Hi guys,
I don’t know if you remember, but the first swiss cheese I made using an 8” mold didn’t turn out so well. The curd did not knit together and the wheel came out looking all cracked and nasty looking.
This was before I learned of the need to increase pressing weight as the size of the wheel increased. Since I’ve been trying this new method I have not had any other problems.
When I first looked at this wheel out of the brine I was ready to throw it in the trash. I just knew that during the sweating stage I would have mold problems beyond belief (and I wasn’t disappointed). During the sweating, I literally had to carve up the surface of this cheese since no amount of brine or vinegar wiping would get rid of the mold.
Well tonight ended the three weeks of sweating and there was no way I was going to try to store this cheese any longer. The surface had 1/4” deep pock marks all over the surface from carving out the mold. I decided instead to cut it open…trim off the rind and see what I had.
Well folks, I am so happy I didn’t throw this cheese away.
The texture within the wheel is perfect (nice and elastic and nice and moist) and I did get some tiny little eyes which is a first for me.
Also, the taste is quite possibly the best swiss cheese I’ve ever tasted. After one taste my wife pronounced it the best cheese I’ve made to date.
Of course it is a quite young swiss so the very strong flavor is not developed but it gives me a lot of hope for the two month old swiss I have in the cave.
Anyway, here’s a couple of pics of the cheese after cutting and trimming off the rind. I was somewhat surprised that the rind was only about 1/16” think around the perimeter of the cheese. Usually I see a rind that is closer to 1/8” thick.
Dave
