Today I am making 4lbs of pepper jack with my raw milk. The farmer seems to have solved his milk problem, because now when I call he always has some. He had to buy a new cow.

So Herman, how is your pepper jack? You were making some last week I think it was. What peppers do you use? I use a chopped jalopeno, and some red pepper flakes. It has a bite to it, but it’s not too hot. It’s great on a hamburger cooked on the grill.

Pepper jack is a moist cheese. When I have made it before, when I took it out of the press to air dry, the whey would drip out of the cheese. I had one that molded real bad, and I had to throw it out. I am going to press it a little harder this time, get out a little more of the moisture.

Do you seal your pepper jack with your sealer, or do you wax it or what? I vacuum sealed some once and moisture collected inside of the bag so I opened it and let it air dry again and then waxed it. It was delicious in the end.

I love the cheese forum, my regular friends don’t understand these desire to make cheese and what a detailed process it is, and how difficult it is to make it just perfect. They do enjoy the taste testing though.

LOL, always good to have people to talk to.

Before adding peppers (any veg) u have to preserve it with salt or honey (sugar), or they will go moldy.

So you are telling me to salt the peppers? Just put them a bowl and salt them, right?

Yup. try using dry salt so the liquid does not leach out the flavors. The salt will draw out moisture and create some liquid, then use a sieve to separate them after 24 hours say (have to experiment pending on veg and size pieces).
Can always use the flavored salt in your cooking.

I’ve made some PJ before, and I have used mostly dried pepper flakes.  However, fresh peppers will also work well.  What I did was to mix the peppers into the salt that is added after milling.  I let it sit for a half hour or so and then blend into the curd.  It worked well - no molding.

I did not start with the Pepper Jack yet. I had some unexpected time consuming activities in the last weekends, but NEXT weekend…. At least, I hope so.
I will used dried chili pepper flakes which I simply bought in the supermarket. I’m working in Amsterdam and I know some toko’s (shops where they sell all kinds of Asian stuff) here have fresh or dried unchopped chili peppers, but I will try it first with the dried flakes.
According to the recipe I have (Tim Smith’s book) I will cook the flakes first and I think about salting them after cooking. Sounds like a good idea…

I made Tim Smith’s first, and it did not have much pepper flavor to it. It was good, and we ate every bit of it, but not much pepper. So I looked at the recipes on this site and I found a pepper jack where someone added a chopped jalopeno. I grow jalopeno’s in the yard, so I have plenty.

I’ve made that one a couple of times and it had a nice bite to it, and we ate all of it, of course. We opened it at a brew club brew day when we were all out in the yard brewing beer.

This time I chopped the jalopeno and put it in a bowl with a tablespoon of salt. I let it sit while I made the cheese, and then when it was ready I dumped them in the cheese as part of the salt addition. I used 1 tablespoon chopped jalopeno and one tablespoon of the dried flakes.

I have made it before and it didn’t mold, but this time I salted the jalopeno for at least 4 hours before putting it in there. I would have salted it for 24 hours like Neil said, but I didn’t know that I had to do this until after I had started the cheese. Leaving it sitting the salt for longer would not have hurt it any, and if it keeps it from molding then it’s a good thing.

Good thing to keep in mind… I will start saturday morning early, so I think I’ll cook the chilli’s on thursday evening (because they are dried), then put them in salt in the fridge. I’ll keep the cooking water as well in the fridge and add that to the milk. And I’ll be sure to use more dried chilli’s than there’s in the recipe…