It crossed my mind that the reason so many swiss-style recipes say to use apparently large quantities of Shermanii is that if you were making a batch from only 1 gallon of milk, the rind on the cheese is likely to dry out and crack long before the cheese was ready if you used a more conventional quantity of shermanii. I'd be interested to hear opinions on this from people who have had success with swiss style cheeses. Is there anybody who has had even moderate success using a recipe that calls for 1 gallon on milk and a teaspoon of shermanii?
You are WAY, WAY, WAY off on the amount of PS that you need. I have never seen a Swiss recipe that calls for "large quantities". The gas produced by a teaspoon per gallon will explode the rind and the cheese will fail. The rind drying out and cracking is something you have control over. You should re-read your recipes and do a little more research on the forum. Tons of discussions on Swiss and rind management.
I did find a discrepancy between the amount needed in a Ricki Carroll recipe (1t to 2 gals) and what Leeners suggested (about an 1/8t per batch). I used 1t in both my first Swiss and Emmentaler (Rickis recipes) and they both turned out excellent. However, thats like $5 worth of Shermanii for two 2# cheeses! Anyway, Im scaling back going forward.
I was merely speculating as to why some recipes might suggest vastly more Shermanii than required when making small batches. As we discussed in another thread, 1/32 tsp is about the correct quantity for 1 gallon milk. An example of way to much Shermanii is this recipe on eHow (http://www.ehow.com/how_2306997_make-swiss-cheese.html). Paul Peacock in his book Making Your Own Cheese (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Making-Your-Own-Cheese-Cheeses/dp/1905862482) suggests 1 tsp to a (UK) gallon of milk! It makes you wonder whether or not any of these people have actually made the recipies they have published.