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I have 2 pots for cheesemaking. One is 5 gal and the other is 3 gal. I can't justify buying another large pot, but I want to make a cheese from 8 gal of milk. It's tricky to keep one pot of milk at the correct temperature, but keeping 2 pots at a constant temperature in the same sink is quite a task! (I tried it once )
Since it is much easier to work with one pot, I'm wondering if I could start a batch of cheese in the 2 pots, and as the curds shrink (I'm thinking about a parmesan), combining the curds into one pot for the remainder of the cooking.
Is there any problem with doing this?
I don't think there will be any issue with expelling whey, but I am unsure about other technical aspects of doing this (acidification, etc.) As I think about it, its as if I was removing the whey as if I was making a washed curd cheese, except for not replacing it with water. (The curds of 8 gal of cheese but only the whey from 5 or less)
Any thoughts or past experience?

I was thinking about the same. I have two 3 gallons pots, one is a SS and the other an enamel coated. Two different pots don't behave the same way above same flame. This is the second trap, there are no two similar burners on my hub. From those reasons, my endeavor of makeing "a bigger one" is postponed.

I would think it would be very tricky to get them to the exact same temperature, pH, etc  at the same time but it could make for an interesting cheese. I'd go for it and see hwo it works for you. Try a smaller batch first just in case, a few gallons in each pot or something.

I did this once with a two gallon pot and a four gallon pot. I made a seven and a half gallon batch. While it was tricky to keep them at the same (or even similar) temp. they equalized out as the whey expressed I was able to drain some off making room to combine the curds into one pot. I ended up with a sort of Farmhouse cheddar style cheese and the texture was constant. No indication of having mixed batches. Of course it was much more work than using a single pot, which is what started me looking for a larger batch solution.

It was tricky enough keeping them both at the same temperature. That was before I even contemplated pH!
An interesting PROCEDURE for cheese would be completely acceptable for me. Its the interesting cheese ITSELF that I fear. I really want to make a nice big parmesan, and not some strange Italian-ish cheese if it changes the chemistry of the cheese by combining the two lots.
Majoofi, if you ended up with a sort of Farmhouse cheddar, what type of cheese were you trying to make? And did you make batches one after another and combine the curds afterwards?

We do this often and never have any problems. What we do is once we have made the first breaking if the curd (in both pots) we expell some of the whey in the bigger pot and then add and mix the curd from the smaller pot.

Should not affect any recipe you are making.

Cacio

Great idea Cacio! Then the pH will be pretty close!

Quote from: MarkShelton on March 07, 2010, 07:23:43 PM
Majoofi, if you ended up with a sort of Farmhouse cheddar, what type of cheese were you trying to make? And did you make batches one after another and combine the curds afterwards?

Mark, let's take a look back at my records. I had a two gallon pot in the sink and a four gallon pot in a larger pot on the stove. This was a total experiment. I used

Five and a half gallons non homogenized milk.
six table spoons yogurt
two packets of mesophilic culture
ripened twenty minutes at 90dgs
2 1/2 teaspoons veal rennet
set 45 min.
cut and slowly raised temp to 110dgs
and kept draining the whey to get all the curd in one pot.
drained off all whey and let curd "cheddar" for half an hour.
Milled curd and added 7 tablespoons kosher salt.
Pressed and bandaged with veg shortening.
aged four months.

Tasted pretty good.

The key to using two pots was to cross mix the two at the ripening stage so that they'd both be in the same world.

Thanks for the reassurance Cacio and Majoofi  Now I can go ahead with this procedure knowing that 1) someone has done this before without any problems, and 2) that the cheese made by this process is what was intended.

I was thinking about two 15 gallon pots going at the same time.  Then I get a 30lb. cheese.  Figured I would just drain one pot earlier, one later, then combine, mill, and put in the mold.

I was feeling pretty good about combining the two pots until I got a response from another source that I e-mailed. Here was his reply:

• Mark, yes there is a serious problem with this. Removing whey removes some of the lactose that fuels the process and will diminish the acid production of the process. These curds must remain in the full amount of whey until they are removed to their forms. Whey removal is usually considered to be a control point in cheesemaking to reduce or stop acid production.
  
     ... jim

Jim is apparently a technical advisor at the New England Cheesemaking Supply Co. I might just go the safe route and do it in two pots concurrently before combining them into the mold, at least for a large batch. I might try with a small batch and keep detailed notes on pH measurements to see if there is really a significant alteration in the acidification during the process.

I would not worry about it. All you are doing is adding it to another pot with whey and are not really affecting the outcome. Like I said before done it many times and always get the same result.

Cacio