Has anyone been successful in finding or experimenting with making a BellaVitano type cheese? Parmesan/Cheddar hybrid?
I did a forum search and it was in a couple threads a few years ago but it doesn't look like anyone ever posted a recipe they thought would work. Just wondering. Would love to give this a try. I might experiment a bit to see what i can come up with but would love to hear from anyone else that has tried something like this.
Cheers
It's not much but this may help on working out the process.
https://culturecheesemag.com/cheese-library/bellavitano-gold
Here you go
TA-61 .01g/gal Streptococcus thermophilus
Flora Danica .06g/gal Lactococcus lactis subsp. lactis, Lactococcus lactis subsp. cremoris, Lactococcus lactis subsp. biovar. diacetylactis, Leuconostoc
LH 100 .04g/gal Lactobacillus helveticus, Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. lactis
FLAV 54 .01g/gal Lactobacillus helveticus not redundant, pay attention, different strain of LH than LH 100
Liquid CaCl for store bought milk .4ml/ gal
Single strength VEAL RENNET by Walcoren .36 ml/gal
To get both texture and flavor right you need 10 gallons of milk to get a cheese that is 10-11 in Dia. and 2.5-3 in thick for a natural rinded cheese.
Buy the best quality whole milk 3.25+% butterfat, higher is alright up to 4.5%.
Heat milk to 90 degrees Fahrenheit and add cultures stir in for 5 min. Ripen milk for 25 min more-maintain 90 degrees.
At the end of ripening, stir in CaCl diluted 40:1 in warm non-clorinated water for 5 min.
Stir in rennet, diluted 40:1 in cool non-chlorinated water for 2 min. Still the milk, check for a clean break around 30-40 min. Your clean break should be glassy and smooth when ready to cut.
Cut to the size of corn kernel, rest/heal the curd for 5 min.
Stir slowly and continuously for 30 min while slowly heating to 100 degrees. Ideal curd is firm/slightly springy but not rubbery hard.
Press under whey with 10 lbs for 15 min.
Transfer curd mass to an large tomme cheese mold described above-size
Press over night with 40 lbs in a warm room 70 degrees.
Cheese should be flipped and rewrapped (cheesecloth) every hour for the first 4 hours.
Save a gallon and a half of whey from the cheesemake and add a 1/4 cup vinegar, soak your cheesecloth in this mixture and wring out to keep the cheese from sticking while pressing.
Next day
Dry salt with about 6.5-8 oz of KOSHER salt or natural sea salt, place back in mold for 24 hrs.
Age at 45-50 degrees 90% humidity for 6 month minimum, ideal 9 months.
Looks super interesting. I'm especially interested in dry salting what seems to be a 10 lb cheese! Do you salt the edges or just the faces?
Salt the entire cheese body, brush off the excess. For those patient enough this cheese has legs to age past a year out to 18 months-gets very Parm-like in texture and flavor. I'll post a photo when I pull one from the cheese cave soon.
That seems like such a short/low cook time for such a dense cheese. I'm curious if you've tried any made from this recipe yet?
I have made a variation of this cheese recipe for over ten years commercially, 10's of thousands of lbs. I have changed the culture blend for my own needs but the recipe as stated is rock solid. If you want a faster maturing, softer bodied cheese you can cut the curd stir for 20 min, remove 30% whey (starting volume) add 130 degree F water and stir for 20-30 min. This type of cheese falls into the category of an Alpine hybrid cheese-if you had a mating of a cheddar a tomme and an alpine cheese this is the tasty mongrel you end up with.
Thanks so much! I just dried off the cows but I'm excited to try this recipe in the spring. ;D