I decided to open my cheeses and see how they were doing.

The white one is pasteurized, of course. It is dry and crumbly but when you eat it, it has a smooth texture. It has a slightly strong flavor, that does resemble the swiss cheese from the grocery store, although it is much better.

The other one is from raw milk. It is moist and creamy and tastes like the Emmental that I bought at the Dekalb World market. It is not as strong as that one was, mine isn’t very old, but it does have the same flavor.

I personally like the cheese when it was younger. A few months ago I made one that I ate after it swelled up, and did not put it in the refrigerator to age. We ate it all and it was delicious. This time I let it the pasteurized one age 3 months and the raw milk one 2 months. I waited the required 60 days.

I had two raw milk ones. One of them swelled up when I took it out of the brine and I was worried about it, so I made another one. They both look and taste the same.

The one on the right looks real good! great to hear they worked out. Some people like mild swiss flavor others strong (im in the strong category). I also found its weel worth the wait of 6months, then again I guess depends on ones taste.

I’m impressed with your raw milk Swiss.  It has a nice bulge to it and great eye formation.  You obviously have the knack for it.  Keep it up.

I thought that the difference between the two milks would be something like the cheeses tastes the same, but one was better than the other. The two cheeses don’t resemble one another in flavor at all. Even if you wanted to say one was milder than the other, it isn’t true because it is not the same flavor. If I hadn’t made them I wouldn’t think that it was the same recipe.

When you see them it’s hard to believe it’s the same recipe. But what about culture, temperatures, time and other variables? What were the differences there? I have no experiences with making cheese from pasteurized milk, but could this be the only explanation for the difference? Did you use calcium chloride in the pasteurized milk?

I did use calcium chloride with the pasteurized milk version. I keep careful notes on my cheese making, so I went back and checked my notes for these two batches. I noted on the pasteurized batch that when I diluted the culture I forgot to use bottled water, I used tap water, and when it was time to add the propionic shermanii powder I added it straight to the milk instead of putting it in the 1/4 cup of warm milk and mixing it up before adding it to the pot. I didn’t note any problems with the temperature or the cooking time, so I don’t know what happened to it.

I did let the pasteurized milk cheese sit out for 3 weeks waiting for it to swell up, and it only swelled slightly. It only took the raw milk cheese 1 week to swell up. It looks like the pasteurized one sat out too long, and it dried out and the gasses tore the inside apart.

I did determine that the raw milk cheese tastes better, and it tastes more like what it should taste like. That was what I was trying to determine, is it worth the extra effort and money to get the raw milk. I think that it is worth the effort, and next time I will make stirred curd cheddar. I could do pasteurized and raw milk again.

Raw milk always tastes better, it hasn’t been striped. It might be worth wile to check your water to see what they put in it (Phoning utilities) or buy a brita water filter, they work well.

I usually use a bottled water, but I forgot that time. It’s just habit to turn on the faucet. I think it was the leaving it out for 3 weeks because I didn’t think it was creating the holes yet. It didn’t swell. The raw milk one swelled up real quick.

I cut up both of my cheeses and took them to the 15th Street Pizza and Pub where we hang out with a group of regulars. Some people say “regulars” some people say “beer snobs”.....Everyone agreed that the raw milk cheese tastes like Swiss cheese, and it has a nice texture and nice hole formation.

The pasteurized one is crumbly, but has a creamy texture. When I tried to cut it into cubes it just fell into chunks. One man said that it has more of a parmesan flavor, and a couple of other people said that it tastes like New York cheddar. Several people liked the pasteurized on better than the raw milk one, they said it would be good crumbled on a salad.

Most people liked the raw milk one better, because it is what it is supposed to be and has a nice texture.

So I don’t feel like either cheese was a failure, they just came out to be different. I have another 4lbs of the raw milk cheese in the cave that I am going to age until Christmas, and I have 2 more lbs of the pasteurized one.

Next time I think I will make raw milk stirred curd cheddar, and raw milk traditional cheddar. That will be an interesting, and I bet delicious. As soon as I get time to make cheese again, I’ve been working 6 days a week for a few months, and I had to go out of town for training for a week. I miss making cheese.

Good luck!
Remember, most people dont know what “real” cheese tastes like, their used to processed cheese, so their taste is dead unless they venture into the high end cheeses. The main thing is that u enjoy your cheese and happy with it. Just because its crumbly and does not melt (high acid probably) does not mean it does not taste good. Cheese works well in potato soups

I agree Neil, most people do not have not taste. The people who belong to the Brew Club are also into cheeses. The buy it at different farms and grocery stores. Some of them actually go on vacation and map out routes through farm areas where they can stop and buy home made cheeses along the way. They were the ones who got me interested in making cheese. They all kept talking about it but I was the one who actually did it.

Most of the regulars at the pub on Thursday are from the brew club. The ones who are not in the brew club just give general opinions.