Im referring to a few of my first cheeses that are now ages enough to eat.
When I first started these, I was using just 1 TBSP of thickened buttermilk as the culture
and was having a bit of a problem getting a clean break. I still made them and yielded
about 14oz of cheese from a gallon of whole milk. Also it tastes way too salty. I used
2 tsp of salt per gallon per Dr Fankhauser's recipe.
Ive started using 2 TBSP of thickened buttermilk starter recently and the curds are much
more firm, so Im getting the break.
My thickened buttermilk= buttermilk left out at room temp all night till its almost the thickness
of yogurt.
What kind of cheese? And can you post more about what you did? It's a little hard to tell from your post.
Oh- sorry. I should have thought of that.
I used this recipe:
http://biology.clc.uc.edu/Fankhauser/Cheese/Cheese98.htm (http://biology.clc.uc.edu/Fankhauser/Cheese/Cheese98.htm)
I didnt let it innoculate overnight, just let the frozen thickened buttermilk melt into the milk
as I was warming it.
Got it. Two possible causes:
- Not enough culture to encourage proteolysis. This will make the curds not uniform as the cheese ages. Can also be caused by poor knit, too cold aging, etc. This is less likely.
- Homogenization. Homogenized milk tends to cause a sort of flakiness in the cheese. It does go away after extended aging, but not always. This is more likely. I've had many flops making side by side cheeses where good milk made the difference.
Underlying cause is that the proteolysis cascade if odd during maturation, and the above are two possible causes. Might be something else, but hard to tell because I don't know enough about your setup, milk, what you did exactly, etc. High salt also slows down aging. 2 tsp is a lot of salt.
I always read the milk label very closely to avoid homogenized.
Sounds like it really may have been too little culture.
Im going to try this one again with only 1 tsp of salt.
At least I can cook with this cheese. It does great crumbled into a salad.
Other things could have gone wrong, too. It's a little hard to tell, too many variables. I have no idea what happened to acidity, for example, or your aging conditions, or what you mean by "clean break".
I age my cheeses in a 60 degree wine refrigerator. typically for 2 or 3 months
With my clean break problem- I did the finger test and it was thick, but didnt hold it's shape briefly
like i think its supposed to. I guess I was tired of waiting. I know impatience is the source of many problems
in cheesemaking.
60 degrees is a little high. Cheeses will age faster at higher temperatures but often have an undesireable aftertaste from bitter peptides. Faster proteolysis will also affect the texture.