Just wondering why it seems to take such a long time for me to get a clean break versus what the recipes say.  I’ve done a fair amount of reading about clean breaks here and on the internet,  but it makes me laugh when people say things like, ” If you don’t have a clean break after 30 / 45/ 60 minutes ( you name it)  wait another 10 or 15 minutes”.  Every time I’ve made cheese so far,  it’s taken more like 4 to 5 hours.  I am letting it sit undisturbed… and I do get a clean break,  it’s just that it takes such a long time.  Why am I so slow?  any tips?  ( been using both store and raw milk,  not mixed)

As far as I know, this can have several reasons:
- Are you using a good starter, is it active enough, the right quantity?
- Is your rennet good enough? When I buy liquid calf rennet, I write the date on the label, I keep it in the fridge and I toss it away after a year.
Can you share the recipe you’re using with us?

Having different times does not always mean things are going wrong however. Times in recipes are averages.

Since a while I use the flocculation method to determine the time between adding the rennet and cutting:
Before adding the rennet a put a small bowl or round tupper on the milk. When you spin it or blow it away, it just moves on the surface of the milk.
When you add the rennet (make a note of the time!), try the same every couple of minutes.
The flocculation time will be the moment that the bowl seems to be stuck to the surface.
Suppose that is about 10 minutes and your making a Gouda. For a Gouda the multiplier is 3-3.5 (3 for a harder cheese, 3.5 will give a somewhat softer cheese).
Time to cut is then somewhere between 10 * 3 and 10 * 10 * 3.5 minutes. Beware: How you cut the curds will also effect the cheese: Smaller cut, drier cheese.
For different cheeses there are different multipliers, and from the average mentioned in the recipe, you can extract the multiplier yourself.

thank you for the advice,  my rennet is about 6 weeks old, ordered it from New England Cheesemaking.  Calf rennet,  liquid.  It should be good,  I will try the method with the bowl lid that you are talking about and see what happens.

This guy is near Calgary.
http://danlac.com/

I vote it’s the milk. I bought several milks that would not make a curd for a very long time. I am assuming that you are using pasteurized milk. Have you tried buying different brands of milk? The one that makes the best curd around here was the cheapest one I could find. They don’t spend a lot of extra effort on pasteurizing it like the major name brand people do.

Thank you Neil,  I did contact him once regarding something,  but he took a long time to answer back and I found what I needed from someone else in the meantime.  Tammy,  I think that you may be right,  I used the same type of milk the first few times.  However I was successful the last 2 times in getting some raw milk   , and it was fresh and it still took several hours before I got a clean break.  When I did, it was a good break though.  It just seems odd in comparison to everyone else’s 30-60 minutes kind of thing.  I guess I was wondering if that has ever happened to any of you.

Based on what I’m reading in this string, I’m going to suggest you increase your culure - maybe even double it.

Hoping I’m understanding this correctly, still quite new at this.  Doubling my culture would make the milk get more lactic acid? faster.  It wouldn’t affect the taste in any way right,  not like adding too much rennett and getting a bitter aftertaste to my cheese.

It speeds up the process, so the culture does not have to replicate as much to get up to speed.

The culture is bacteria.  The bacteria reproduces, and the more you start with, the less time it takes to reach the target level of bacterial concentration.  No, it will not alter the flavor.

will try and let you know how things progress

I still think it’s hard to say what it the reason without knowing the recipe you’re using (specially the quantity of milk, culture and rennet)...

It happened each time Herman,  1st time with 30 minute Mozzarella.  Storebought milk,  2 gallons had been frozen,  so I thought okay,  can’t freeze milk….this is why ( didn’t get a really clean break,  just a sort of floppy one).  2nd time, same recipe,  fresh storebought milk, same recipe using citric acid and rennet tablets.  So I ordered liquid rennet and tried again.  same recipe,  2 gallons,  1 10% light cream and 1 2% milk.  After that I gave up for the time being on Mozza.  Got some raw milk and made Leiden,  using about 14 1/2 litres ,  1/2 tsp choozit MM100,  3/4 tsp calcium chloride and 3/4 tsp liquid rennet.  That worked okay,  but still took close to 4 hours.  Last time I made Gouda, with 16.6 litres of the rest of my raw milk,  but two day “older”,  I used 1/2 tsp choozit MM101,  3/4 tsp calcium chloride,  and 3/4 tsp rennet.  Clean break took close to 5 1/2 hours.  So there you have it….any ideas

Mmm, had to check my logs first, for Gouda I use normally 1 1/4 tsp rennet on 20 ltr of raw milk, so that’s about 18 ml. so that will be about 15 ml for 16 liter = 1 tsp.
Be sure to dilute it in about 60 ml of cold non-chloride water and stir it gently for not more than 1 minute when you add it to the milk. It’s the only comment I have at this point I’m afraid…

it also depends on the brand u are using, best to use what they say on the package.
I used to use a pinch in a pint jar and let it run over night and then add it to the batch when i made the cheese. I was told it was too fast lol.

An other addition: Just made a batch of Gouda this morning with fresh milk, but with an other culture and I was not sure about the amount. I used 1/2 tsp on 20 liters of milk cause I did not want to use too much. Took my 26 minutes to flocculation point this time. So when you’re sure of the quality and the amount of the rennet, it is probably the amount of culture. Which is not a big problem like Rich said, bacteria will multiply…