Friday, March 27, 2009

Cheese the Ninth: Paneer

The Cheese: Paneer (Carroll, p. 91)
The Milk: 1/2 gallon Ralph's 2% (not organic)
The Coagulant: 1 tsp citric acid in 1/2 cup hot water

Paneer was my first cheese several months ago. This time I used citric acid instead of lemon juice. In the future I'll probably stick to the lemon juice, in the hopes it brings a little bit of flavor.

Because this cheese is acid-set, and doesn't have a bacterial culture introduced, I just used plain old drinking milk, although I did use 2% to make sure there was some milk fat. It turned out a little dry when eaten straight, so whole milk might be better next time. However, mixed in Saag Paneer it was fine.

Yield was 9.6 oz

Cheese the Eighth: French Style Cream Cheese

The Cheese: French Style Cream Cheese (Carroll p. 88)
The Milk: 2 cups heavy cream, 2 cups 365 brand organic whole milk.
The Starter: 1 packet mesophilic direct-set
The Rennet: 1 drop liquid rennet in 1/4 cup water

I had a request for cream cheese. I decided to try a different variety, and the French Style Cream Cheese seemed a nice option.

It's been a couple of weeks since I made it, but I don't recall any issues with the production.
Which is good, because it's a pretty simple process.

I didn't salt the cheese at all. I think it needs a little in the future, something like 1/8 tsp per pound.

Yield was around 19 oz.

Cheese the Seventh: Large Curd Cottage Cheese

The Cheese: Large Curd Cottage Cheese (Carroll p. 98)
The Milk: Trader Joe's Vitamin D (not the organic variety, not explicitly un-ultrapasturized)
The Starter: 1 packet direct-set
The Rennet: 1/4 tsp liquid rennet disolved in 1/4 cup water

It's been a few weeks since I tried this one. I need to work on my record keeping here.

Disaster.
When I poured off the whey through a mulsin lined-collander, everything poured through. What curds there were dissolved.

Either I killed the curds during the cooking stage, or the garden variety Trader Joe's milk doesn't cut it. Possibly both.

Monday, March 2, 2009

Cheese the Sixth: Farmhouse Cheddar

The Cheese: Farmhouse Cheddar (Carroll p. 104)
The Milk: 1 gallon 365 whole milk (not organic, not explicitly non-ultrapasturized on the label)
The Starter: 1 packet direct set mesophilic
The Rennet: 3/8 tsp animal rennet

I needed the farmhouse cheddar practice after making Cheese the Fifth. In an attempt to get a better curdle, I added 1/4 tsp calcium chloride and a little bit more rennet.

The cheese went better up until the cooking phase, where I completely blew it. I was staring straight at the thermometer wondering if it would ever get from 94 to 96, when all of the sudden it jumped to 110. Yeow.

I had better luck with the press by wrapping the cheesecloth around the smaller can I use as a follower, but then I had a lof of trouble getting the cheese out. In fact I cracked the pressed cheese trying to get it out.

So, at this point I think it's going to take several more tries to get farmhouse cheddar down. I think I need to be even a little slower and more methodical than simply following the recipe from the Carroll book.

In the meantime, I'm going to make a soft cheese next week. I intend to alternate soft cheese one week and hard the next for the next couple of months.

I aged this one two days and then waxed it on March 1, 2009. I'll probably age this one three weeks as well and give it a try with Cheese the Fifth.

Cheese the Fifth: Farmhouse Cheddar

The Cheese: Farmhouse Cheddar (Carroll p. 104)
The Milk: 1 gallon 365 whole milk (not organic, not explicitly non-ultrapasturized on the label)
The Starter: 1 packet direct set mesophilic
The Rennet: 1/4 tsp animal rennet

Farmhouse Cheddar is the first hard cheese I attempted. That is 'hard' meaning texture. While Farmhouse Cheddar is an order of magnitude more difficult to make than anything I've tried to date, it is supposed to be one of the easiest of the hard cheese. Part of that may be that despite the name it isn't actually cheddared.

The first problem I ran into was that the recipe called for 2 gallons, but my pot turns out to have a capacity of only a little over 1.5 gallons. Of course, I didn't realize this until I bought the milk.
Fine. Cheese the Sixth will be Farmhouse Cheddar as well.

The second difficulty was in getting a clean break. I just wasn't sure the curds had set as well as they should. I was unsure about how I cut the curds, as well. I tried to cut them into regular cubes, but I'm not the greatest at cutting in straight lines.

That was a minor problem, but cooking the curds was more severe. The curds are supposed to go from 90 degrees to 100 degrees over a half hour period, with no more than a 2 degree increase over a five minute period. I think they went from 90 to 100 in a five minute period.
Not good.

I continued to have issues with the press as well. I'm still looking for a solution for the follower, or at least for something to keep the top of the cheese nice and neat.

After air drying it for 4 days, I waxed it on March 1, 2009. I'm only planning on aging it for 3 weeks.

March 27, 2009
I first tried it on March 21. It's definately sharp, and might be an acquired taste.
A few days later I put it on cheese burgers. It didn't melt on the grill like commercial cheddar, but it was still pretty good. I'd say it's similar to putting blue cheese on a burger.
It didn't melt in the microwave either, but lost it's shape and puffed up a bit.