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I made another cheddar cheese this past weekend and the make went better. However during the cheddaring process 1 ½ hours in the PH took a rapid drop so I salted early. The recipe called for two hours of cheddaring. I decided to make a pepper Jack using 200 easy cheese recipes as I usually do a washed curd and salt. This one does not use the wash curd method and requires brining. I monitored the PH in both makes and timed each. The one thing I noticed is the PH has a slow steady drop up to about the sixth hour then it does a rapid drop. I am not sure what causes the rapid drop in PH.  Make sheets attached

Picture of the latest 4 lb Pepper Jack. Normally I would do the final press without the cheese cloth to remove the cloth marks but needed to get this one in the brine before the PH went to low.

Quote from: Devon on January 30, 2018, 12:51:21 AM
I made another cheddar cheese this past weekend and the make went better. However during the cheddaring process 1 ½ hours in the PH took a rapid drop so I salted early. The recipe called for two hours of cheddaring. I decided to make a pepper Jack using 200 easy cheese recipes as I usually do a washed curd and salt. This one does not use the wash curd method and requires brining. I monitored the PH in both makes and timed each. The one thing I noticed is the PH has a slow steady drop up to about the sixth hour then it does a rapid drop. I am not sure what causes the rapid drop in PH.  Make sheets attached

Yep, that is what usually happen on my Cheddar make. 1.5 hrs cheddaring and sprinting to the milling and salting process. I notice this happens when I use unpasteurised milk, even when I make a washed curd cheese like Gouda, I literally have to stand around poking cheese with PH meter after it reach 5.8. The PH will sluggishly drop in the beginning and free falling towards the end.

Today I made another cheddar but used the recipe from "200 easy cheese recipes" book. It is a shorter recipe then Ricki Carrols book "Home cheese making". Using this recipe the Ph targets were right on except at the cheddaring phase. The book called for 45 minutes cheddaring but the PH was at 6.2 at this point. I continued to cheddar for an additional hour (total 2 hours and 15 minutes to reach a PH of 5.69 before I salted and pressed. Hopefully out of the press we will be around 5.1 to 5.2. Today's make sheet attached.