I really like the flavor of my cheese, but I would like them a little more moist. What has the MOST effect on the moisture content - pH, cooking temperature, or pressing?
I see controlling 4 variables.
1 - Reduce the initial culture time to so the pH doesn’t drop too much before adding rennet. However, I know that lower pH ultimately favors a sharper cheese.
2 - Since higher temps (90+ F) encourage faster acid production, lower the initial culture temp just a bit.
3 - Lower the curd cooking temp OR the length of time for cooking. (being sure that I have the right curd consistency). or
4 - Lower the final pressing weight or shorten the length of time for pressing.
Since I don’t want to change the flavor too much, which way should I go?
While acid production is likely the major factor in the final moisture of the cheese, one needs to recognize that some cheeses are just more moist than others. If you’re talking about a farmhouse cheddar, I don’t think you’ll ever get a moist cheese. If you’re talking about a washed curd cheese, you can wash with a cooler temp water and improve your moisture level. Or, lowering the cooking temp will allow the curd to retain more moisture. Also, I’ve found that less agitation during the cooking phase will also increase moisture - just stir enough to keep from matting, and no more. Of all your possibilities, the pressing would probably have the least effect. Good to see that you’re thinking it through and willing to experiment. You’ll likely end up with some really good cheeses, and hopefully we’ll all learn a lot.
The key challenge for me with making a moist cheese is to achieve proper curd matting of curds that are slow to expel whey. The easiest method to control rate of whey expulsion is to use a high flocculation multiplier with a large curd cut, like you would do for a brie/camembert. If you let the rennet do its work longer, the curds will expel whey more slowly. And if you can get the curds to knit together while they are slowly expelling whey, then you’ll get more moisture trapped in the curd matrix, resulting in a more moist cheese. Of course, you need to balance this with the acidification rate.
The weight of your press does contribute to moisture, so does the time in press. You should press enough so the curds mat. However, as pointed out, this is not the biggest factor. If you press under whey and using warm curd, the curds should mat quickly and not require a long time or a lot of weight.
One more thing to keep in mind is aging. If you want a moist cheese, you will need to keep up the RH around 90%.
LinuxBoy - What the heck is a “high flocculation multiplier”. You whooshed right over my head on that one. The rest of your post makes sense.
So…. keep initial pH a little lower, let the rennet work longer, stir less, lower the cook temp a bit, cut the curds a little larger, and press a “little” lighter?
Oh… and use the Farmhouse Cheddar as a grating cheese because it’s too dry to eat on crackers.
Flocculation is the point at which the milk just starts to gel after you add rennet. If you take a spoonful of the milk, you’ll see small bits or “floccules” stick to the spoon. You can also float a bowl in the milk (sanitized) and spin it. If the bowl no longer spins, that’s the flocculation point. You record the time from adding rennet to point of flocculation. The flocculation multiplier is a number used to determine how long to wait before you cut the curd. The idea is the longer you wait, the firmer the curd, and the slower it will expel whey. Using flocculation is better than a constant time because of milk variability. You will achieve more consistent results with flocculation.
So for a moister cheese, you wait for flocculation (should be 10-15 mins for most milk), then multiply that by at least 3 to get the time to wait before cutting, then wait the time, and then cut. Don’t cut in huge strips (1”+) unless you really want to wait a long time for the whey to drain. Somewhere around 5/8” should be fine. Press under own weight or less. In general, for home cheesemaking. it’s better to press with less weight and for a longer time than more weight for a shorter time because the whey will drain more evenly (reduces issue with having moist curd in the middle and dry on sides).
This actually makes a lot of sence. Do the commercial guys actually spin a bowl or have some other way of determining flocculation point?
Do you have recommendations for a muliplier for various cheese types - gouda, swiss, cheddar, Stilton, etc.. I am using raw Jersey milk with higher fat content. Does that effect the multiplier in some way?
This has been REALLY enlightening. Thanks for sharing.
Nope, does not affect multiplier. That’s the constant. The variable is the time to flocculation. It’s a guide to time the strength of the curd matrix in combination with the curd size after cutting. Using the same multiplier but different cutting sizes and/or heating schedules will produce different cheeses.
Yes, I know some commercial producers who use the spinning bowl technique. Peter Dixon teaches it, for example. Some take a spoon or similar tool with a flat surface, like a food shovel, and will lift the milk to see if it has floccules. You kind of get a feel for when the milk has gelled after a few dozen batches. I watch for surface tension… there’s this point when the slight movements in the milk, the ripples, suddenly stop. The light also reflects differently from the milk surface. It happens pretty quickly from the point you first notice a change to the point that floccules have formed, in 30 secs or so. That’s the point I mean.
Use 2-2.5X for swiss, alpine, and parmesan styles
3-3.5 for tomme, gouda, mozz, cheddar
4 for feta and blue
5-6 for brie/cam or similar soft and semi-soft cheeses, like ones ripened for a few weeks and smeared with b linens.
Your higher fat content will give you better yield and better mouthfeel/aroma. When thinking about flocculation always think about it in terms of the cheese profile and the curd size. For swiss, for example, you want to drain whey at around 6.4 pH. Meaning you need to get it to a curd and drain as quickly as possible. So you use a 2x multiplier and cut the curd into very small, rice-size pieces. Exact opposite for brie. Large strips and 6x multiplier.
Also, you need to keep in mind the interrelationship between flocculation and cheese culture type (meso or thermo). Say you’re doing a meso cheese. If you keep the temp at the higher range (around 95-100), it will actually reach flocculation faster because rennet works better with more heat, and also the acid develops faster (more acid also helps with chymosin reaction). If you rennetted at around 88F, I bet the flocculation point would be longer, so you would let it ripen longer overall. Both use the same multiplier, but in the first case, the cheese will be a bit more moist. Why? Because the enzyme reaction of chymosin is faster, and so is the acid production. You wind up with faster whey drainage and acid development, letting you press and salt sooner. This leads to less handling, and a more moist cheese. It’s kind of the opposite what you’d expect, but that’s how it has turned out for me.
So, should we treat the multiplier as an absolute or a guideline? In other words, if I wait the time calculated by the multiplier do I cut regardless of curd set? Or if the curds don’t seem firm enough do I still need to wait for a clean break? By the same token, what if I get a clean break before the multiplier time is up? Obviously there’s a lot of difference between a 2.5 and a 6 multiplier, so there is going to be a lot of difference in the firmness of the curds. That seems the whole point here - softer curds for swiss - firmer curds for brie. Paradoxically this translates into just the opposite for a finished cheese. A LONG multiplier with very firm curds is going to give up less whey and ultimately make a softer cheese. Which was the point of my initial question starting this thread.
Am I getting this right? If so, this is VERY cool.
I DO hand test my cooked curds for “proper” texture, but that is very subjective and intuitive and I don’t have a good feel for that yet. Is there a concept like flocculation multiplier for cooking the curds? In other words is there some sort of formula that can be applied to determine how long to heat the curds? I would find this very difficult to implement since the curds are SLOWLY heated up from rennet to cooking temps?
The multiplier is an absolute. If you feel like you need to make a slightly different cheese, change the multiplier, and stick with it. In some cheeses, you will most definitely get a clean break before the multiplier time is up. That’s one of the benefits—no more subjective evaluation of what a clean break is. I think you got the idea.
Hand testing curds was originally demonstrated to me, so I got to feel what it should be like before, during, and after. It’s a tactile muscle memory thing, so I can’t explain it well. The guidelines here are to follow the heating schedule because that influences acid production and whey expulsion rate. You want a steady, gentle heat. The total degree increase per minute and the total cooking time vary significantly with style and starter culture. Some thermo cheeses go up to 140 F over an hour, for example.
YAHOO. Today is milk day. I get my raw milk fresh out the farmer’s Jersey cows every Thurday at 5:00 - just an hour from now. By Midnight (or later) I always have at least a 2 pound round of cheese pressing overnight. Saturdays I usually do a second batch with a more complicated recipe that I can’t pull off late at night. Tonight I am doing my first Gruyere. To me, Gruyere is a semi-soft cheese, so I am guessing a multiplier of 4 ??? Any last minute pearls of wisdom are appreciated.
I have a permanent grin on my face and can’t wait to try out the whole flocculation multiplier process. I think it is going to be facinating to see what the floc time is on my raw milk.
I KNOW that this cheese will turn out better because of the info that you have shared. Thanks again.
Gruyere is classically a 2.5 or 3X, uses l. helveticus and S. thermophilus, along with priopionic, and a 1/4” curd size cooked slowly to ~120F over an hour. If you use too high of a multiplier, the pH will be off by the time you brine. This is an Alps-area cheese, so the curd targets are in the higher pH ranges than say a cheddar or even gouda. But, unlike emmethaler, you can drain the whey at a normal 6.0-6.2 pH. Brine at 5.4.
With Gruyere you retain the moisture by letting the curds settle at the end and mat on the bottom, then pressing into them with a follower or your hand (this is pressing under the whey), and dumping the pre-formed curd mass into the mold. It would really help if the diameter of your mold was the same as the diameter of the pot, so you don’t break the curd up. If it’s not, try to keep the curd warm in the mold (or put the mold in the warm whey) and press with less weight but for a longer time. It’s gentler on the curds that way and will help with moisture retention.
Age at 90-95% RH and try after a minimum of 3 months.
pH prior to culture = 6.7
Culture = TA61 (S. thermophilus) + LH-100 (L. helveticus & L. lactis) + a dash of Propionic.
My recipe called for 10 minutes of cuture set, but the pH after 10 minutes was 6.8 Why?
Added liquid animal rennet. Floc time was 11 minutes 15 seconds. VERY cool the way the bowl stopped spinning. Not hard to see that one!
So I used a multiplier of 3 (wife likes Gruyere a little moister). So my set time was 34 minutes. I assumed that is TOTAL time after adding the rennet, not 34 minutes after flocculation. Too late to ask. Anyway, my recipe called for 40 minutes. Based on this thread, the floc multiplier should be more consistant from batch to batch so I did not worry about “clean break” and cut curd at 34 instead of 40 minutes. there was a fantastic clean break even at 34 minutes.
Heating slowly to 120. I’ll let you know in 3-6 months how it turned out. Darn the waiting.
Commercial culture typically has ammonium hydroxide added to it to neutralize the lactic acid. Then it’s centrifuged and frozen. It’s actually somewhat basic, so the slight rise in pH is not too unusual. 12 mins to flocc is perfectly within range. Mine are 10-15 mins. The time is additional to flocc point. So you wait 11 mins 15 secs, then wait another 34 mins for a total of ~45 mins. Your recipe guideline was really close for your milk at 40 mins. It will be a little different, but the cheese will still taste good.
Sounds like you had a great success! Hope it turns out well. With summer milk, I think you will get a great cheese after aging. I like a more mature gruyere to really bring out the nuttiness, but after 3 months it’s still delicious.
OK the Gruyere has been lightly pressed and flipped 3 times. It’s in bed for the night with 50 pounds pressing those little curds into a perfect 6” wheel.
So… I screwed up. Should have asked if the multiplier time was in addition to the floc time. Oh well. Anyway, at 34 total minutes I definitely had a fantastic clean break. Ironically, the 2.5 multiplier that you suggested would have been much closer. Goes to show how just a clean break alone is not enough to go on. After tonight, I definitely see how using floc times will help make things more consistent.
Based on our discussion above, since I was 11+ minutes short of the desired set time, I will end up with a drier cheese. Darn, I’ll have to make another one.
