I'll ask this question here, but I would really like to know if it has the same effect for all types of hard and semi-hard cheeses.... Let's say you are using a Floc. multiple of 3.0, and cutting the curds to 1 cm (3/8"), with all things identical for the remainder of the recipe.... What effect does the basic Floc. time, ie the amount of rennet you use, have on the moisture content and the texture (smooth vs crumbly) of the finished cheese?.... Specifically, for 3 different Floc. times one inside the 12-15 min. "ideal" range, one too low, and the other too high, what would you expect in the finishes cheese?.... As an example....
Too much rennet - Floc. time of 10 min. cutting the curd at 30 min....
Proper amount of rennet - Floc. time of 14 min. cutting the curd at 42 min....
Too little rennet - Floc. time of 20 min. cutting the curd at 60 min....
What is the effect on the finished product, specifically regarding moisture content and texture, but also how the cheese would ultimately age?....
Bob
The pH is continuing to drop while you are waiting for coagulation.
If you have a very short flocculation, your pH may be slow in the stirring and cooking phase.
If you have a long flocculation time you may have to be chasing the faster than desired pH drop.
I have had both situations more times than I are to admit!
There are many variables and other ways you might influence the make of course, but in the first case,you may have to stir longer than desired to get the pH right at draining, resulting in more moisture loss from the curd.
In the second case, you may not have enough time to stir/cook before you want to drain, and maybe there will be too much moisture in the curd.
So if I understand you correctly, too short a Floc. time, with no other adjustments in technique, would result in a higher pH at draining unless you stirred longer (I don't have a pH meter).... That would result in more moisture in the curds, correct?.... but less moisture if I stirred longer?....
Conversely, too long a Floc. time, again with the same technique (stirring time and temp) would result in a lower pH at draining.... Wouldn't that result in a drier curd?....
I find this confusing because I did the same recipe twice, but in one case didn't use enough rennet and the time before I had a clean break was over 2 hours.... and yet that cheese was moister and less crumbly at the same age.... ???
Bob
pH is one issue, though for cheeses with a thermophilic culture or short culturing time, the pH change will be negligible (Grana, Alpines, etc).
Another consideration is the calcium content, which decreases as renneting time increases, ultimately resulting in a more brittle curd = crumblier, less plastic texture in the final cheese (think Emmentaler vs Cheddar).
Curd cut time also affects moisture retention and butterfat retention.
But I think the main issue is that the flocc time is more often a reflection of factors other than rennet amount (rennet amount is so easily controlled).
Milk temp is a big one, as is lactation stage/solids content of the milk. Late lactation milk is much higher in solids and so it requires higher level of calcium chloride addition (even raw milk) and possibly more rennet - if not, flocc time will be glacial. pH of milk prior to adding rennet will also affect flocc time - more acidic = quicker coagulation.
Essentially, if you have a slow flocc time (say, 5+ minutes longer; a couple minutes variation between batches is not an issue), make sure that your temperature is stable during renneting and increase calcium if you haven't done so already.
Slow flocc could also be the result of higher temperature pasteurization processes, but I don't have any experience with that.
So many variables!
Like most of us, I am self taught for cheese making. Getting a pH meter really helped me with understanding what was going on with the make. I highly recommend the Extech exstik 100. It is fiddly and requires consistent cleaning/calibrating, but it did help my learning.
Think about how the curd dries with stirring and cooking as one curve toward the final desired texture before draining. And acidity development as another curve. We want both of those curves in the desired place for when the whey is drained off.
The texture I can figure out with senses of feel and vision. But the pH change taste I find much more subtle and I feel like the meter really helps confirm the timing.
If I have a shorter than desired flocculation time, I might extend the curd healing/rest phase after cutting, and then be sure to be extra gentle with the stirring so I don't dry the curds as fast.
If I have a longer than desired flocculation time, I might tend toward a shorter rest phase, and then gradually move up to a more vigorous stirring to help syneresis of the curd.
As a newbie I am worthless on advice. But in doing research just saw this thread and found it useful. It basically reiterates the helpful advice above with a bit more on adapting flocc times and modifications based on that change.
https://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,9108.msg64394.html#msg64394 (https://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,9108.msg64394.html#msg64394)
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JeffHamm:
"- Grana/Parmesan, Alpine/Swiss = multiplier x of 2 to x2.5
- Cheddar, Havarti, Tomme, Gouda, Provalone Mozarella (classic Mozarella, not the quick recipe) = multiplier of x3 to x3.5
- Roquefort, Gorgonzola and other blues, Feta/Bulgarian - multiplier of x4
- Soft or semi soft surface or smear ripened Camembert/Brie, Telaggio = multiplier of x5 to x6
Here's another table of floc multipliers coupled with the size to cut curd:
2 - 2.5 :Swiss, Alpine, Grana, Montasio - Cutting to rice size
2.5 – 3 : Gruyere, Reggianito, Morlacco, Parrano, Reypenaer
3 : Caerphilly, Tomme, Parmesan, Wensleydale, Mozzarella, Gouda, Port Salut, Manchego, Beaufort, Ossau-Iraty, Munster, Oka, Kashkaval
3 - 3.5 : Cheddar, Hard British Scandinavian, Kashar, Mozzarella, Provolone, Butterkase, Dunlop, Morbier - Cutting to Pea size
3.5 - 4 : Monterey Jack, Lancashire, Butterkase, Havarti, Reblochon, Morbier
4 : Gouda, Mozzarella, Feta, Blue Cheese, Reblochon, Form D'Ambert, Bryndza, Garrotxa – cutting between pea to hazelnut size
5 - 6 : Brie, Camembert, Stilton, Crottin de Chavignol, Coulommier - Cutting to wallnut size or ladle
Some cheese is out of the ordinary: You will find the Gorgonzola recipes with as little as x2., Tellagio with x4 and some softer washed rind cheese like Port Salut can have as little as x3. Such differences are usually made when a recipe aims to obtain some of the needed acidification at later stages, such as in the press or during drainage. (or vice versa, a recipe may extend the multiplier and shorten or eliminate drainage/pressing to make up for it).
Fied:
That last point is important, Jeff. I have to use supermarket milk and find that I need to use more rennet, or wait for a longer floc time. If it's the latter, then I cut time off later parts of the recipe if I don't want greater acidification. If, for example, I'm making a cheddar type, then I don't cheddar as long as the recipe suggests at the caking stage. It's trickier with bloomy cheeses like Camembert. With these, I sometimes wash the curds a little, though not as much as, e.g., for a Gouda, As you say, it's all alchemy and each batch differs.
It's just trying to get everything to arrive where you want it when you want it. Your milk is acidifying as you are waiting. You curd is draining as you are stirring. The curd continues to gel even after you cut it. When you drain the curd, you wan to hit a specific pH, a specific curd size, a specific moisture level, a specific curd consistency.
As Bantams said, one aspect of measuring the flocculation time is to show where things are going off the rails and to allow you to recover and put things back. If the flocculation time is faster than you expect, why is that? Is the milk acidifying faster than you expected? Is the temperature too high? Did you add too much rennet? If it slower than you expect, why is that? (All of those possibilities, reversed). After you figure out the likely cause, then consider what you need to do. For example, if it's much slower than expected and you feel the acidity level of the milk and the temperature are probably OK, then maybe there was a problem with your rennet. If you wait longer, the milk will acidify more. So maybe you want to cut the curd smaller so that it drains faster so that you can get it to draining stage at the pH that you want. Going back to the first paragraph: you have a target for all of those things. What you do to the milk is simply a strategy to get there. There are many ways to arrive at the same place, so when you are making cheese it is best to think on your feet.
However, if you are *planning* a recipe, that's a kind of different story. As mexicalidesi points out, when you are making different cheeses you will generally *plan* to use a different flocculation time and multiplier. Why? Well, it's part of the strategy to get where you want to go. For an alpine cheese, we may be using a high temperature (thermophilic culture), so the flocculation time will necessarily be low. We want to have a very low moisture curd. Since the flocculation time is low, we can get away with cutting it early (low multiplier), knowing that the curd will heal pretty darn quickly after cutting (because the curd is firming up quickly). So cut it early and cut it small. It drains quickly, then firms up and the result is small firm curds that are low moisture. But again, it's just a strategy. You can come up with any strategy that you like to achieve the results that you want. That's the art of cheese making.
In that way, for example, 12-15 minutes is *not* the ideal flocculation time. It's a *common* flocculation time. That's all. It's great for certain things. I've had flocculation times (planned) as low as 8 minutes. Imagine: Flocculation time is 8 minutes. A 2.0x multiplier means I cut at 16 minutes. I rest the curds to heal for 5 minutes. That means that I'm stirring at 21 minutes. But 21 minutes is a flocculation multiplier of 2.6x -- remember, the curd is still gelling even after you cut it. Knives don't stop chemistry :-) Now if my flocculation time is 15 minutes and I cut at a multiplier of 2.0x that's 30 minutes. If I wait 5 minutes for the curds to heal, that's 35 minutes: or a multiplier of 2.3. My curds are quite a bit sloppier with this than the 8 minute flocculation time, and my milk is more acidic (I've waited 14 minutes longer to reach this point). So I've got sloppier curds and less time to get them to firm up before I drain. Now imagine if you have a flocculation time of 20 minutes. All three cheeses have the same multiplier, but you will have 3 pretty different outcomes at drain time if you treat them the same after cutting.
That's the kind of logic I think you need when formulating your recipes. When I'm reviewing recipes, I try to imagine what the author is thinking. What are they trying to achieve? Do the instructions look like they will hit those targets? I'm sorry to say that the vast majority of recipes you can find in books and online are just terrible. The author often very clearly has no specific drain goals in mind. The milk ripening time is random and/or they throw in a couple of liters of buttermilk for no good reason. Often the number of IMCU/liter of milk for the rennet is off the rails (sometimes twice the normal amount or more) with no explanation of why they thought they needed that. The stir times are arbitrary and the draining conditions are unspecified. Sometimes you see the coagulation times and they will be clearly impossible or incredibly long with no explanation. One of my bugbears is "Test for a clean break" as if every single cheese in the world should be cut with the same multiplier.
Sigh... Ranty Mike has appeared :-) TL;DR: It doesn't really matter how you get there and there are lots of ways to get there. The most important thing is to understand what "there" means for the cheese you are making. Then, with some experience you can use reason to make a plan, or to tweak your existing plan if things aren't going well.
Mike, that post makes me realize just how much I have to learn.... However, it also explains why there are such differences in recipes, and "some" of them don't make sense to me, even though we are only at 12 cheeses and counting.... ::)
I am slowly beginning to understand how the different parts of the cheesemaking process are all interrelated, and not stand alone parts.... Change one, and you change everything downstream of that.... I also am coming to dislike the phrase "test for a clean break", so just that realization shows I am learning, I think.... Understand the WHY, and the HOW will come (more) easily.... ;)
You should write a book on techniques and how they interrelate, as your posts are easy to understand because you build on what you just said in your explanations.... and so AC4U for being so helpful.... 8)
Bob
Mike, I'll second RThorne's plaudits, for this post and others I've read of yours during my hundreds of hours on this board over the last few months (pathetic, I know, but Corona time and isolation.) They are not TLDR, don't shorten them please, I need all the help I can get. I have what amounts to a mental block in processing science/math information, so someone who can simplify things like you is a godsend. Your post on pac men cracked the door for me on acidification! It will take a lot longer to get it fully open, and a sense of how everything works together, but thank you for your help so far.
RThorne, I'm not sure if you've come across this short manual in your perusal of the board. An Introduction to Cheesemaking by James Aldridge, the grand old man of English cheesemaking (RIP), posted by Gurkan, a generous and experienced regular here. Very good and helpful read, especially the sections on acidification. Mike, if you haven't seen it you might enjoy it too, I think it's one of those things that's fun to read even for those who already know the information because of the historical aspects.
it's in the library here at https://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,2438.0.html (https://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,2438.0.html) in the attachment to the post.