Tag: cheesemaking
Cheesemaking: How To Make Pouligny-Saint-Pierre
Recipe
What You Need
2 Gallons of fresh unpasteurized goat’s milk
1/16 Tsp MA011 Culture
1/32 Tsp C70 Geotrichum Candidum
4 drop single strength liquid rennet
Salt
What To Do
1. The first step is to heat and acidify the milk. So let’s begin by heating the milk to 72F. To do this, place the milk in a container and then place it in a large pot of very warm water. Be sure that the water has the temperature of 120F so that the milk will heat up to 72F in less than an hour.
Once you are done heating the milk, you can add the culture. The powder can become very cakey and sink in clumps so to prevent this, sprinkle the culture over the surface of the milk and then let it sit for a couple of minutes. This allows the powder to re-hydrate before you stir it in. After stirring, let the milk sit for a further hour so that the culture can get to work.
2. Now it is time to add 4 drops of the single strength liquid rennet. It is important to not have too much rennet because the cheese is lactic.
Leave the milk to sit for 2-3 hours while the culture is still at work and the rennet begins to coagulate the curd. You will see that the milk has started to thicken. Allow the milk to sit for an additional 8-9 hours, making that a total of 9-11 hours of sitting since adding in the rennet.
You can see that the curd is ready when it has shrunk away from the edges and is cracked in places with quite a bit of whey on the surface. The flavor should be quite tangy at this stage.
Make sure that you have prepared molds and your transfer area by sanitizing everything, during these long wait times.
3. You don’t have to cut anything once the curd is ready, instead, you just must remove the curd with a ladle and carefully place it into the molds to avoid breakage. Make sure you fill the molds to the top and wait for them to settle before you top them up. This process may take a few cycles.
For the filled molds, allow them to drain for 10-12 hours or overnight at a temperature of 72F. You will find that they have settled in the molds by about 25-30%.
When the whey has completely drained, you can now remove the cheese from the molds and place them onto bases for the salting and drying process.
4. Once the cheese has dried out and the whey has stopped dripping, it is time to salt the cheese.
The best way to go about this is to salt by weight. Use about 2% of the cheese’s weight for salt. Place the salt in a salt shaker and evenly distribute it over the fresh cheese and allow the salt to dissolve and be absorbed into the cheese.
5. Once the cheese has been salted, dry the cheese for 2-4 days in a cool cave which temperature is at 52-56F but a drier 65-70% moisture.
After those 2-4 days, age the cheese for about 14 days in the same cave and temperature but change the moisture to 85%. During this time, you should see a dry, white surface with possible blue spots beginning to develop.
You can move the cheese to a refrigerator after those 14 days. You can also wrap the cheese. It will mature even further in the refrigerator and should be ready to eat within 1-3 weeks.
Cheesemaking: How To Make Gamalost
Gamalost is a Norwegian cheese which is rarely found in stores outside of Norway so this recipe will come in handy for eager cheesemakers. The cheese is generally hard with a mold ripened rind.
Recipe
What You Need
3 gallons skimmed milk
1/2 Tsp. thermophilic culture
1/8 Tsp. penicillium Roquefort mold powder
1 Tsp. cheese salt
A pinch of cylindrocarpon spp. mould powder
What To Do
Firstly, sterilize all equipment in which will be used.
Begin by pouring the milk into a large stainless steel pot and let it sit until it is at room temperature.
Once the milk is room temperature, sprinkle the culture over the milk and let it stand for 5 minutes. Then begin to gently draw the culture down into the milk with a skimmer, using up and down motions. Be sure not to break the surface of the milk. Cover the milk up and let it stand at room temperature for 48 hours or until the milk is sour.
After 48 hours, put the pot in a hot water bath over low heat and slowly heat the milk to 145F.
At 145F, turn off the heat and let stand for 30 more minutes. The solids will begin to separate from the whey and form a stringy texture.
Using the skimmer again, dip curd mass from the pot and place it in a muslin-lined colander. Now fold some cloth over the curd and press it the cheese through the cloth to drain as much excess whey as possible. Let it drain for around 7 hours.
Now remove the curd from the cloth and break it up into pieces with sterile hands.
It is time to pack the cheese into a mold which is lined with cloth and let it drain on a rack in a draining container for 2 days at room temperature.
After 2 days, remove the cheese from the mold and break up into 1-inch pieces. Place the pieces into a bowl and sprinkle them with the 2 mold powders and then mix them in salt.
Once again, place the cheese into a tightly packed mold. Add a weight to the top or place in a press and let it sit for 12 hours.
Now remove the weight and unwrap. Dry the cheese on a rack at room temperature for around 3 days, being sure to turn it daily. The cheese should become a yellowish color and be very pungent in smell.
When the cheese is ready, place the cheese on a mat in a ripening container. Ripen the cheese at a temperature of 50F and a humidity of 90% humidity for at least 3 weeks and up to 7 months. During this period, mold will begin to grow on the surface. When you notice this change, turn the cheese and rub the mold into the rind by hands at least 3 times a week.
After 2 weeks, pierce the cheese with a knitting needle or something similar all the way through vertically and horizontally in several places to encourage blue veining to occur in the interior.
What To Do With Leftover Whey
You’ve taken that step to conquering the art of cheesemaking and you find yourself landed with a pound of delicious cheese, along with a whole lot of leftover whey. You’re wondering what can you do with all that protein rich whey? Lots of things- it does not need to go to waste!
Before you start, you need to know a few things about whey. Whey is basically milk but with the solids and fats removed from it (the solids now being your cheese). It may as well be water however it contains lactose (milk sugar) which is water soluble and ends up draining off with the whey. Now if you are lactose intolerant, it is advised that you avoid whey.
The biggest part of whey is whey protein, which you may be familiar with if you are an avid gym user. There are two types of protein within milk- whey and casein. Most of the casein from the milk ends up in the cheese which you make and most of the whey protein ends up in the whey, as you would guess from the name.
Back in the day of cheese making on a large scale, cheese makers needed to be creative to find a use for their leftover whey. Before industrial cheese making took over, farm cheesemakers would feed it directly to the cattle as a protein source. Nowadays, industrial cheesemakers have to find other ways to make use of the “waste”.
Cheesemaking companies began to market their leftover whey to companies which make protein-enriched products such as protein shakes and bars because whey is bursting with protein. Since then, the protein industry has boomed and has overcome the cheesemaking side of the business altogether.
In fact, the demand for whey protein has become so huge that it is no longer the by product and is actually the primary product for some large-scale cheesemakers. However, that being said, a home cheese maker is not likely to sell their three quarts of leftover whey to a protein shake manufacturer. There is really no need when there are so many uses for whey in your home. The only thing the end use depends on is whether the whey is salted or unsalted. There aren’t as many options for the salted variety as opposed to the unsalted:
Salted:
– Baking: You can use the whey in place of the water or milk when baking bread or pastry recipes. Make sure you omit the salt.
– Rich Homemade Stock: Save up your vegetable trimmings and bones as usual and use whey to cover them instead of water and bring it all to a boil and then let it simmer for a couple hours on low so that the flavor can be extracted.
Unsalted:
– Protein Smoothies And Shakes: You can make your homemade protein products by easily adding some whey to your shakes or smoothies to boost your protein.
– Feed To Animals: Now not everyone will be able to do this, but if you happen to have farm animals such as chickens, you can feed the whey to them. It is not advisable to feed it to your cats or dogs because like milk, it can have a bad effect.
– Bathe In It: Apparently, whey can work wonders on your skin like nothing else, it is definitely worth a shot.
– Drink It: The tang of whey may be an acquired taste but it can be refreshing. The cultured whey has probiotics that can help balance the microflora in your gut for a hidden bonus of the protein.
– Freeze for later – You can always freeze your whey for later. I recommend splitting it into smaller, manageable batches and freezing separately. It will keep in the freezer for up to 6 months, possibly longer.
– Ricotta – Many people ask about making ricotta from leftover whey. If you made cheese using a culture then you must do this. You still end up with some whey to use up, but you get some additional cheese from it.
These are just a sample of some of the uses you can get out of whey. There are so many that you will never have to throw whey out again!
The Cheesemaking Process For Tomme au Marc
This cheese is usually found in Italy and France. Tomme is made and buried in the seeds and skins of wine making and from these skins, a liquor is also made in the name of ‘Marc’, which explains where ‘Tomme au Marc’ comes from.
What You Need
In this recipe, we use 8 gallons of milk and with that you also need:
– MA 011-Mesophilic Culture 1/8 Tsp
– TA 011-Thermophilic Culture 1/16 tsp
– Single strength Calf Rennet 11 ml (~2.25 tsp)
What To Do
To begin, heat up the milk to 91F and add the first culture and ripen for 45 minutes.
After 45 minutes, add enough rennet so it sets within 12-18 minutes and cut the curd into a small size (roughly 1/4 in.).
Now stir the mixture for around 10 minutes and slowly increase the temperature to 98F over the course of 30 minutes.
You can now continue to stir the curd until the TA% rises to .12. This will ensure that the curd is sweet but acidity will begin to develop in the molds.
Make sure you prepare the molds with warm water or whey being poured into them before transferring the curds. This will ensure clarity of the whey which means there was very little fat lost during handling.
After a few minutes of filling the molds with the curds, you can flip them and place them back into the molds. This makes the surface come together fairly quickly.
Now add around 8lbs of weight for around 30 minutes. After those 30 minutes, flip and place the molds again, making sure the temperature stays at a range of 90-95F to help the culture do its job.
Add around 25lbs of weight for 4-6 hrs. After this period, the surface should have formed really well and the acid will be developing nicely to a pH of 5.6
You can now leave the cheese to develop mold overnight and the pH should have lowered to around 5.3 in the morning.
It is time to brine your cheese for around 12 hours. The choice of brine is yours and after it is completed, take your cheese to the aging room and leave it for a week or so to allow the surface to firm up a lot more.
After a week or two, the tommes are ready to be buried in the Marc and anointed with a delightful splash of merlot.
Seal the top off and put it to rest in a cool room at a temperature or around 50-60F for at least 2 months before you take it out.
Once this is done, the tomme will be bursting with skins and seeds embedded within it. Keep them on the cheese and allow the tomme to dry out for a few more days, making the surface quite soft at this stage.
All this work is definitely worth it, the complexity of this cheese is perfection. The flavor of the wine and skins being a key aspect of the flavor and texture profiles. Enjoy!
Creating Mouthwatering Halloumi
Halloumi originates from the island of Cyprus and tends to be a semi-hard, unripened, and brined cheese. It is unique for having a high melting point which means it can be easily grilled or fried- perfect for summer cookouts! What makes it better is because it doesn’t melt, it keeps its texture and shape, keeping the incredible flavor and soft insides.
Although Halloumi has been around for a long time, it is particularly getting more popular over in the western countries because there has been a rise in vegetarians, it acts as a delicious meat substitute.
This cheese is traditionally made with ewe’s milk and added cow’s milk, but it is perfectly fine to make it with just 100% cow’s milk since that is more readily available. You can even substitute the milk for your own desired type. In this recipe though, 1 gallon of cow’s milk will be used for a trial run to see if you enjoy the cheese, ingredients can easily be adjusted to fit the amount of milk you would like to use.
Recipe
What You Need
1 Gallon of Milk (not ultra-pasteurized)
1/4 Tsp Single Strength Liquid Rennet (1/8 tsp for raw milk)
1 Pack C21 Buttermilk Culture or 1/4 tsp MA4002 (no culture for raw milk)
3/8 Tsp Calcium Chloride for Pasteurized Milk
1/8 Tsp Citric Acid (for Whey Ricotta)
1/2 oz Salt
Equipment
Knife to cut curds
Large colander
Ladle or spoon to stir curds
Thermometer
What To Do
1. To begin, place your milk in a pot and heat it to around 88 degrees F. Be sure to hear slowly and stir well if heating on a stove.
Once your milk has reached the desired temperature, add the culture. The culture will be destroyed by the milk and the curds will become higher in temperature. However, they will provide special enzymes for ripening if the cheese is preserved for a short period of time.
Also, if you are adding calcium chloride or lipase, add them in this step and stir to incorporate it well into the milk.
2. Now, add the liquid rennet to a diluted 1/4 cup of water. This will begin the coagulation process. It will take approximately 30-40 minutes for total coagulation but you will notice the milk begins to thicken within 20 minutes.
3. The curds can now be cut to .75- 1.5 inch squared in a vertical manner. Then allow to stand for 5 minutes to heal and then using your ladle, cut horizontally into even sized cubes.
4. Time to cook the curds and remove the whey. Stir gently, increasing the heat slowly to 100 degrees F during 20-30 minutes.
Keep this temperature for another 20-30 minutes while stirring every 3-5 minutes.
Once that time period is over, allow the curds to settle for 5 minutes under the whey.
Cooking the cheese in hot whey is very important for the making of Halloumi, so beginning to filter off the whey from the curds is the next step. You can do this with a sanitized colander and just scoop the whey out with a ladle, cup or bowl.
Now that the whey has been separated, slowly heat the whey to 195 degrees F, without letting it boil.
5. The curds which are dry can be transferred to their form from draining. Light pressure from your hands will help the consolidation of curd and make more than 1 form, they can be stacked and reversed for a little weight.
You can allow the curds to rest with a little weight, stalking them in forms. Make sure you turn them at 20-minute intervals to form a well-consolidated cheese.
6. After the whey has been heated, it is time to give the Halloumi its true form by heating the whey for 30-40 more minutes, keeping it at a temperature of 195 degrees F for the time it takes to cook all the pieces of Halloumi. Use a ladle to keep the cheese off the bottom of the heating pot and then lower it into the whey. At first, the cheese will float to the bottom, but as it cooks, it will eventually float to the surface.
Once it floats, that means it is ready to be removed. Cool the cheese for a few seconds in cold water and then lay it on a draining mat to cool and drain a bit more.
7. While you are cooling the cheese, and it is still warm, flatten with your hand to form a larger, flatter disc of cheese.
Now finish it off by sprinkling the cheese with salt and folding it into a crescent and pressing slightly as it cools.
8. Now your cheese is done, after a 3-5 day process. You can keep it refrigerated if it is lightly salted. If you are wanting to store it more traditionally, at room temperature, the higher amount of salt will keep it well for several days.
Important How-To’s On Cheese Making Part One: Testing Acid
When making cheese, it may never have occurred to you just how important the process in which we test for acid is. At the point where we are trying to convert the lactose in cheese into lactic acid by using cultures, we can never truly determine if it is working in the way which it is intended to. This is why tracking acidity levels are one of the most accurate ways to know if your culture is working or not.
Equipment Needed
It is actually relatively easy to test for acid and you only really need two basic pieces of equipment in which you can find online:
Acid Testing Kit
Using inexpensive acid testing kits, you can easily test the acidity of cheese whey, milk, and other dairy products. It is important to invest in one of these kits because increasing acidity levels is an extremely important stage in cheese making and the kit completely eliminates guess work, to ensure delicious results, as intended. Acid testing kits are generally preferred by home cheese makers who won’t be using it frequently
Acidimeter
The acidimeter is for more of a serious home cheese maker or farmstead cheese makers who will be making these tastes quite often. Acidmeters make taking titration readings fast and effortless. A small screw clamp allows you to preset drop speed for repeat titration and a squeeze of the bottle will refill the burette back to the zero point.
How The Test Is Done
Depending on which test you are using, here are directions on how to perform these acidity tests:
1. If you are using the acidimeter, fill the glass reservoir with .1N NaOH (Sodium Hydroxide Solution).
2. Then (still using the acidimeter), fill the graduated column with the NaOH by applying pressure to the rubber pump. It will go back to zero with any excess draining going back into the reservoir.
If you are using the acid testing kit, fill the syringe with 3 ml of .1N NaOH
3. You then use a syringe or a pipette and measure out 9 ml of milk.
4. Now pour the sample into a test tube or beaker (held against a white surface).
5. Then add 5 drops of phenolphthalein to the milk sample and gently stir.
6. Use the syringe to let the NaOH run drop by drop into the sample while stirring it in.
7. Continue to do so until the appearance is a light pink color which persists for 10-20 seconds.
8. Now to work out the percentage of acidity, look at the column or syringe and see how many ml of NaOH was used then multiply it by .1 (move the decimal point one place to the left) for the actual TA%
For an example: If the amount of NaOH used was 1.4ml then the titratable acidity is .14%
Pasteurized Or Unpasteurized- Which Is Best?
At Shisler’s Cheese House, we home a number of cheeses soft, hard, blue- you name it. These cheeses are either made with pasteurized or unpasteurized milk, it usually comes down to the cheesemakers choice, however, some regulations restrict cheesemakers, for example, Stilton has to be made with pasteurized milk and Comte, which has been subject to many controversies, has to be made using unpasteurized milk.
The biggest wonders that come up when discussing the two kinds of milk are first, is pasteurized milk safer than unpasteurized milk? Secondly, does cheese being made with unpasteurized milk taste better?
The most important subject to discuss is obviously if pasteurized milk is safer. It is not an easily answered question, you need to look at the risks and safety concerns surrounding unpasteurized milk, first.
It is common that cheesemaking rooms will contain lots of different bacteria, mainly good bacteria, but then there are quite a few bad bacterias. Some of the bad bacterias that may be present can contaminate milk or cheese with E-coli, Salmonella, and Listeria. However, there are ways to keep these under control and minimize the risks. Some of these ways are actually part of the cheesemaking processes, such as salt dehydrates, these help a lot because a lot of bacteria requires moisture to thrive. Other processes include appropriate procedures during the handling of the milk, the cheesemaking and the maturing of the cheese, shipping, and packaging.
What Is Pasteurisation?
Pasteurization is the process of heating the milk to around 160 degrees Fahrenheit for 15-25 seconds. This is to kill the pathogens which were mentioned above, not only that, but it kills pretty much everything else, which can be bad as some are important in cheesemaking as they act as a natural defense which comes from the milk. This process also allows for more errors as cheesemakers can become complacent which increases contamination risks. However, that being said, all cheesemakers that Shisler’s Cheese House works with, are never complacent and work to a high and safe standard at all times.
The main thing we believe is that with the safe and controlled handling of milk and cheese, whether it is pasteurized or not, the outcome will be the cheese that is safe to eat, with no significant risks either way.
Does Unpasteurised Milk Taste Better?
