Hi all,
I’m new here -this is my first post (though I have lurked for some time).  I’ve been making cheese using the Carroll book as a guide and I’ve always had my cheese come out successfully, though of course not perfect.  So far I’ve made camembert, coulomiers, and a couple cheddars.

Saturday I had my first catastrophic failure.  I special-ordered three gallons of fresh (not Ultra-pasteurized) goats’ milk, which cost a fortune.  I got a new book in the mail: “Two hundred Homemade Cheese Recipes” by Debra Amrein-Boyes, so I decided to try a recipe from that book.

The first thing I noticed ws that the renneting rates were very different between the two books.  For example, the goat’s milk cheddar in Carroll calls for 0.5 tsp rennet for two gallons of milk.  The Amrein-Boyes book calls for 0.5 tsp for 4 gallons!

Well, I tried the French Tomme recipe because it sounded cool.  I used two gallons of the goat milk and 1 gallon of homogenized cows’ milk, so I reduced amounts in the recipe by 25%.

Ingredients
4 gallons milk (I used 3 gallons)
0.5 tsp rennet (I used about 0.4tsp)
0.5 tsp calcium chloride (I used about 0.4tsp)
0.5 tsp thermophilic culture (I used two packets of N. E. cheesemaking’s DS thermo culture)

Note: in this recipe there is no ripening time -culture and rennet are added one after the other.  I looked on-line and that is traditional for tommes:
http://www.slashfood.com/2010/01/19/what-makes-a-cheese-a-tomme-cheese-course/

Procedure:
1) heat milk to 106 F
2) add culture and let it dissolve over 5 minutes, then stir in
3) dilute CaCl in 0.25 C cool water, stir in
4) dilute rennet in 0.25 C cool water, stir in
5) maintain at 106F for 45 minutes or until clean break

This is as far as I got, at 45 minutes I just had mush, I waited 30 more minutes and finally tried cutting the curd, even though I knew it wasn’t right.
After “cutting” I let it set hoping it would firm up.  I tried stirring after 30 minutes and it completely fell apart immediately into egg-drop soup.  Ended up throwing it out.

I’m a scientist so I tried isolating variables to see if any ingredients were defective.  Made Camembert yesterday with remaining goat’s milk and milk coagulated ahead of schedule, perfect clean break, so rennet and milk were OK.  Maybe the cows’ homo milk was problematic?  I have never used homo milk before in cheese making, I usually mix skim and cream to make ad-hoc cream-line milk.

The most obvious issue could be the amount of rennet.  This is half of what I would normally use.  The author is Canadian, could this book be using European strength rennet?

Any insights would be great.  I’m going to try the French Tomme again with raw cows’ milk (which makes cheese making easy!) but before I do I’d like to hear if people think I need to use more rennet or something else.

-Aaron

The coagulation temperature of 106F seems very high to me. I checked the recipe in the book you used and indeed it asked for it.
If you want to make a tomme, I would follow the recipe on page 206 or 285 or try this recipe:

, using the culture you have.
Good luck

Here is the Tomme recipe

Welcome Aaron Lawson !!!
U threw it out!!!!!!!!! what a waste, u could have drained it and made cream cheese.
It always good to have a back up plan in case something does not work out. The time and money we put into our cheese makes them precious. It might sound strange but Im assuming most of us are doing this for the Joy of it and not as a “commercial” mind.
Good luck on your next batch.

Thanks for the feedback!  I notice now that this recipe has a much higher starting temp than any other recipe in her book (montasio is next at 96 degrees).  It is also odd in that there is no ripening period, the curd is not cooked and the curd is cut in rather large chunks for a hard cheese.  Maybe I should focus on some more typical recipes before tackling the strange stuff…

I’m getting two gallons of raw milk next weekend from my source.  Any suggestions for a hard cows milk cheese for a relative beginner?

-Aaron

Something that u like, dont do something u wont enjoy. Look what types of cheeses that your culture is geared for.

Aaron Lawson - 26 January 2010 12:49 AM

I’m getting two gallons of raw milk next weekend from my source.  Any suggestions for a hard cows milk cheese for a relative beginner?-Aaron

A simple ‘Farmhouse Cheddar’ relatively easy, ready in 4 weeks. I made this as my first and it was delightful. Have made it numerous times since, as I can’t seem to get ahead of the ageing problem!

Hi Aaron-
I imagine you are making the cheese right now, with the newly arrived milk. Have fun! I’m not sure what went wrong in all the variables you mentioned, but I’ve certainly had a similar experience and still wonder what went wrong. 

Anyway, I just wanted to add my tiny two cents’ worth about the homo milk: I use pasteurized, homogenized grocery store cow’s milk almost exclusively, and haven’t had problems with that. My problems stem from user error, always. I have always wondered how cheese is investigated/developed in the commercial world; with SO MANY variables, and adding the aging process, it could take YEARS to figure out what’s working and not working in developing a recipe. Thank goodness those who know more than me figured it out and wrote it down.

Take care,
Bobbie
PS: I live in an urban area and the one time I was able to get my hands on fresh goat’s milk (got to scratch the head of the goat who produced it, so sweet she was!) I did something weird following the directions and messed up the batch. Ugh!