the process of making my second Gruyere. I have just renneted and am waiting for the curd to set.
The recipe has been cobbled together from as many sources as I could find. While there were a lot of similarities, there were also some differences. Most notable is the range of different initial ripening times. These vary from 10 to 60 minutes in different recipes and mostly tend towards one extreme of the other. I find this such a wide range to be rather strange.
I settled on a 50 minute ripening, towards the higher end of the range. My reasoning was that, as I understand it, thermophilic bacteria work fairly slowly at a temperature around 32C.
I would be interested to hear what some of the knowledgeable people on the forum think about this.
That variation in ripening time will have very different effects on the rest of the process because of the change in acidification.
(I use raw milk for my cheeses, so I have to be particularly aware, since the native cultures are at work acidifying as well as the cultures I add.)
So, I only ripen for 10 minutes and then follow pH cues for the rest-- I hoop up between 6.3 and 6.4 and I brine once 5.4 is reached during pressing.
I've found that the real deal happens with long aging....after 6 months it's good....after 9 months it's much better....after 1 year it's spectacular. I've not seen any tremendous changes/improvement after 15 months. So I shoot for eating them between 12-15 months, which means I make them regularly so that the long wait isn't so noticeable (after that first year) because there's always one coming due soon.
Thanks, Gort. That makes sense.
I don't have a pH meter, so I have to wing it to some extent. I will see what happens but so far, so good.
Flocculation occurred at 13 min which is about what I would have expected and I take that as an indication that acidification must be reasonably close to right.
It does not seem to have lost much whey in the early stages of pressing so it looks like the curds were fairly dry and I think that means that it will be suitable for long aging.
As always, another cheese is another learning experience.
So far, so good. The process so far:
10 L of milk: 8 L Fleurieu Jersey unhomogenised milk P=3.9%, F=4.8% + 2L Fleurieu low fat P=3.6%, F=0.7% (target P:F = 0.91-0.97; actual = 0.96) brought to 32C
Sprinkled on 1/4 tsp (3 dashes) Italian and Swiss thermophilic culture and 1/44 tsp (1 smidgen) of Propionic culture. Allowed to rehydrate for 2 minutes and stir in for 2 min.
Allowed to sit for A total of 45 min. Stirred in 3.0 ml of CaCl2 in 60 ml of water during this time.
Stirred in 2.0 ml of 200 IMCU rennet in 40 ml of water for 2 min.
Flocculation time =13 min. Coagulation time = 13 x 3 = 39 min
Cut to ~1.5 cm, rested for 5 min and stirred with a whisk to cut to about 6mm.
Stirred 5 min, then heated slowly to 46C over 45 min (slowly at first: 32C at 20 min, 38 at 30 min and 42C at 40 min.) with frequent gentle stirring.
Kept at 46 for 10 min with stirring and then drained whey to the level of the curds.
Gathered the curd mass together and consolidated by hand.
Transferred the curd mass to a lined mould and pre-pressed under whey for 15 min at about 4 kg.
Remove from the whey and press:
- 1.06 PSI for 30 min. Turned.
- 1.61 PSI for 1 hr. Turned.
- 1.61 PSI for 4 hrs. Turned.
- 1.61 PSI for 5 hrs. Turned.
- 1.61 PSI for 11 hrs. Removed cloth.
- 0.56 PSI for 2 hrs.
Brined for 7 hours. (Target: 0.8-1.0%) Weight = 1.24kg
Rubbed with dry salt and moved to ~13C and 85% humidity.
That looks awesome! AC4U
And a cheese from me. Looks awesome.
Thanks for the cheeses.
All good so far but I have a question.
The recipe on cheesemaking.com says to keep clean and allow the rind to develop for 30 to 40 days before increasing the humidity and starting to wash the rind with light brine. This timeframe seems to be at odds with other recipes I have seen. I would be interested to hear the thoughts of anyone who is familiar with this type of cheese.
Check out this link: https://web.archive.org/web/20131025215254/http://naturesharmonyfarm.com/make-cheese-gruyere-alpine-style (https://web.archive.org/web/20131025215254/http://naturesharmonyfarm.com/make-cheese-gruyere-alpine-style)
It's very similar to what Jim says on cheesemaking.com. They say to let the rind develop for about 2 weeks or so before starting the washes.
BTW, I think you should re-read those instructions at NEC--it doesn't say to increase humidity after 30-40 days....the humidity is constant at 85-87% from the start.
Thanks for that Gort.
Quite right about the humidity. I don't know where I got that from. I might need to clean my glasses.
A quick progress report on this one.
It's looking good so far. I think that the big mistake that I made with my first Gruyere was to start washing before the rind had properly formed. This one is going much better.
As I will be away for a couple of weeks soon, I have decided to wax this and some other cheeses, tomorrow. I have just scrubbed the rind under running water to get it ready.