Yesterday, I made my first cheddar.
And of course I had an accident during cheddaring but it seems to be ok now :)
I used :
- 10l of raw full cream milk
- Flora Danica
- 2.5ml of 30% CaCl
- 2.5ml of rennet
- 35g of salt
Recipe I followed :
- Heated the milk to 31C added Flora Danica(ph : 6.59) waited 1 hour
- Added rennet and CaCl and waited 50 min (ph : 6.45)
- Clean break, cut the curds into 1-1.5cm cubes ( ph : 6.4 , T = 29.5C )
- Heated the whey to 39C while stirring constantly over the period of 40 mins ( curds shrunk considerably )
- Let the curds settle for 40 mins at 39C
- Drained the whey for ricotta and split the curd in half, set it sit on top of each other for 10 minutes ( cheddaring )
- Turned the curd halves and let sit for 10m ( T = 36C )
- Some whey has come out, heated them a little to get the curds to 39C
- Turned the halves again let them sit for 10m (T = 37C)
- At this point I wanted to heat the curds a little bit more but I got distracted. Curd half in the bottom reached to 42C in the middle, bottom side is starting to melt
- I quickly removed the hot whey and washed the curds for 10s in cold water, added some whey back in from the whey I saved to make ricotta, so that the curds do not lose calcium and acidity
- T = 40C now at the bottom half, I removed the cool whey after 2 mins and make the final flip
- 15 minutes later I cut the curds into 1-1.5cm thick square prisms
- I crumbled these pieces into cubes and put them in a pot. They were squishy at this stage
- Milled these pieces with the salt
- Put the curds into the gouda mold
- Applied 10 kg pressure for 1 hour
- Flipped the cheese and applied 20kg pressure for 13 hours
- Let the cheese dry for 2-3 days
I've seem to lost a bit more moisture and the curds are a bit dry. The yield is 920g, which is less than usual. :(
Right now, it is drying.
After drying I will vacuum pack it and mature for >6 months.
I will add updates as I go.
(https://i.imgur.com/PPhMCOF.jpeg)
Very early update :
- It started to crack all around, it has been drying for 9 hours
- Since it was feeling dry to touch, I vacuum packed it so the cracks doesn't get bigger and gets infected with some mould
Seems like you did everything right, even though you had an accident.
IME cheddar-types are pretty hard. Sometimes they need a LOT of pressure to get the curds to knit. And probably harder in a globe-type mold than a standard circular mold.
I question whether it's a good idea to vacuum-pack a cheddar. It's precisely the succession of molds that contribute to their depth of flavor. I would have either cloth wrapped it or left it alone.
-L
I always think that making cheese and aging cheese are two completely different skills (although it's *very* hard to age cheese if you haven't made it well ;-) ). You can make very, very good vacuum packed cheddar. If good cheese is your goal, not need to add an extra complication to it.
Of course, I *never* follow my own advice and pretty much only make natural rinds :-) I just want to say that it's perfectly OK to work on the make side if you want to.