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Right. My setup is about 24-25 gallons of milk to 15-16 gallons of water or 40 gallons total. I really ought to have 4000W but I get by.

Hey all!
So I finally did it and the new sous vide and digital cheese vat machine is up and running! Couldn't be happier with the result and really want to thank you all for giving me your input on this thread. Especially Sailor, Linuxboy and FarmerJD,

I started a new thread for it with photos and a complete guide. https://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,5951.msg42962.html#msg42962 - "DYI $100 Digital Cheese Vat / Sous Vide Machine! (Photos) - A full guide!"

In the restaurant world, we use thermometers that can be calibrated by the ice water method of 32 degrees f and boiling point of 212 degrees f at sea level.  In cheese making is that critical to be within a degree or two?

Andy

Sorry for taking so long to reply. The temperature is very significant to the quality of the cheese. If this was only one process that depended on it it would not be a big deal but the acidification depends on it, the bacteria and enzyme inoculation depends on it, the drainage of whey and firmness of curd depend on it, and later, the aging process depends on it. When ALL of these are off because they are based on wrong reading, the cheese quality may suffer a lot.  2 degrees are not critical but when you go to 4-10 degrees change on ALL of these processes your cheese is worthless. Remember that this begins with bringing the milk to the body temperature of the animal producing it - to mimic the farmstead process and premium activity of bacterium and enzymes in the milk.

Last year I got a nice new thermometer and began using it for a specific cheese. It worked okay and then I began having off batches that eventually turned into cheese that was totally off (took about 4 months)  When I got my new extech lab thermometer and a new candy thermometer for tall pots I decided for fun to throw them all int he same hot water. Boy, was I shocked to see the new thermometer was perfect to the 2/10th of a degree with the lab thermometer, while the thermometer I used for that cheese was 4.5 degrees off. I began using the new thermometer on the cheese recipe and what do you know, cheese was perfect ever since in every batch.

How did people test and adjust temperature closely 200-300 years ago, and probably with a wood fire?

Galileo had a reasonable water thermo-scope back in late 16th century. The mercury thermometer was invented in 1714, still the best and most reliable tool to this day. I go nuts cross checking my easy to use infrared and digital thermometers.

Were they so common that almost everyone had one, like the home thermometers of today?

There is lots of history behind thermometer, barometers, sextants etc for the ships of the day.
     Mostly in cheese making in the monasteries, it was the same as it is today, extremely well honed sensory calibration of the right time to do stuff like cut the curd or drain the whey. I watch folks here in Brazil making some great cheese with no tools at all. They have many generations of doing one cheese exactly the same way.  While us "Modern" folks are dependent on our digital pH meters and thermometers, these people know the proper pH point to drain from a drop of whey on the tongue.  Fun to watch.

Thanks. That's what I was getting at... learning the 'sensory calibration' whereas we rely on "tools" and seldom learn the "feel".

Coffee - "Many generations of doing one cheese exactly the same way" is the point. If you do the same cheese day after day you may be able to develop sensory techniques. But, I feel that it is almost impossible to develop a true "feel" when doing several different kinds of cheese on an irregular basis. Most people do not have the ability to stick a finger in water and tell the temperature within 5 degrees, much less 1 or 2 degrees.

Right now my milk supply is changing dramatically because of Spring, new calves, lactation cycles, change in diet, etc. Without using the flocculation method, a spinning bowl and a good timer, I would be making a lot of mistakes. For example, I do 35 gallon batches and my rennet dosage has dropped from a high of 42ml per batch in January to 28ml in my batch yesterday. That's HUGE - a 33% change. And a lot of that change has happened in the last 2 weeks. So if I had continued using the 42ml that I used in January, my curds would have set too long before cutting, causing extra moisture to be trapped in the finished curds. The extra moisture would have promoted aging too quickly. As a result my cheeses could have ended up bitter and inferior. What sensory clues would alert you to make adjustments like that?

Yesterday I made Lancashire with Aroma B and a little MA11 to help with acidification. With cheddar types, and salted curd cheeses in general, the acidity at milling and salting is critical to getting a consistent texture. I drained at a pH of 6.1 and Aroma B is slow, so it took 1-1/2 hours after draining to reach a pH of 5.6 (where I like Lancashire). I have made a lot of cheddar types and I can tell when a curd mass gets below 5.4 because the curds are MUCH firmer and harder to mill. But without a pH meter, you are really just guessing and hoping for the best.

Simple tools make us better cheese makers.

Hey, I wasn't arguing against tools... I'd be sunk without them. On the other hand I do believe there are some things/places where we can really develop a feel, eventually if we choose to pay very close attention to the many nuances.

While it is cool to watch a master do his thing with no tools - in a make room not much cleaner than a barn-, I don't think many of us on this forum can get the generations of experience needed to go without tools! I'm having hard enough time with pH meter, acidimeter, mercury and digital thermometers, not to mention sterile make room.

Sailor, how did you know when and how much to reduce your rennet? I'm down to 1:12000 and thinking I could go lower. I get a clean break at 3X floc, but floc is still just under 10 min.

I try to keep my floc times at 13-15 minutes, so when it starts dropping, I add less rennet. I talk to the farmer every time he delivers milk to see how the herd is doing. He gave me a heads up that many of his cows had calved and they were beyond the colostrum. At the same time, the milk started having a yellower color (probably from the changing diet). When I tasted the milk, it started having a richer, creamier flavor. The milk seems to have become a little sweeter with less of an earthy smell and flavor. No sophisticated lab equipment here, so yes, there was lots of sensory observations going on. But a lot of it was also just talking with the farmer and trying to predict how things were going to change with Spring coming on. It occurs to me that you probably don't see that same kind of dietary change in Brazil.

My delivery is 175 gallons - 5 batches of 35 gallon makes. My first make of the week is a judgement call, so when I started seeing these changes, I reduced the rennet a little to see what would happen. After the first make, I know what the floc time was and know exactly how to adjust for the remaining makes.

Going from Fall into Winter, I saw the EXACT opposite happen. Around late October my rennet dosage per batch started going up from 28ml and peaked at 42ml in January. I'm sure Pav knows the biochemistry behind the changes, but it's really just the magic of Mother Nature. I would think that milk would get richer for Winter so that calves would have more nutrition during harsh weather, but empirically that doesn't seem to be the case.

Yes, 10 minutes is a little short for my taste, so IMHO you still need to reduce your rennet.

Having not too long ago read Angela Miller's Hay Fever, she discusses a bit of Peter Dixon's role in planning out just these kinds of changes based on seasonality in their milk supply.  I find this aspect of cheesemaking - something akin to your discussion of tweaking ripening time by knowing the properties of acidifying mesophilic SLABs - really interesting, and important.

Great, informative post, Sailor. Thanks for the experience points. 

I met Angela through a mutual friend (her publicist) and she invited me to the farm. I was supposed to take an advanced cheesemaking school by Peter Dixon at Consider Bardwell but then I had an emergency and the next month he was busy (he got married on the farm) so I ditched it until this coming summer.  Angela is very charming and interesting lady (very emotional speaking about her goats!) Their cheese is really fantastic.

If you want to get some of Peter Dixon's cheesemaking info, may I suggest to read American Farmstead Cheese (he is one of several co-authors. An excellent book full of techniques, formulas, business info about the cheese business, stories, cheese history, etc.)

Lastly, one thing she told me that stuck with me: "To become a million dollar cheesemaker overnight, start at 2 million" - love it