Do you all have resources or suggestions for a cord to tie and hand a provolone?
Butchers Twine. The Cotton one should be just fine. See here for examples:
http://www.google.com/products?hl=en&rlz=&q=butchers+twine&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=-6CSTO_aKoOisAOV5ZTACg&sa=X&oi=product_result_group&ct=title&resnum=3&ved=0CEwQrQQwAg (http://www.google.com/products?hl=en&rlz=&q=butchers+twine&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=-6CSTO_aKoOisAOV5ZTACg&sa=X&oi=product_result_group&ct=title&resnum=3&ved=0CEwQrQQwAg)
Rudy, Great idea! Thank you.
I find one thickness of butchers twine way to thin for a heavy cheese. I did this about 8 months ago and it cut through the cheese. I then braided the twine (3 parts of line) and it held without cutting the cheese.
That is a really good idea Debi. I will keep that in mind for the next provolone I try. The one I did 2 days ago, I gave up trying to form it into a jug and just put it into a 4 inch mold. It turned out good but I still want to work on my jug technic.
Deb, thank you. I will do this too when the cord arrives. I had tried material selvage but the cheese shrunk right out of it.
When I was a kid they waxed the cheese first then tied and hung them wth something that looks like hay bailing twine. I bought some and boiled it but it smelled funky so I braided the butchers twine. Still not as thick as I would like though.
yeah we use bailing twine for a lot of things but maybe not this... especially after it has been out in the yard :o. I could see boiling the fabric salvage from quilting - I didn't boil it before.
I'm still looking for something better but for now that will have to do. I wonder if I put the twine in the dryer so it dried fast if it would not smell so weird.
The bailing twine I'm familiar with is plastic - we open bales "sawing" one string against another until the string melts so it might not be good in a very hot drier.
I saw in a shop they had a provolone in the same kind of twine mesh "bag" they used for their Salami.
I have used ham sacks and they make kind of pretty designs with the webbing but you have to keep rotating them to get an even design. Daisy has some pretty salami nets that are webs of little circles that are neat. Been trying to get a few but they want to seel a case at a time.
Too bad you have to buy so much. That sounds really good.
Quote from: DeejayDebi on September 23, 2010, 01:07:55 AM
I have used ham sacks and they make kind of pretty designs with the webbing but you have to keep rotating them to get an even design. Daisy has some pretty salami nets that are webs of little circles that are neat. Been trying to get a few but they want to seel a case at a time.
I did a search for ham netting and meat netting and came up with this. It looks like some of these might would work real good.
Meat Netting (http://www.midwesternresearch.com/iw_products.m4p.pvx?;products_no_tree?company=INC?cat=11010)
Ay good sausage supply compay will have ham sack. Midwestern is a good reliable company. Some of their products are a bit pricey for the home user. Here are three vebders I deal with often.
http://www.butcher-packer.com/ (http://www.butcher-packer.com/)
http://www.sausagesource.com/catalog/cas-hamnet.html (http://www.sausagesource.com/catalog/cas-hamnet.html)
http://stores.curleyssausagekitchen.com/-strse-Equipment-cln-Miscellaneous/Categories.bok (http://stores.curleyssausagekitchen.com/-strse-Equipment-cln-Miscellaneous/Categories.bok)