I just opened my second Colby at 5 weeks of age and am so excited to report a complete success! My first one was a little bland and a little harder than ideal. This one has a flexible texture and a true Colby taste, or at least very close! I credit the success to tips and tricks I learned on this forum.
Notes of interest:
1. Aging temperature warmer than what has been used in the past...55-58 degrees F.
2. Pressing time much shorter than what recipe calls for, monitoring pH. Instead of overnight pressing, target pH happened at midnight. I was ready for this due to several posts stating this could occur!
3. Since I seem to have chronic over-acidity issues in most all my makes, I decided to dry salt the drained curds rather than to wait for a brine. I'm thinking it slowed acid production much quicker and thus do not have an acidity problem with this cheese, yay!
4. The 2 lb mold I am starting to use results in a fresh pressed cheese that is about as tall as it is wide. I'm finding when I don't press as long, with a moister cheese, gravity will create a bulge in the sides when air drying. I need to flip the cheese 3-4 times a day the first day, and at least twice a day in the days thereafter to "balance the bulge" in the middle of the cheese, otherwise it will sink to the bottom and create a somewhat trapezoidal shape, if you will.
5. Not pressing the cheese as long does create a moister cheese, and it took several days longer than my previous makes to finish air drying.
So here is a pic of this thing. I did not use annatto so it does not look like a classic Colby. It also has more holes in it than I thought it would, but I read somewhere the first Colbys did have holes in them...also I used Flora Danica as the culture so I did expect some gas production. Anyway, thanks for having a look! --Susan
AC4U! It looks delicious!!!
Wow, that does look amazing!
Well done - AC4U!
Well, thank you all! I just wish I could share it with you, to see what your tastebuds think! --S.