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zameluzza - That looks great!  I should be so lucky.

-Boofer-

Regardless of"cracking it open early", I think it looks great!
Mine has finally started swelling --I'm watching it regularly (perhaps TOO much) to be on the look out for cracks........so far so good.   Hoping that I can maintain the temp and humidity outside the cave until it is time to return it back to aging...........

Quote from: Boofer on May 30, 2010, 05:19:28 PM
...waited 45 minutes, checked the acidity and had 6.85 (started with 6.93). .... An hour and a half later and I'm only at 6.68...looking for 6.45. Isn't 90F too warm for Aroma B or any other meso culture? I decided to try and kickstart it. I added 1/8tsp Flora Danica. An hour later and it's at 6.65.

Wow Boof. This make is off the deep end.

Something is seriously wrong with with your meter, your calibrations, your testing technique or your milk. Milk should always start at 6.6-6.7. Anything out of that range and I won't use it for cheese. Have NEVER seen one at 6.93 or anything close. 90F is not too hot for a Meso. They're fine up to 102-105 depending on the species. The culture was doing it's thing and you should NOT have "kick started it". With the additional starter bacteria and the extremely long ripening time, you are pretty well guaranteed to end up with an extremely acidic cheese. Did you measure the pH after pressing? You can try letting the Propionic bloom, then throw this one in the back of your cave and wait about 2 years. A very long aging MIGHT mellow it out.

Sailor - I thought I did everything right. I knew the Extech was calibrated, but during this make I recal'd the meter to confirm it wasn't the problem. I've begun to capture this cheese in the following thread:

https://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,4044.0.html

I really had some doubt about adding the Flora Danica but I saw no other recourse. Should I have waited and...waited some more? Taking those two final readings does make me believe I will have yet another acidic, crumbly cheese. I doubt that years would mellow out such a cheese.

I am determined to try it again...at least as a sanity check.

So if I were to try it again and I tested the cold milk at 6.93pH or something similar, should I reject that milk without any further thought?

-Boofer-

Quote from: Sailor Con Queso on June 01, 2010, 02:12:44 AM
Milk should always start at 6.6-6.7. Anything out of that range and I won't use it for cheese. Have NEVER seen one at 6.93 or anything close.

I just poured a glass from my open 1% milk jug:   6.78 @ 52.2F    The high end of your range.

Granted, that's not close to what I was seeing, but then it's not whole (unopened) milk either. I'm using pasteurized, homogenized industrial whole milk.

I'm not sure what technique I should be using to test with the Extech. Seems relatively straight-forward. The only thing I can think of is that I hold the rinsed tip in the milk and wait until the temperature stabilizes at some point.

-Boofer-

Maybe our moderator can move a few posts to the other thread that you started and just referenced. LinuxBoy may have some additional insight, but there's no way that I would use milk that was at 6.93 unless I knew exactly why. First of all, don't measure it cold. Let it warm up to at least room temp and then take a reading. Fresh cow's milk should be 6.6-6.7. If it's a little lower than that, then lactic bacteria are starting to kick in, making the milk more acidic - generally from milk that isn't fresh and is on it's way out.

High pH is generally indicative of a high somatic cell count (SCC) and some sort of health problem or poor hygiene. There are lots of causes for this. Perhaps Farmer or one of our cow or goat herders can give some insight.

In general, a high SCC milk will:

• Increase mineral content and affect coagulation
• Decrease lactose content and affect aging
• Decrease casein content and increase whey protein
• Increase the likelihood of pathogens
• Increase non-protein nitrogen
• and increase pH up to 7.5

In any case 6.93 is just not normal and I personally wouldn't use it.

Wonderful post, Sailor. I don't have much more to add. If that meter is calibrated, then the milk really is off. Only times I've seen milk be that high is when an animal is sick. I've also sometimes seen it in extremes of lactation periods, but even then it wasn't above 6.8.

I'm not sure it's SCC, though, because with higher SCC, you will get long time to floc. Boofer's was 8 mins, IIRC?

Sailor - Excellent dissertation on my possible problem. That deserves a cheese.

I did test at heating temp and it remained in the 6.8 range so that might indicate the high SCC.

If I test the milk right out of the fridge and it tests too high, that would save me the hassle of going any further using an inferior starting product. Could I expect to test reasonably at the fridge temp? I do understand that the pH will adjust with the temp.

linuxboy - my floc time was actually 5min. I concluded that it was so aggressive because it had been prepped for so long.

It occurs to me that more than one animal would have to be sick because the milk from the animal is combined with a large number of other animals. With that, the degraded milk from one animal alone would be a virtual "drop in the bucket".

I'm going to go to another store this afternoon and buy 4 gallons from the same dairy from a different store and make the same recipe tomorrow morning. I will make a decent baby swiss!

-Boofer-

Quote from: Sailor Con Queso on June 01, 2010, 04:40:42 AM

High pH is generally indicative of a high somatic cell count (SCC) and some sort of health problem or poor hygiene. There are lots of causes for this. Perhaps Farmer or one of our cow or goat herders can give some insight.

here is a link that could be interesting, it's about SCC
http://www.milk.org/Corporate/view.aspx?content=Farmers/SomaticCellCount

Boof,

Yet another reason I won't make cheese without a good pH meter. You have bad milk. Don't know why, but nonetheless, it's bad. So absolutely, positively, irrefutably, test before starting. If the pH isn't between 6.6-6.7, don't use it for cheese because it's probably going to fail anyway. If it tastes OK, then drink it or use it for cooking. However, I must say I would flush a 6.75 or higher. Below 6.55, the milk is about to spoil. Use it quickly.

If your values are correct, this is really bad from a public health standpoint. I would discuss this with your grocery store and the dairy. I would MAKE them explain to me why the pH is so high. This could be chemical (additive or contamination) and not a disease problem. Either way is not good. If they won't give you a direct plausible explanation, I personally would report them to the local health department. YES, I think a pH of 6.93 needs drastic measures.

The Extech will compensate for temperature but you need to give it time to adjust. So be sure to look at the temp readout before recording pH values. A LOT happens overnight, so the pH of the cheese just after you remove it from the press is really important. That gives you something of an idea about how everything is coming together before brining, aging, and the final stages ahead. So don't forget to test and record.

boof where did you get the milk? from a farmer? was the milk from the tank or is it from a cow he milks separate in the milk bucket?
if it's from the bucket?? I would ask way is she beeing milked in the bucket?

if we milk some cows in the bucket and not in the tank then there are a few reasone.
1. she just freshed
2. she is treaded with meds
3. she is a high canditade of SCC
4. she has mastitis

these cows do never  go in to the milktank

from #1 we use it for her calf and the leftover gets fed diludet to  bigger calfs or I bring it here for my chickens.
2,3 and 4 we dump.

zamel - Unfortunately I have to buy my milk from the store. It's industrial dairy milk produced on a very large scale. If it was a perfect world, we would all be drinking and using raw unpasteurized, unhomogenized milk. Consider yourself very fortunate.

Sailor - Today I picked up 4 gallons of homo/past whole milk from a different store than I bought my first milk from. Taking the lead from you, I pulled a sample tonight and tested it. See the photo. From what you tell me, this stuff should be tossed as well.

My next step will be to head down to the only local source I have for raw milk. More expensive, but at this rate...maybe cheaper. 

-Boofer-

Which milk is that, Boofer? Western Family? Dairygold?

Darigold. The first was from a market chain called Saars. This latest was from Albertsons.

Do I really have enough to go to management at either of these stores?

-Boofer-

Saars and Albertsons both buy from the Dairygold distributor; it's all the same. I don't like it personally, prefer either Alpenrose or Whole Foods brand, or summer Costco milk for retail brands. Maybe your meter is off?  Then again, don't know how it can be off when you're hitting the buffer targets. Maybe it's off by just a little, though? .1 or so?

My last batch of fresh Dairygold was 6.72.