Over the years, I’ve had more than my share of cheeses that are dry and crumbly.  It’s almost expected in a sharp cheddar, where the acid level is greater; but even in Colby’s I’ve had dry cheese on occasion.  I’ve been looking into reasons for this and here’s what I’ve come up with so far.  Any additional thoughts from y’all would be helpful.

First, the common answer is that there’s too much acid development.  By utilizing a pH meter, I’ve pretty much eliminated this as the reason.

Next, I emailed Jim at New England Cheesemaking to get his assessment.  He suggested that my culture and rennet levels may be too high.  Since I use raw milk exclusively, less is more.  Raw milk already has some needed bacteria before any culture is added, so less is needed.

I make 4 gallon batches every time.  I had been using 1/4 tsp culture - either MA11 or MM100, depending on the cheese I’m making at the time - so I backed off to 1/8 tsp.  And, I had been using 1 tsp rennet; this has now been backed off to 1/2 tsp.

I’m now in the waiting stage - waiting for my cheeses to age enough to try them out.  But the only difference I’ve noticed so far is that it takes slightly longer to reach a clean break - and that is what I expected.  I had been getting a 14 minute flocculation point, but now it’s at 18 minutes.  I can live with this, especially if it improves the texture of my cheese.

Nabil, if you’re out there, let me know what you think.

We talked about too much culture before, so maybe refining it more will help, or you may want to try a diff manufacturer for the cultures and rennet. Maybe also try some test strips from a pet store for aquariums and see if they give a diff reading, press some cheese onto the strip and see what happens.

It’s not the specific ph number that matters, but how much the number drops from the beginning to the end. PH and Acid don’t go hand in hand, but as the acid develops, the ph goes down. If you make cheese with milk that had a ph level of 6.75 to start and then make the same cheese with milk that has a 6.90 ph level, then ending level will not be the same. I recently discovered this when I had milk that had a 6.95 ph level, and the recipe said that after adding the culture my ph should be like 6.55. Since whoever wrote the recipe didn’t start with the ph level that I had, then he can’t know what my ph level would be.

I looked it up in several books and Gianaclis Caldwell had the best explanation for it that I could find, but I found the same reasoning in other books as well. Caldwell’s explanations get a little scientific for me sometimes, but when I need something specific I usually understand what she is saying. She even says in big bold letters on page 67 “It is not necessarily the ph number that is important it is the rate and proportion of change.”

Now, you may have already known that, but I have gotten recipes from other people and tried to cook mine to match their ph levels and ruined the cheese. Milk changes so the buffering capacity changes as well. Right now the milk I’ve been buying from the farm has been running at 6.9 for about 3 months now, but in a the spring it drops. I’ve been buying milk from the same farm for years so I have records of his ph levels.

Thanks, Tammy, that’s very helpful information.  I hadn’t considered that - duh.

Here’s another:  how do you clean your pH meter probe?  I’m sure that the fats in the milk coat the probe, making the readings inaccurate over time and ultimately ruining the meter.  On my probes, a Hanna and an Omega, the probes are recessed and not accessible to manual cleaning.

Their is a specific cleaner for milk proteins, dont have it. I wash mine right away so their is not a build up.

I buy PH meter cleaning solution. You soak the ph meter in the cleaning solution for 30 minutes or something. I used to have one of those and I attempted to wipe at it with a Q tip. I have the Ex Tech Stick PH meter now, which has a flat head on it, so I can wipe it. But you are right, it does gum up.

http://www.cheesemaking.com/CleaningSolutionForpHMeters.html

t beaman - 08 February 2015 08:32 AM

I buy PH meter cleaning solution. You soak the ph meter in the cleaning solution for 30 minutes or something. I used to have one of those and I attempted to wipe at it with a Q tip. I have the Ex Tech Stick PH meter now, which has a flat head on it, so I can wipe it. But you are right, it does gum up.

How long has your meter lasted with regular cleaning?  And, are you satisfied with the performance of the Ex Tech?

I think I’ve had it for 2 years, and yes I love it. It has some kind of a warranty on the ph probe part, I think a year, but I know I’ve by passed it. I calibrate it when I use it and I have changed the batteries once.

The probes have a shelf life of one year. I have not replaced mine.