Hi guys,
Today I made two different cheeses…
The first was a 4 gallon batch of Gouda and the second a two gallon batch of Camembert.
Well since our fridge was full I ended up leaving the two gallons of milk (for the Camembert) on the kitchen table for a little over three hours while finishing up the Gouda. The result was the absolute best curd set I’ve ever gotten.
What I have always done is the past is take the milk out of the fridge…..put it into the cheese pot and quickly heat it to the recipe temp via direct heat.
This has always seemed to work out okay but I’ve never really gotten the kind of clean break that I wanted to see.
Well after letting this milk set, it was 60 degrees F at the time I put it into the cheese pot. I then did my usual direct heat method to take it to 90 degrees. I then added the culture…...ripen for 60 minutes…..then added the rennet and let it set for two hours. I then had the nicest cleanest curd I’ve gotten, to date.
Now I do realize that this was on a two hour set, but all of my past attempts at Camembert have turned out the exact same softish curd that I’ve become used to over the past three years.
This curd was FIRM and very defined and the only thing I changed was not taking it straight from the fridge to the pot.
Well needless to say, it’s experimentation time.
Tomorrow I think I’ll try a parmesan using the same procedure to see if I get the same type of curd.
Btw, I used the same milk that I’ve been using the entire winter.
Below is a pic of the curd after cutting.
I can’t begin to tell everyone how excited I am about this (possible) accidental discovery.
Oh, that nasty looking place in the center is where I checked for a clean break using my usual knife blade method. After seeing the most perfect clean break I’ve ever gotten, I couldn’t resist doing it again.
Also, please notice the photography. I’m starting to feel a little more comfortable with this as well.
Dave, I’ve not made a camembert, but you’re right - that curd looks fantastic. It closely resembles the curd I get from farm fresh milk. Also, with my milk, it never gets cooled, so I don’t have all that much heating to do. But I can imaging that the speed of heating must have some kind of effect on the milk. It certainly does on the curd during the cooking process. Maybe we’ll all benefit from your experimentation. Well done, bro! Observation is the key to scientific experimentation.
Rich,
What you said is music to my ears. I’ve never experienced the curd from raw milk so I didn’t have anything to compare it to. All I knew was that it was very much superior to anything I have turned out so far. I can’t wait until tomorrow to give this another try.
I guess it could have been nothing more than a fluke but since this is the same milk I’ve always used, I really don’t think that’s the case. I’m really hoping I’ve blindly stumbled onto something that will help everyone that is limited to store bought milk.
Thanks for your response.
The longer one waits the more potential for excess acid, changing the temp of the process changes the flavour, some cheeses are dif only by 4deg. Another experiment u might want to do is the amount of CaCl, double the quantity per batch.
Neil….
I’d actually thought of the possibility of excess acid production. The reason this came to mind is because when I first started stirring in the starter culture I noticed “flecks” on my spoon.
The only other time I’ve seen these flecks appear is when making mozerella, using citric acid. Of course there were not nearly as many flecks in this batch as I would see in a typical mozerrella.
Also, the milk seemed a little “heavy/thick” while stirring. I did add a pint of heavy whipping cream to this batch, but I’ve been doing that with every batch of Camembert. This is the first time that I’ve noticed an overly thick consistancy to the milk.
As for CaCl, I’ve always used 1tsp. per two gallon of milk. According to some other cheesemakers, this is overkill but I’ve always seen good results using this amount. I know some that use as little as 1/8 tsp. per gallon. I might be wasting a bit of Ca/Cl but it’s cheap enough and does definately make a difference.
Honestly, the only thing that I did differently with this batch is leaving the milk sit on the kitchen table for approximately three hours. Maybe it is due to excess acid production or maybe the milk is just happier, not being heated so quickly. As long as the cheese turns out well, I really don’t care about the reason. I just love the curd set!
When making bloomed cheese more acid is not a problem, its when making hard cheeses it makes them crumble. Good to hear your playing with the CaCl.
Some bloomed cheeses req excess acid like Cambozola (very time consuming).
Hi,
I’m new to this forum, and fairly new to making cheese, but have had the good fortune of only using raw milk to make cheese. I always culture my milk overnight with buttermilk and get a wonderfully clean break. Can you not do that with pasteurized milk? (sorry if this is a stupid question!)
Annie C.
Welcome Annie. Its always nice to hear of another person joining our craft and our forum. In answer to your question, as it relates to the above discussion: the longer you culture your milk, the more acidic it will become. This aids in setting a good firm curd, but it can affects on the finished cheese. As Neil was saying, too much acid development in hard cheeses results in very sharp, very dry cheese. If your cheese comes out the way you like it, then go for it. Its all a matter of taste. Artisinal cheese making is not about doing it the “right” way; its about doing it “your” way to get the result you want.
And to Dave regarding acid buildup while letting your milk set: Since that is pasteurized milk, I would question if anything is taking place in it other than the very slow rising of temp. I might suggest that the hindrance to a good firm curd may not have been that you were not letting it set out, but that you have been heating it too fast! I understand you use direct heat. Just for jollies, try a water bath and see if there is a difference.
In any case, I’m glad to hear of your success, whatever the reason.
Hi Annie and welcome to the forum. Also, realize how fortunate you are in being able to use raw milk!
I’ve been limited to commercial milk sine I started (which is ironic since I live in the midst of dairy country in Southern Illinois).
It’s not so much the fact that milk is pasteurized that makes it a challenge, it’s the method of pasteurization that is used.
Some dairys will heat the milk to only about 161 degrees over a long period of time. From what I’ve read, this should never cause a problem. Others (like the brand I currently use) heat the milk to 176 degrees for only about 30 seconds. This is not optimal since anything over 171 degrees, does change the milk and not for the better. One other brand that I used to use heats their milk to 186 degrees for 15 seconds and it was from this dairy that I got my information concerning pasteurization methods.
There is one other type of commercial milk that is totally worthless in cheesemaking. This is ultra pasteurized or UHT. This milk is flash heated to over 240 degrees (sometimes as high as280 degrees) for only a second or two. Trying to use milk that has been pasteurized by this method is a complete waste of time.
Now….
The problem I’ve always had was that I would not get a nice clean break.
I could always get the milk to break but there was always a little bit of soft residue on my finger or knife.
Also, once I started stirring, many of the curds would break up into very small pieces, while others would hold their shape very well. This has always bothered me because if I cut a curd into 3/8” pieces, I don’t want a bunch of 1/16” pieces mixed in.
I should know later today if I have solved my problems, both with getting a good clean break and having a nice firm curd to work with. I currently have 4 gallons of milk sitting on the kitchen table, slowly coming up to temp.
Rich, as for using a water bath….
I’ve gone back to using a double boiler instead of direct heat.
I started out this way but switched to direct heat once I bought a new cheese pot. I still don’t have any problem with the direct heat method, it is just so much easier, going the double boiler route. Also, it really helps to hold the heat during the ripening and rennetting stages.
I’ve given this a lot of thought over the past day and I really think that my method of warming the milk has caused my past issues. I would literally take 38 degree milk to 90 degrees within 5 minutes or less. This surely had a negative effect on my milk.
I’ve decided to make a swiss today instead of the parmesan that I had planned. The reason for this decision is that I’m familiar with making swiss and also I wanted to use the same whole milk that I used yesterday. 2% milk (as is used in parmesan) will naturally give a more solid set and I’m trying to duplicate the same results as I saw last night, with whole.
Hi! Annie, welcome aboard, hope to hear about your adventures. I have normally made the cultures overnight and in making bloomed cheeses its worked great for me. Now Im using direct powder to use up my stock because my freezer door opened in the night and every thing thawed and feel that the cultures may have been affected. :(
I am fairly new to cheesemaking and I have found the threads on this site to be full of valuable information. This one in particular - I have only made a few pressed cheeses (colby, havarti, monterey jack) and I just recently cracked them open after a month of aging (couldn’t wait longer) and I was quite dissappointed with the texture - pasty yet crumbly, and how acidic they were to the point that they all tasted the same (still great on a salad though!). I had been struggling with how things got so acidic (as there can be so many variables) when this post arrived.
I use homo/pasteurized milk (which I add CaCl2 to) but I would always leave the store bought milk out for up to 18-24hrs on the counter before starting. You know, get home on Fri after work and since I don’t have much fridge space I would leave things on the counter to come to room temp over night (winter, so we’re talking night of 55 F up to 65 F during the day), after which I double boiler things to bring them up to a starting temp. I’ve always got what I think is of a very nice curd - but after reading all the posts here I saw that Neil alluded to a link between slower warming time and acid production. So I think perhaps that was my problem. I’m a month or so off of getting a pH meter as I would love to see how the pH changes within this time frame. Anyone else ever have any problems with hard cheeses being too acidic? Does my troubleshooting ring true? I guess I’ll only know if I repeat a recipe changing that sitting time.
I had always thought of pasteurized cheese as being devoid of bacteria so at first I did not thing that there should be a connection between my leaving the milk out and its pH dropping; but I’ve been reading about lactobacilli (good bacteria) that can survive (or their spores do) the ‘milder’ pasteurizing which can then multiply at warmer temperatures which then leads to the natural souring of milk.
So much to learn - hopefully it won’t be all through making mistakes! Cheers,
Todd, first of all welcome to the forum.
I’ve been here a short time but there is so much good, helpful information here from a variety of very nice people. I think you’ll find that it’s one of the best cheesemaking sites on the web.
As for your question, I honestly wish I could offer you some good advice. It was only this past weekend that I found a correlation between slow warming of the milk and superior curd set.
Having said that, I will say this…..
Store bought milk is not stable at room temperatures for long periods of time. The only exception to this rule is with UHT or Ultra pasteurized milk. I have read that UHT milk can be left at room temperature for a number of weeks without any effect on the taste of the milk. Unfortunatly, this type of milk can not be used for cheese making.
I’m wondering of your milk has started to sour after 18-24 hours at room temp.
I don’t know what the limit would be for store bought milk to be at the 60 degree range, but I would guess that you are appraoching the limit if not surpassing it.
Of course this is just a guess so hopefully some others will chime in here.
Again, welcome to the forum.
Looking forward to hearing of your experiences.
Welcome Todd to the group !!!
Milk goes acid very fast on a warm day I would not leave it out, and yes its hard to keep the milk in the fridge since it takes up so much room, Thats why winter is the best time in a way that u can keep the milk in an area cold (next to the door for me) over night then use it.
Yet another welcome Todd! Here’s a novel thought - how about getting your milk in the morning just before starting your cheese making? I have occasionally kept my milk in the fridge overnight, but I usually go get the milk, come home, and pour it in the pot. Also, if you’re following your recipe to the “T”, you might consider using slightly less starter - that will reduce the acid production somewhat. I use half the recipe amount, and it does not affect curd production one bit, nor has it affected time to a clean break.
Thanks for the suggestions and welcomes - the first thing I was going to try before reading this thread was reducing the amount of starter I add at the outset. I do the direct set of powdered bacteria and I had also been wondering if things might work better if I made a starter culture that I kept in the fridge which some books recommend. Has anyone found any benefits to the starter culture?
Anyway, I will try not keeping the milk out first, and then I will try reducing the amount of culture I add if need be.
On keeping the milk out: the smell was always good, and when I had done this with soft cheese I never really noticed a sour flavour. Nevertheless after putting it all down in writing, it seems like the logical thing to try first.
For now I will have to keep picking up the milk when I am traveling home from work - 2 small kids and grocery stores don’t always mix.
Cheers,
Todd
