Fontina

[curiouser_alice]

Second Fontina started today.  Previous one was too hard and dry, but I ate it all anyway.  Today I used the flocculation method for the first time.  I have to say it was simple and I liked it, and I hope it helps with the texture of the cheese.
Also had much better temperature control because of another thread related to double boilers and controlling temperature.
Fingers crossed!

[curiouser_alice]

Fontina cut today

[River Bottom Farm]

Looks nice. How does it taste? Did the rind dry out on you a bit or was that what you were shooting for? AC4U!

[curiouser_alice]

Fabulous taste.  It's a natural rind, so that's what I was expecting.  MUCH better than my first try.

[cheesehead94]

Looks delicious, how much milk did you use?

[GortKlaatu]

Congrats.  Rind looks like it dried out more than you might want--are you keeping your RH above 85%?

[curiouser_alice]

RH is only 74 but to get it higher I need to get to the other end of summer because it needs to be checked on every day

[Gregore]

I agree looks good , the texture of the curd inside looks perfect so I think you hit the correct ph ...... small cheeses are hard to control the percentage of rind to the rest of the cheese from being too dry.


I agree with everyone hear that it could be a little dryer than normal but We do not know the size your cheese  so it is hard to say how dry it really got

A 2 inch tall cheese that has a 1/2 inch dryish rind all around has 25% of the curd dry , a 4 inch  tall cheese has only 12.5%

Look at any commercial cheese next time you are a  good cheese counter and you will see that most have about a 1/4 inch or so of the rind dryness extending inwards . But that cheese will probably be 4 to 8 inches thick .

For your next cheese try keeping it in a plastic box that  is about double it volume and control moisture by leaving the lid semi open and daily leaving more or less openness .  The only down side to this is you get less cheeses into a fridge .

I leave you with a cheese for your efforts