I am new to cheese making, and yesterday made my first cow milk manchego, using raw jersey milk. This is only my 2nd aged cheese attempt ever, so I am still learning the ropes!
The recipe I used said the PH should be 5.3-5.4 at the end of pressing. I overslept a little and the PH was 5.2 for me...what kind of effect will this have on the cheese, and how big a deal is a PH change of 0.1? Also, I left it in the brine about 20 minutes too long, which isn't much but it is only a 1.1 pound wheel, so I feel like 20 minutes extra in the brine may be significant.
Thoughts? Thanks in advance!
Welcome
Congrats on using Jersey since Manchego is a sheep milk cheese and sheep milk has a high fat percentage, so the Jersey gets you pretty close there.
Don't worry about the 5.2--sure it would be better at 5.3 but you'll be ok with that.
Don't worry about the 20 minutes...it will be ok...that's not a huge boo boo.
BUT, trying to age a 1 pound wheel....now that's gonna be hard. Because Manchego needs to age several months and at only 1 pound you're gonna have problems with it getting too dry because your surface area to paste ratio is so low.
Thanks for your response! That makes sense. So with such a small wheel am I better off going for a 3-4 month aged cheese? What Is generally a safe aging range for a 1 pound wheel?
Part of the reason this wheel is smaller is that my first cheese attempt, a Tomme, yielded a lot more curds than expected, which is cool but I had to quickly make a makeshift second mold to put the extras in. I think I overcompensated this time and used too little milk
How much milk did you use? There will be some variance based on the type of cheese and the type of milk, but on average I get a yield of slightly more than a pound per gallon. Maybe you can use that for a ballpark idea.
I used one gallon of milk, so my 1.1 lb yield sounds like it is right where it should be for that much milk?
For a 1 pound yield how long do you think I can get away with aging it before it becomes unpalatably dry?
Partly it depends on the humidity of your cave. Partly it depends on the shape of your cheese....a one pound flat disc will lose moisture much faster than a 1 pound block.
I would suggest that you consider giving it only 3-4 weeks to develop a good rind and then either wax it or vac it for the remainder--otherwise it will turn into a dry chunk that will probably be good for grating but not much else. Of course, you could just eat it at 2-3 weeks--that variety is never available in the States, but very common in Spain where it is called Manchego Fresco. It's a very different thing than Manchego Curado or Viejo but I don't think you'd ever be able to age a one pound piece that long and still have it be used as a table cheese.
Right on, thanks for the tips!