I have three hard cheeses aging, and no cheese to eat! I need to make a quick cheese before withdrawal symptoms set it. So today I start my second ever Cream Cheese making using the recipe here (https://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php?topic=20.0). Last time I made Cream Cheese (https://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php?topic=83.0) using a book recipe, it didn't set as per recipe and I had to add rennet and had significant concerns of cheese catching airborne infection as at room temperature for extra extended duration while, luckily didn't.
JUN 20, 2008
- 2:00PM Poured 1/2 US gallon/1.9 liter of Homogenized Ultra Pasteurized Half & Half Cow's Milk from cardboard container box into large saucepan, added homemade mesophilic starter culture (https://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php?topic=15.0) ice cubes, covered and let warm to room temperature of in my case 77 F/25 C.
- 3:00PM Diluted rennet in 1/3 cup water and stirred in thoroughly with whisk for 3 minutes. Covered, set aside and let ripen overnight.
JUN 21, 2008
- 6:30AM Found that did not have a firm curd as per recipe, possibly not enough rennet, think more because Half & Half is Ultra-Pasteurized and thus almost dead as discussed below. Poured into cheesecloth bag lined colander, had to spatula out bottom which had semi-set. Hung bag from hook above pot to allow to whey to gravity drain.
- 9:00AM Placed bag back into colander and spatula'd thicker Cream Cheese off of cloth to enable moister material access to cloth to faster drain whey.
- 11:30AM Placed bag back into colander and spatula'd thicker Cream Cheese off of cloth to enable moister material access to cloth to faster drain whey.
- 1:30PM Placed cream cheese in mixing bowl, made 27 ounces/0.75 kg, added dried parsley, minced garlic, fresh coarsely ground black pepper, and small amount of cayenne pepper to make Boursin brand like flavoured cream cheese. Tasted, great (may have overdone it on black pepper).
- 2:00PM Placed Boursin cream cheese in covered food grade plastic container and then into fridge to allow flavours to blend.
NOTES
- Second time making Cream Cheese with Ultra-Pasteurized Half & Half cream, second time did not get a good curd, even with rennet. But did get nice cream cheese in end.
- Next time use fine pre-ground black pepper as cracked pieces from course ground are too big.
Sounds excellent. Are you adding any herbs to the mix?
I have trouble finding any type of cream or half & half that is not ultra-pasteurized. Were you able to find some?
Yep, will add herbs as don't want boring Cream Cheese!
Good point, didn't even look, just dug the container out of the garbage and took snap for you. You're correct, it is Ultra-Pasterurized. Just looked it up on Washington DC USA based International Dairy Food Association (http://www.idfa.org/facts/milk/pasteur.cfm)'s website. See bottom of 1st table which says UP is 2.0 seconds at 138 C/280 F which is the hottest and basically longest on the list.
I assume they do this to the Half & Half to give it a very long shelf life as most people use it up slowly in their coffee. The consequence of UP is "almost dead milk" as I reserve "dead milk" for it's sister Ultra Heat Treated which requires no refrigeration and has a very long shelf life.
I used the same product when I made my first batch of Cream Cheese (https://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php?topic=83.0) without rennet and maybe this is the reason I never got a curd set! Until in emergency mode I added rennet.
I hope it works for you, but I have had no luck with ultra-pasteurized milk. Funny, all the goat milk and organic milk I see in the stores is ultra-pasteurized. I wonder if all those people paying that high a price for milk know what they are buying.
I have seen organic cow's milk in stores but normally just over twice the price so we give it a skip. Never noticed that it is also UP, you are right, may be less chemicals but also as UP it has way less good bacteria, I agee, I don't think buyers realize what they are buying. FYI when I was in Europe my uncle said that most organic food there now came from Balkan countries as cheaper, but, there is also less control there. So while labelled organic it may also be worse, more chemicals than regular!
I think most people see "Ultra" and that has to be good! I really never paid much attention until making cheese, but now I am very particular. I always wondered why cream had such a long expiration date, I always thought it was due to the fat content, which is part of it, but now I know why. Ok, I'm off topic. ::)
Just went to store for more milk to make a faux Gruyere and checked the Half & Half again, while th 2 US quart cardboard container that I bought said Ultra-Pastereurized, the 1 US quart plastic bottles, same brand, just said Pastereurized . . . next time I'll try that and see if makes any difference.
It looks like you made it work. You said you added rennet and still did not get good curd. What did you do to salvage it because it looks great.
Good point, nothing really, just as per records above, basically it just naturally drianed out moisture over 7 hours hanging and I think through the souring of the cheese from the starter culture creating lactic acid giving natural coagulation.
One problem is that it is still softer than most store bought cream cheese, not that that's bad. My previous batch, when sitting in fridge, had a little more moisture drain out, kind of like store bought sour cream or yogurt after you've taken a spoonful out and open the container 2 days later.
So I'd like to find a way to get it dryer, but I'm worried that hanging longer will make it too succeptable to airborne infection. Maybe using a light pressing rather than just hanging and gravity.
that looks pretty dam good from where i'm sitting !
reg
just had some awful thoughts of that cream cheese with the boursin flavours, some smoked salmon, some dill, some real good crackers .... oh boy
Still wonderful flavour and texture, little to much pepper for younger daughter, more for me ;).
Every couple of days I get a little water draining out, see picture, no big deal, just aesthetics. Anyone have any idea now to reduce or stop this?
My thoughts are that it is perfectly natural. We are so used to the stuff we buy that is overly processed to look perfect.
Of course, I have no empirical knowledge to support this, but I would think that as the curds age, even at colder temperatures, they would continue to release some moisture.
In my book they make the note that if using all cream or a higher percentage of cream than milk, then it will take longer to drain and that to speed this process up you can either work the bag manually, or even put it under a light press over night.
Maybe this is one of those things that it will take a couple of goes to work out just how much pressing/hanging will be required and just how "dry" the cheese should be if it is not going to weep whey.
Also "half and half" is entirely an American product, there is nothing similar in Aussie that reflects this.
Well, being an American, I really didn't know what half and half was. Did a Google search and it's half milk; half cream. I use light cream in my coffee. Again, didn't really know what that was Google search says about 20% cream. Heavy Cream or Whipping Cream is 36%,
Quote from: DaggerDoggie on June 20, 2008, 09:21:20 PM
I hope it works for you, but I have had no luck with ultra-pasteurized milk. Funny, all the goat milk and organic milk I see in the stores is ultra-pasteurized. I wonder if all those people paying that high a price for milk know what they are buying.
That's true of many of the organic brands because they aren't local. The farm has to ship them long distances so they ultra-pasteurize for shelf life reasons. Of course, even though it's organic, after ultra-pasteurizing, the milk has no nutritional value anymore, so I really don't see the point in buying ultra-pasteurized organic milk. :)
John,
I have a question concerning this style of cheese....
Does this have a flavor that's typical of store bought Philadelphia Cream cheese?
The reason that I ask is that my wife makes a cheese ball that never fails to get rave reviews and one of the main ingredients is Philly Cream cheese.
I have a racquetball tournament coming up in March and I have volunteered a nice cheese platter for the event. I would like to have my wife make her cheese ball with both cream cheese that I've made and a homemade colby/jack in place of the cheddar that is traditionally used.
Of course I want everyone at the tournament to enjoy my cheeses and my wife doesn't want her cheese ball to be less than it usually is.
Any information you can give me about this recipe would be greatly appreciated.
By the way......
The planned cheese platter at the tournament is:
Colby
Swiss
Stirred Curd Cheddar
Smoked Farmhouse Cheddar
Stilton
Gouda
Pepper Jack
Colby/Jack
Provolone
Cheese Ball
One of the tournament players is a major cheese lover so it's important to me that this tray goes over well.
He has said on numerous occasions that no matter what else is offered, when it comes to a snack he will choose cheese every time.
Hopefully I will get good reviews on my homemade cheeses.
I don't know why it's so important since I really love the taste of my cheeses.
Regardless, it is important that I get a good "grade" on the varieties I share.
Dave
I have made the cream cheese recipe on a number of occassions and I prefer it over the philly brands. I have made cheese cakes, dips, and used it is cooking with much success.
I would suggest that you do a trial run first at home, and see what you think. I have always used a pure cream though, and not a whipping or UHT cream.
Good luck.
Tea,
Thanks for the reply and the information.
My first cheese was a cottage cheese and since that time I've been making nothing but hard cheeses.
This will be a first for me and honestly I'm pretty excited about giving it a try.
I might just give this a go tomorrow afternoon and let my wife see how it works out.
I've got a 6 lb. wheel of colby/jack so I can certainly allow myself to sample a bit of it before the tournament.
Thanks again, Tea..
Dave
Keep us informed, and a recipe for the cheese balls wouldn't go astray either, nudge nudge
Dave, Tea makes way more Cream Cheese than me, but the ones I've made have way more flavor than store bought cream cheese. Also, I like Neufchatel Cheese as same style as Cream Cheese but made with whole milk and thus way less % fat content. It also tastes way better than store bought Kraft Neufchatel. FYI, I've built Cream Cheese (https://cheeseforum.org/Recipes/Recipe_Cream_Cheese.htm) and Neufchatel Recipe (https://cheeseforum.org/Recipes/Recipe_Neufchatel.htm) webpages using my experience and many of ideas from Tea.
Tea, here in US in stores we can only get Ultra-Pasteurized "Whipping Cream" or "Half & Half" (https://cheeseforum.org/Making/Milk.htm) which is half cream and half milk, at least I've never seen "Cream" in a store. I've assumed that whipping cream is just a description, like "Whipping Style Cream or "Cream, that could be used for whipping", or am I missing something?
Oh ok I didn't realise that you couldn't get pure cream there. Here whipping cream has thickeners and gums etc add to help with the whipping, while the pure cream has no additives. I did post a pic somewhere of the two types that I can get.
Half and half would be a good choice for making cream cheese, would it not?
Would half and half work, and is it ultra pasteurized?
If so, I would probably rather give it a try than whipping cream.
If it won't work I will probably go with the Neufchatel recipe since it doesn't appear that whipping cream works all that well.
Tea, I will post the recipe for my wife's cheeseball.
It's very easy to make and is the result of her and my sister in law playing around in the kitchen one Christmas day.
That was several years ago and now it's mandatory that we have one of them each Christmas eve.
Thanks to both of your for the information and please let me know if you think half and half wold work. I'd like to give one a try next weekend and see how it works in the cheeseball recipe.
Dave
Quote from: Likesspace on February 15, 2009, 10:00:53 PM
Would half and half work, and is it ultra pasteurized?
If so, I would probably rather give it a try than whipping cream.
If it won't work I will probably go with the Neufchatel recipe since it doesn't appear that whipping cream works all that well.
Tea, I will post the recipe for my wife's cheeseball.
It's very easy to make and is the result of her and my sister in law playing around in the kitchen one Christmas day.
That was several years ago and now it's mandatory that we have one of them each Christmas eve.
Thanks to both of your for the information and please let me know if you think half and half wold work. I'd like to give one a try next weekend and see how it works in the cheeseball recipe.
Dave
I bet half and half would work. It worked great for my mascarpone, and that's not all that different from cream cheese. I was able to get it pasteurized, not ultra-
Tea, thanks, always assumed "Whipping" Cream was just cream for whipping, good point I'll check the back of package next time.
Dave, as LL just said, yep, in my both my first batch (https://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,83.0.html) and second batch (https://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,192.0.html) of Cream Cheese making I used UP Half & Half, worked well!
All Half & Half I've found here is UP.
Joy and John, thanks to your both.
I'll have to see what type of half and half is available here.
Hopefully I can find the pasteurized only, but if UP works then that's good enough.
I've decided that I need to start playing around a little in the soft cheese world.
I've been so focused on hard cheese that I've forgotten about this segment.
Just today my youngest daughter told me I needed to get good enough (at cheesemaking) to make cottage cheese. It's her favorite so that's a bit of an incentive for me. :-)
Thanks for the information.
I'll give this a try Friday night/Saturday and let you all know how it goes.
Thanks again....
Dave
Dave, to be fair I didn't get great curd sets with the UP Half & Half, see pictures, but it isn't critical. Basically it's an organic flavour based on time, in my opinion the rennet just enables faster whey drainage. Thus I normally have to scrape the drier curds off the inside wall of the bag to enable the moister curds to shed more whey, otherwise at the end of the recommended time my cheese is still too moist in middle.
Maybe me using UP and getting poorer curd set and Tea using just pasteurized is the reason we are getting different results as she has said that she doesn't need to do my trick, just gives the bag a squeeze every now and then.
Quote from: Likesspace on February 16, 2009, 02:15:26 AM
Joy and John, thanks to your both.
I'll have to see what type of half and half is available here.
Hopefully I can find the pasteurized only, but if UP works then that's good enough.
I've decided that I need to start playing around a little in the soft cheese world.
I've been so focused on hard cheese that I've forgotten about this segment.
Just today my youngest daughter told me I needed to get good enough (at cheesemaking) to make cottage cheese. It's her favorite so that's a bit of an incentive for me. :-)
Thanks for the information.
I'll give this a try Friday night/Saturday and let you all know how it goes.
Thanks again....
Dave
How did it got, was this your neufchatel?
Joy..
This is the Neufchatel...
I did not use half and half ummm....well.....errr..mainly because I was too lazy to look for it in our local supermarket.
Okay, that's not exactly true......
It's not that I was too lazy to look because I actually just asked my wife to pick up a gallon of whole milk for me to make the cheese. To be "too lazy" I would have actually had to set foot in the supermarket, myself. :-)
Since this was such a hit with my middle daughter I'll have to make it again, trying the half and half. This girl can eat cream cheese like it's the finest cut of steak so for her to say the flavor was perfect was quite a compliment.
Dave
Quote from: Likesspace on February 22, 2009, 02:21:54 AM
Joy..
This is the Neufchatel...
I did not use half and half ummm....well.....errr..mainly because I was too lazy to look for it in our local supermarket.
Okay, that's not exactly true......
It's not that I was too lazy to look because I actually just asked my wife to pick up a gallon of whole milk for me to make the cheese. To be "too lazy" I would have actually had to set foot in the supermarket, myself. :-)
Since this was such a hit with my middle daughter I'll have to make it again, trying the half and half. This girl can eat cream cheese like it's the finest cut of steak so for her to say the flavor was perfect was quite a compliment.
Dave
Oops, my bad. Tom homebrewed a nut brown ale and er... it's really really good, and er, well I must have missed something... er. ;)
Dave,
do you have a source of organic pasteurized milk? Not ultra, but just regular.
We have a very good market here that carries nearly organic raw milk, half and half, and cream. It's from a local dairy that's about 20 miles from here, in Watsonville (http://claravaledairy.com/) (where most of your strawberries come from). We also have a resource of organic pasteurized milk (http://cloverstornetta.com/), which is absolutely delicious milk, and I'm hoping will make excellent cheese. These are the "happy" cows of California you see in the commercials.
They really are happy, too, I've seen them ambling on the hillsides here, and they look fairly content.
On one program, Modern Mavels, I think they showed real happy cows from one farm. They roam all day long, come in when they need to be milk by themselves and have huge slightly abrasive roller where the cows walk under to itch their backs...seriously. They looked very content. I really do apprciate animals that are taken care of as if they were human.
Quote from: Cartierusm on February 24, 2009, 09:06:23 AM
On one program, Modern Mavels, I think they showed real happy cows from one farm. They roam all day long, come in when they need to be milk by themselves and have huge slightly abrasive roller where the cows walk under to itch their backs...seriously. They looked very content. I really do apprciate animals that are taken care of as if they were human.
They come in when they need to be milked by themselves??? Wow. Boy, don't give them a computer and net access!
Yeah a lot of animals do. I've seen quite a few farms where they wander in when it's time to milk, they've pretty much been conditioned.
Joy...
I just now saw the question you asked, and in answer: I do not have access to an organic pasteurized milk in my area.
In my part of the world we can get milk, heavy whipping cream and half and half. After checking, even the half and half is ultra pasteurized.
This is the downfall of living in a very small town.
I have to drive a minimum of 45 minutes to get to a town that has a population of over 20,000. Even there, I cannot find a whole foods store so I guess I'm stuck with what is available.
I really miss living on the farm where I was raised. We never had livestock but with close to a thousand acres, I surely could have found some room for one happy milker.
The only thing that keeps me away from the farm is that I thoroughly hate farming. :)
Dave
I've had a bit of whey draining from Philadephia cream cheese too I think if it were comepletely dry you'd have something entirely different from cream cheese.
Quote from: LadyLiberty on February 24, 2009, 05:04:38 PM
They come in when they need to be milked by themselves??? Wow. Boy, don't give them a computer and net access!
This is actually quite common with freelot dairies. Several reasons for this. First the cows are usually fed grain while they get milked, second when they are full of milk it gets quite uncomfortable, and lastly everyone else is doing it (cows are herd animals).
I don't go in for the happy cows idea but I'm sure that pastured grass fed cows are mostly healthier and probably produce better milk. I know several smaller farms around here are doing grass fed cows for milk, however they do not use the common holstein cows (black and white) but rather the smaller Jerseys (brown) and Gurnseys (brown and white). The Holsteins are so productive that they need a higher energy density in their feed than is available in an all grass diet.
More cheese varieties to try to make. And I've just gotten started in this hobby.
Craig
How much probiotic 222 would I need for a 2 gallon batch? 1 teaspoon?