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This is my fourth Gouda making with pre-pressing in whey.

MILK CULTURING

• Feb 12, 2010, 9:30AM: Poured nine 1 US gallon jugs of store bought pasteurized homogenized whole cow's milk (7 HEB's name brand & 2 HEB's Hill Country cheap brand) from store into 10 US gallon stockpot with minimal splash/foaming on large gas burner ring on stove. Measured temperature at 5C/41F and pH on my cheapo uncalibrated gauge at 5.6. Trickled and stirred in 2.25 teaspoons diluted CaCl2 to aid rennet coagulation as using pasteurized milk. Sprinkled 1.25 teaspoons Danisco's Choozit Brand DVI Mesophilic Starter Culture MM100 onto milk, let stand and rehydrate 5 min, stirred in in up down motion. Puffed four puffs of Danisco's Choozit Brand Freeze Dried Geotrichum candidum 13 onto milk for rind protection. Let rehydrate for 5 minutes and stirred in with large slotted skimmer. No find Annatto as forgot gave to my Dad, diluted 27 drops (3 drops gallon) household yellow food colouring and stirred into milk.
• Feb 12, 2010, 10:50AM: Milk warmed to target 31C/88F after 80 minutes (was warming roughly 1F/min on gas setting #6 at end), turned off heat and set aside for 30 minutes to pre-ripen.

CURD MAKING

• Feb 12, 2010, 11:20AM: Measured 1.0 gram CHR Hansen Brand powdered rennet onto mini digital scale, diluted in 1 cup cool water, trickled into milk and stirred in thoroughly for 1 minute and then stopping swirl with ladle. Placed empty bowl on milk to check for floccualtion point (http://www.cheeseforum.org/Making/Curd%20-%20When%20To%20Cut.htm).
• Feb 12, 2010, 11:45AM: Spinning bowl floculation test slowed considerably at 15 minutes, and when stops spiing spins slightly backward as flocculated milk holding bowl. Used member Francoise's recommend starting flocculation multiplier of 3 for Gouda (https://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,2724.msg21789.html#msg21789), (also Peter Dixon's recommendation (https://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,1811.0.html)) thus initial 15 minutes plus extra 30 before cutting curd.
• Feb 12, 2010, 12:15PM: Cut curd into ~0.4"/1 cm square rods with long spatula, measured temp at 87.0F/30.5C, let rest 5 minutes, stirred gently intermittently for 20 minutes as curds still soft. Let rest at end for curds to sink.

CURD WASHING

• Feb 12, 2010, 12:50PM: Removed 3 US gallons whey (~1/3 original milk volume) and put aside in jugs for making brine. Stirred in 3 US gallons of 130F hot water (hottest tap water then zapped for 3 minutes per jug), temp at 98.5 F/37C, slightly higher than target 95F (35.0C). Stirred gently for 15 min, then let curds settle to the bottom of vat for 5 min.
• Feb 12, 2010, 1:30PM: Removed most of whey-water and poured into two large stock pots.

PRESSING

• Feb 12, 2010, 1:35PM: Placed two 1.5-2 kg Kadova Brand Gouda shape molds in smaller whey-water stock pots, placed curds in molds and pressed with 10 lb weights, whey at 92.5F/33.5C, pH 5.4.
• Feb 12, 2010, 1:55PM: Removed molds from whey, discarded watery-whey, turned cheeses and placed under stepladder as weight. Heavy end of stepladder applies 10.5 kg/23 lb as measured with bathroom scales here (https://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,2130.0.html).
• Feb 12, 2010, 3:00PM: Turned again.
• Feb 12, 2010, 4:00PM: Added extra weight (5 gallon paint bucket). Weighed bucket on bathroom scales at 21.5 kg/47 lb, assume ~70% of that is applied to the cheeses (and 30% to floor end). Thus total is 25.5 kg/56 lb on both cheeses in parallel (side by side). Cheese are 7" diameter, thus total area is 77 in2, so force applied is ~0.73 psi.

SALTING

• Feb 12, 2010, 6:30PM: Removed ladder-weight, turned cheeses, weighed at 2.2 & 2.25 kg / 4.84 & 4.95 lb, left in hoops without weight or followers to remove ridge - dent from lid.
• Feb 12, 2010, 10:00PM: Mixed 2 US gallons retained whey with 3.6 pounds of salt to make 18% brine. Placed both in fresh weigh brine bath, sprinkled exposed above brine parts with dry salt.
• Feb 13, 2010, 6:30AM: Turned cheeses in brine and sprinked new tops with dry salt. Measured brine density with Salinometer at 18% salt.
• Feb 13, 2010, 4:00PM: Removed one cheese from brine after 18 hours (~3.5 hours per pound of cheese) and placed on mat in kitchen to air dry.
• Feb 13, 2010, 10:00PM: Removed second cheese from brine after 24 hours (~5 hours per pound of cheese) and placed on mat in kitchen to air dry.

AGING

• Feb 14, 2010: Turned cheeses in kitchen every 1/2 day to room dry.
• Feb 15, 2010: Turned cheeses in kitchen every 1/2 day to room dry.
• Feb 16, 2010: Weighed each cheese 2.0 & 2.1 kg / 4.4 & 4.6 lb (shrunk average of 7.8% by weight from brining and air drying for 3 days). Placed both cheeses into cheese cave on plastic mat to further dry/age, Johnson temperature controller not working fridge at 39F, highest will go.
• Feb 21, 2010: After turning cheeses daily, weighed each cheese 1.9 & 2.0 kg / 4.2 & 4.4 lbs. Cut one cheese in half to check texture and see if will fit into smaller vacuum bag, no, sealed both cheeses in 1 USG vacuum bags and placed back into cheese cave at 39F.

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NOTES

Pictures #1 . . . .

Pictures #2 . . . .

I'm sorry if I am getting off to a bad start, asking too many questions, but I am confused.  your curds start off looking like what I imagine "real" cheese curds look like before they are cooked.  once you cook, drain and wash them however, they look very similar to the lemon cheese I have made (drier, tho).  I have been imagining large 1-2 in curds like what I got at the cheese factory where I grew up.
I also noticed that you direct heat your milk....I have been wondering if that can be done, as our grandmothers did not have hot-water baths!  Is this a common and accepted practice, or have I been reading too much Carroll?

Does anyone want to make a guess at the PSI of this apparatus?

Assuming the 5 gallon paint is full, 5gals x 10lbs/gal = 50lbs. A little more then half the weight is on the follower maybe 30 percent to the floor and 70 percent, so we have about 35lbs onto the follower.
Maybe a 8 inch mold.
Aprox. 50 square inches of surface area for the follower. 

So my guess is, drum roll please,  0.7 PSI.

Unless he has two molds side by side verse stacked then my second guess is,

0.35 PSI

John....
I'm curious about the Ph reading you got when you first started this make.
The Ph of fresh milk should be in the 6.6 range which is far different than the reading you recorded.
Have you checked, and calibrated your meter lately?
I'm not being critical but if your meter is off it will really have an effect on the final cheese.
Looking forward to your response.

Dave

Quote from: padams on February 12, 2010, 11:17:15 PM
I'm sorry if I am getting off to a bad start, asking too many questions, but I am confused.  your curds start off looking like what I imagine "real" cheese curds look like before they are cooked.  once you cook, drain and wash them however, they look very similar to the lemon cheese I have made (drier, tho).  I have been imagining large 1-2 in curds like what I got at the cheese factory where I grew up.

The curds you got at the cheese factory where probably cheddar cheese curds which are curd much larger. Gouda is cut to about 3/8" cheddar cheese curds are generally is cut to about 1 to 1/2". For pressed cheddar cheese, curds should be cut even smaller.

I also noticed that you direct heat your milk....I have been wondering if that can be done, as our grandmothers did not have hot-water baths!  Is this a common and accepted practice, or have I been reading too much Carroll?

Yes this can be done but it is much more difficult to control - especially with an electric stove top.

@Padams: Never too many questions, we are all learning ;D. You grew up in a cheese factory ;), wow, lucky! Debi has already answered, but just to add, I have a gas stove/cooker and I bought this stockpot (https://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,2177.0.html) with heavy bottom to help diffuse heat, and I warmed slowly (47F in 80 minutes) and stirred occasionally (OK probably not enough) to minimize hot spots. Others here use double boiler with water, I just don't consider it worth the extra effort (or cost for an even bigger stockpot to go outside this one). Commercial operations that I've seen use hot water or I think sometimes steam, but they are heating 1000 gallon batches.

@BauerHaus: Good question, thus I just updated the OP with weights and little math. The cheeses are side by side pressed, I calculate 0.73 psi assuming same 70% of bucket. The main difference in our calcs is I added the stepladder which I had previously weighed the end weight of.

@Likesspace: Good catch, my 1.5 year old cheapo uncalibrated gauge (https://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,89.msg913.html#msg913) is supposed to be temperature corrected but that initial very low 5.6 at cold 41F appears to be way off. I just edited the OP to say bad reading. Later measurement of warm whey while pre-pressing in whey of 5.4 seems much more reasonable at that stage of the make. I'm still using time not using pH control points in my making, I need to get serious about that and buy a better gauge and calibrate it.

Looking good so far, I have a gouda drying now myself.

You could always just set your pH meter to 6.6-6.7 in the untreated milk, that is about what milk runs right?

That's my understanding, cow's milk is about 6.7 pH (http://www.cheeseforum.org/Making/Milk%20-%20Types.htm).

If I'd of measured milk when warm I'd have probably gotten that number, I normally do, I think it was the 41F/5C that threw the reading off.

Fantastic documention -- especially linking over to flocculation.  Loved the bowl on top :)

Perhaps you should siphon off the whey, instead of using that cup?  It would be much quicker.

Fantastic cheese and excellent writeup John.   I have two gouda's in my cave at the moment, and with the last one I decided to check pH during the final cooking and found that I hit the pH marker about 15 mins earlier than the cooking time given.  So I went with the pH for a change.  Will be interesting to see what the difference between them will be.

Hope this one ages well for you.  COngrats.

Actually grew up on a dairy farm, but there was a cheese factory close by ::) (you must know my dad, and share his enthusiasm for misplaces modifiers!) >:D  I am going to start some cottage cheese tomorrow for curd cutting experience, then next week make queso blanco for my sil's from venezuela.  I love your pictures, I am a visual learner!  your cheese looks fantastic cut into!!!!  I, also, have a gas top.  do you find it difficult to control the temp?  Thanks so much everyone!!!

padams, thanks, gas is easier to control than electric or infrared I think and you get more distributed heat/less hot spots to scald the milk. Still have to be careful and taketemp  readings every few minutes until you get used to your batch size and temp increase rate so that you don't overshoot, a cheap timer is a must (https://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,1842.0.html) so as not to forget :-\.

Quote from: John (CH) on February 13, 2010, 01:45:56 PM
@Padams: Never too many questions, we are all learning ;D. You grew up in a cheese factory ;), wow, lucky! Debi has already answered, but just to add, I have a gas stove/cooker and I bought this stockpot (https://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,2177.0.html) with heavy bottom to help diffuse heat, and I warmed slowly (47F in 80 minutes) and stirred occasionally (OK probably not enough) to minimize hot spots. Others here use double boiler with water, I just don't consider it worth the extra effort (or cost for an even bigger stockpot to go outside this one). Commercial operations that I've seen use hot water or I think sometimes steam, but they are heating 1000 gallon batches.

@BauerHaus: Good question, thus I just updated the OP with weights and little math. The cheeses are side by side pressed, I calculate 0.73 psi assuming same 70% of bucket. The main difference in our calcs is I added the stepladder which I had previously weighed the end weight of.

@Likesspace: Good catch, my 1.5 year old cheapo uncalibrated gauge (https://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,89.msg913.html#msg913) is supposed to be temperature corrected but that initial very low 5.6 at cold 41F appears to be way off. I just edited the OP to say bad reading. Later measurement of warm whey while pre-pressing in whey of 5.4 seems much more reasonable at that stage of the make. I'm still using time not using pH control points in my making, I need to get serious about that and buy a better gauge and calibrate it.

I've been following this thread and learning a lot.  I am wondering can a crock pot /slow cooker ever be used for cheese making?  Rather than put a stock pot on the stove or use a double boiler . . just use a crock pot/slow cooker?

umgowa, yes you can, Quebec_Poutine posted about one here (https://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,2218.0.html), if you Search this forum on Crock Pot or Slow Cooker I expect you will get other hits.

In that Board there are a lot of other ideas for Vats as well, including Debi's large chaffing dish, most hobby cheese makers who go large seem to go for a stockpot as slow cooker and chaffing dishes only go so large.

Thanks, John.  That's real helpful.  Now I'll experiment with it to see how well I can maintain the specific temperatures in the recipes I'll be working with.  While I've got your ear, John . . let me ask you another question.   I thought the big concern with heat application was that it be distributed evenly . . . and that's why the big emphasis is placed on double boilers, so the water outside can evenly heat the milk/curds in the inner container.  Am I correct here?  And If that's so, how does your new stock pot measure up to that standard?  I would think that any direct heating system would not distribute the heat as well.   Thanks for any clarification you can provide a newbie here.

Welcome . . . in summary this pot has a triple layer thick bottom and I have a gas stove and stir so heat is diffused, but this topic/thread is really about this cheese. There is a topic/thread here (https://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,2177.0.html) about the stockpot I use as a vat, including some posts on single vs double boilers for cheese vats. Cheers.

i appreciate the documentation and would like to throw a question onto the pile. I am currently drying and hope to vac bag. I see that you vac bagged on day nine. What were your conditions from drying to day nine? did you put it in the cave?

I am planning to make these cheese. What size is your gouda kadova mould? Did you buy it at glengarry supplies website? Thanks for the info. Beautiful pictures and cheese  ^-^