CheeseForum.org » Forum

Hello all

I made the Cabre al Vino recipe from this site this past weekend using 2 gallons of fresh goat's milk.  I had issues with coagulation and am not sure what the impact will be on the final product.

With the milk at 90 F, I added 4 oz of prepared meso mother culture and waited 15 minutes.  (The mother culture was from New England Cheese and I suspect it may be MA 011 as they identify the ingredients as s. lactis, s. cremoris, and malto dextrin).

I then added ½ teaspoon of double strength vegetable rennet diluted in ¼ cup water.  The milk immediately started to floc while I was stirring in the rennet and had cut able curd within 10 minutes.

I suspect the problem was the rennet.  The bottle stated ¼ teaspoon per gallon but in checking their website it states ¼ teaspoon per 2 gallons.  So, it appears that I added too much rennet.

How will this affect the cheese overall? 

And my other question is - Do most of you use a meso mother culture or use direct set cultures?

Thanks for the help

Chris, sorry for late reply.

Please describe your coagulation issues, also, that recipe uses 4 ounces of over-ripened store bought buttermilk as the mesophilic starter culture, not 4 ounces of manufactured freeze dried such asDanisco's Choozit MA 011.

Too much rennet will make your cheese bitter. I use mother cultures, but that is probably not the norm.

John

My attempt to make Cabre al Vino back in August resulted in an inedible hockey puck.   

I read the forum recipe as "•Mesophilic Starter Culture of your choice" so I used a prepared mother culture of  MA 011.   I had curd forming the instant I added the rennet while I was stirring.   I  continued with all of the recipe steps and had the cheese aging at 52 F - 80% RH but it developed cracks within 3 weeks and dried out completely within 6 weeks.

Not sure what actually happened but I will give it another try next month

Thanks for the feedback

WAY too much rennet. Search for flocculation. It should take around 15 minutes before things start to gel.