Cheese Type & Number: Caraway Swiss, #25

Description: A Swiss cheese with caraway seeds in it. One of my favorites! The recipe calls for 2 gallons of milk and makes a normal 2# round. However, I’ve found that this tends to dry out easily and lot of the cheese gets too hard to eat. So, I made this batch with 3 gallons of milk and scaled the ingredients up equivalently. I’m hoping that this makes a nice thick round whose rind won’t take up most of the cheese.

I used a 4 gallon pot that I usually use as my water basin in my double boiler arrangement and used a kitchen sink full of hot water to create my water bath for the double boiler arrangement.

Source of Recipe: And That’s How You Make Cheese by Shane Sokol

Date: 11/25/2006

Warming the Milk: Warmed 3 gallons of whole store-bought milk to 90°F.

Ripening the Milk: Sprinked 2 packets of thermophillic starter plus 1-1/2 teaspoons of proprionic bacteria powder on top of the milk. Allowed it to set for a couple of minutes, and then stirred in gently using 20 top-to-bottom strokes. Allowed to ripen for 30 minutes.

Additives: Added 3/4 teaspoon CaCl dissolved in 1/2 cup of cool distilled water and stirred well. Then added 3/4 teaspoon of rennet dissoved in 1/2 cup of cool distilled water and stirred in with 20 top-to-bottom strokes.

Coagulation: Allowed to set, still in a water bath at 90°F for 40 minutes. The break was not real clean, but sufficient given the gentle stirring and cooking that was to come.

Cutting the Curd: Cut the curd into 1/2” cubes, then stirred very gently. Since I did not have a real firm curd, the curd broke up into rice-sized pieces as I gently stirred.

Cooking and Stirring: Stirred the curds gently for about 30 minutes, maintaining a temperature of 90°F. Then, began adding hot water to the water bath to raise the temperature of the curds and whey to 120°F, slowly, about 1° per minute. This took about 30 minutes—stirring gently, but continuously. Once the mixture was at 120°, I continued stirring for another 30 minutes. By this time the rice-sized curds were firm and fell apart from a mat easily.

At this point I added the caraway seeds and water they had steeped in. (I had placed 4-1/2 tablespoons of caraway seeds in 1 cup of water and boiled gently for 10 minutes. This had sat and steeped the whole time I made the cheese.) I stirred the curds gently to combine the seeds. I then drained off a good amount of the whey.

Pressing: I ladled the hot curds into a cheesecloth-lined press and pressed at 10# for 30 minutes. I redressed the curds and pressed at 10# for another 30 minutes. There is a lot of whey at this point, so I put the press next to the sink to drain. Redressed. Then 15# for 2 hours. Redress. 15# for overnight.

Brining: Made a brine from 2# kosher salt and 1 gallon distilled water. Wet a cheesecloth towel with the brine and allowd to dry to serve as a salt cloth for later. Floated the cheese in the brine, turning once or twice, for all day long, 12 hours.

(At this point, I will write the instructions of what I need to do, rather than what I’ve done.)

Aging: Remove cheese from brine, wipe dry with salt cloth. Place on a cheese board in a 50° fridge for 1 week, turning 2X per day and wiping with dry salt cloth once per day.

Remove to a room-temperature, dry location (kitchen) and allow to set for 3 weeks, wiping once a day with dry salt cloth. Cheese round will swell. Transfer to 50° fridge and age for 6 months, wiping periodically with dry salt cloth.

An update on this cheese. I is looking very good, I like the size of the round using 3 gallons instead of 2 gallons. However, I think I put too much Proprionic bacteria because the cheese started swelling—even in a cold refrigerator—before the rind had a chance to harden up enough to hold the swelling. So, I have a vertical crack about 1/4” deep along one side of the cheese. I’m just leaving it be, the crack will harden and I’ll just loose a little of the cheese volume. I don’t know whether to take it out of the fridge for further swelling or not.

This cheese is now out of the fridge for a couple of weeks, it continued to swell (and crack) some, but will still be a good cheese to eat—not look at! I turn it every few days, wiping it off with the salted cloth.

Here are some photos of the Caraway Swiss. You can see that it sort of “exploded” as the proprionic shermani bacteria grew those characteristic Swiss cheese holes. I’ll just work around the crack.

Did it dry too fast or was to dry inside?

Here is what I think happened. I increased the recipe size by 50% to make a 3 gallon batch rather than a 2 gallon batch. I wanted a larger round of cheese. When I adjusted the other ingredients, specifically the proprionic shermani bacteria, I think I used too much. So, when I stored the cheese at room temperature so it would swell naturally, the outer rind was not yet hard enough to resist the stress caused by the internal swelling.

This cheese, wrapped losely in a salty cheesecloth, went into the 50 degree fridge today where it will stay for another month or two before I dig into it.

Well, I couldn’t stand it any longer, so we cut into this cheese 2 nights ago. It is good, but not great. (Although Lynne really likes it.) I think it still needs to age a few months and develop more flavor. But, it is good. It has a “chewy” curd that is a little sticky—kind of like a young Swiss cheese. Making 3 gallons worked. It still has a very thick rind on it, but because of its thickness, there is also a lot of moist cheese in the middle. I love the caraway flavoring.

How are the eyes? The “Moist” cheese, is it near spreadable , u thingk it will eventualy spread out?

The “eyes” are good. In a cheese of this size, I’d expect them to be the size of a small grain of rice, which they are.

The cheese will never be spreadable, it is the equivalent of an Emmentaler, so it is a “hard” cheese. But, it is not like a Parmesan or other cheese that becomes “grate-able”. Instead, it has a firm consistency that is still moist. Again, very much what I want in a Swiss cheese.

Here is a photo of this cheese. You can see the small “eyes”. You can also see the caraway seeds. Notice also how the dry rind takes up a lot of the cheese. This is why I went to a 3-gallon recipe and made a bigger cheese. I don’t know how to keep it from drying out so much and forming such a thick rind.

Looks great. just needs to even out. What about waxing it, parafin it lightly?