Cheesemaking: Gouda

I started my Christmas vacation this week so immediately there was an outage at a customer that needed dealing with.  In the course of spending 4 days on that I managed to find a bit of time to make some gouda.  I am a little behind in my posts as I have made a couple swiss cheeses and have not written about it.  Hopefully I will have the time to write about the swiss next week but this is fresher in my mind so here we go.

Ingredients

10 litres 2% milk

1/2 tsp calcium chloride

1/2 tsp rennet

1/4 tsp (1 packet) mesophilic culture

distilled water

Brine

1 gallon (4 litres) distilled water

2 lbs pickling salt

1tbsp calcium chloride

 Mix the calcium chloride in 1/4 cup of water and add to the milk.

Heat the milk to 86F.  The right hand thermometer is the milk temperature and the left hand is the water bath temperature.

Once at 86F sprinkle the mesophilic powder onto the milk and let rehydrate for 5 minutes.

Gently stir the culture into the milk for 1 minute, cover and let ripen for 40 minutes while maintaining the 86F temperature.

Add the rennet (mixed in 1/4 cup water) and stir in for 1 minute.

Cover and let set for 45 minutes.  

Cut the curd into 1/2 inch cubes and then let stand for 5 minutes to heal.

Gently stir for 5 minutes then allow to rest for 5 minutes.

Remove 4 cups of whey.  I use a coffee filter and ladle it out into a measuring cup.

This is the part where I realize that I did not mention to preheat some water to 140F so I hope everyone has read this to the bottom before proceeding or you will be scrambling.  I use about 8 cups in this process.

Add enough 140F water to bring the temperature to 92F.  Start with 2 cups.  I used 3 in total.

Stir gently for 10 minutes then allow to settle for a few minutes.

Remove whey down to the level of the curds. This was 12 cups for me.  

Add 140F water until the curd/whey mixture is at 98F.  In this case 5 cups was required.

Maintain 98F and gently stir for 20 minutes.

Allow to settle for 10 minutes. The curd will mat at the bottom of the whey.

Pour the mixture into a lined colander and allow to drain for 5 minutes.  Save the whey, you will be using it when you press the curd.

Break the matted curd into 1 inch chunks and place into the mold lined with cheesecloth.  I used an 8 inch mold.  Then put the mold into the reserved whey and press with 10 pounds.  A litre of water is close enough.  Press for 30 minutes.

Unwrap, flip and rewrap the cheese and press at 30 pounds for 30 minutes.  

Finally unwrap, flip and rewrap the cheese and press at 40 pounds for 8 hours.

See cheesepress for a summary of the press. Once I make the next one I will post better details.

Float the cheese in a saturated brine flipping occasionally for 12 hours (overnight)  

To make the brine use 2 lbs pickling or cheese salt to 1 gallon of water.  Add a tbsp of calcium chloride to fresh brine so the calcium will not get pulled out of the cheese. 

Cheese looks good at 2 1/4 pounds.  I will let it air for several days to form a rind, wax and then store in the cheese fridge for 1 to 6 months.

Cheesemaking: Making Monterey Jack

I made a wheel of Jack cheese a few weeks ago but never got around to posting it as I have been too busy travelling for work.  Now that I am back home for a week (and sitting at my daughter's orchestra practice) I figured it was time.

Here is what was used.  I have changed how I heat the milk and instead of doing it on the stove I am doing it with water in the large plastic container.








Begin by heating the milk to 90F.  I found the easiest way was to keep the water in the tub at 110F until I was almost there.  This took around 30 minutes.  I run two thermometers.  One shows the milk temperature and the other shows the water.





Add the mesophilic culture and after stirring in cover and let ferment for 30 minutes.

Add the rennet and allow to set for 45 minutes.

Once you get a clean break (my picture was blurry it is time to cut the curds into 1/4 inch cubes.  Allow them to set for 5 minutes to heal.

Time to start raising the temperature to 100F.  Raise no more then 2F every 5 minutes.  This is where the two thermometers really comes in handy.  The left thermometer is showing the water temperature and the right is showing the milk temperature.  Stir the curds every few minutes so they do not mat.

When the half hour is up and the temperature is 100F scoop out about half of the whey leaving just enough to cover the curds.  Maintain 100F for 30 minutes.  Remember to stir every few minutes so the curds do not mat.

Pour the curds into a colander lined with cheesecloth (save the whey to make ricotta if desired).  Stir in salt and allow to drain.

Transfer the salted curd to the cheese mold.  For fun I zero'd my scale and weighed the cheese before pressing.  It comes in at just over 3 pounds.  Press at 5 pounds for 15 minutes.  In this case I just over 1 liter of water weighing 2.5 pounds and it is hung at the 2 multiplier.  See cheese press .

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After 15 minutes flip and rewrap the cheese. You can see it coming together already.  Then press at 10 pounds for 12 hours.  I used the same 2.5 pounds of water but it is at the 4x multiplier.

Looks good after 12 hours.  Lots of whey has been pressed out.  Weight after pressing is just under 2 pound 5 ounces.  It is 14 ounces lighter after pressing.  Let the cheese air dry for 3 days, then wax and age for 2 months.  

Cheesemaking: Making Cheddar

If I knew cheesemaking was so rewarding I would have started a long time ago.  The following is a photo journey of my first attempt at cheddar.  Recipes have been researched, all the ingredients ordered, the test press has been built (see cheese press ).  I should have build the final press out of hardwood but could not wait to try this.

Start with heating the milk.  Once it is up to 85F add in the the calcium chloride and mesophilic culture, stir and let ripen for 45 minutes.

Add in the rennet.  I used 1/2 tablet vegetable rennet in 1/4 cup of room temp distilled water.  Gently stir in, cover and let sit for around 1 hour.  You should see a clean break of the curd when you run something ( in my case the thermometer ) through and out of the mixture.

Using a knife or metal spatula cut the curd into cubes.  I found the easiest way was to cut vertical lines in 1 direction, then vertical lines across the ones just cut, and finally recut, following the cut lines but at 45 degrees to vertical.

After letting the curds settle for 5 minutes slowly start to heat the curds to 100F.  This should take around 1/2 hour.  Stir the curds gently while heating so they do not stick together.  I did not stir continuously, just occasionally.  There was no cheese setting on the digital thermometer but it works wonderfully for giving me the temperature.  

After the temperature has made it to 100F, maintain the temperature and stir occasionally for 30 minutes.  Then allow to settle for 5 minutes before transferring the curd to a strainer.  Allow the curd mass to set for 15 minutes in the strainer.  I saved the whey and used it to make ricotta but that is another post. 

Now for the cheddaring process.  Take the curds out of the strainer and cut into slices.  Stack them back in the pot and maintain at 100F for 2 hours turning the slices every 15 minutes.  To keep the temperature I just stood the pot in a sink that was filled with water at approximately 100F.

After two hours cut the slices into cubes, put back in the pot in the 100F water.  Cover and leave for 30 minutes stirring every 10 minutes.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

Take the cubes and put into a mold lined with cheesecloth.


















 Press at 10 pounds for 15 minutes.  For this I have a water jug with 2.5 lbs at the 24 inch mark of the press.  The vertical part of the press pushing down on the cheese is at 6 inches so the weight there will be 10 pounds






See the whey running out as it is pressed.

Remove from the press, rewrap the cheese flipping it over and press at 40 pounds for 12 hours.

Remove from the press, rewrap the cheese flipping it over and press at 50 pounds for 24 hours.

Let the cheese air for around 3 days until it is dry to the touch.  While it is drying flip the cheese once or twice a day.

Wax the cheese and age at 55F for a minimum of 3 months for a mild cheddar.