Another stab at kosher cheesemaking
After a long hiatus, I’ve made another stab at producing cheese at home. This time, it’s a muenster recipe from Barbara Ciletti’s book that calls for goat’s milk. I’ve completed most of the active steps of the recipe so far; here’s a photo recap:
Most of my cheesemaking utensils set out on the counter. For this cheese, I purchased a tomme mold and follower for 1-lb. cheeses, some cheesecloth for draining firm-curd cheese, two sushi — uh, “cheese” — mats, and some cheese salt (which has a finer grain for mixing into the curds and rubbing on the cheese). Also pictured are my handy thermometers (analog and digital), my icing spatula/curd knife, mesh colander, slotted spoon, and Pyrex cup.
The maiden voyage of my double-boiler. This thing is marked as an 8-quart double-boiler, but that’s truly a misnomer as the inner pot holds exactly one gallon of liquid. I found it difficult to control the temperature of water on my gas stove, so the milk came to 88 degrees in half the time the recipe called for.
Liquid kosher rennet diluted in tepid water. Used spring water to avoid any contaminants from the public water supply. The vegetarian rennet from New England Cheesemaking Supply company is now double-strength, so I used 1/8 teaspoon rather than the 1/4 teaspoon indicated in the recipe. Upon mixing the diluted rennet in my warm goat’s milk, I removed the inner pot from the hot water and let it sit undisturbed for an hour, covered. Afterwards, I realized this was incorrect: the entire double-boiler apparatus was meant to be removed from the flame. My milk required an extra 30 minutes of warmer coagulating before it made what I assumed was a “clean break.”
Curds cut into approximately 1″ pieces. The curds gave up their whey quite readily upon cutting, but they did seem a bit soft and didn’t quite keep their cubic appearance as the cheese books illustrated.
Curds draining in a cheesecloth-lined collander. The recipe said to bunch up the curds into a ball and put in the collander, but that didn’t seem too plausible. I just poured it all in.
Loading my drained curds into the tomme mold. The curds drained twenty minutes, then I ladled them into the mold. Due to the snug fit of the follower, I realized that the cheesecloth should only be one layer thick, not doubled over.
Cheese press loaded and ready. With the sliding top lowered into place, I piled on forty pounds of weight. I’ve sinced placed a small level on the top of the weight to assure evenly distributed pressure (and avoid a slanted cheese).
With any luck, there will be more photos to show tomorrow!
Not knowing much about muenster making, but knowing a little about cheese-making in general, it does seem like your curds were a little soft. I’ve had similar problems with the supposedly “double-strength” rennet you can get from New England Cheesemkaing. My hunch is that it’s not quite double-strength; maybe it’s 1.5 strength or a little more. It’s also possible that my rennet has lost some of its power from sitting around for a long time.
That’s probably also the reason you couldn’t gather all the curds up into a ball after draining. So I think your cheese might have too much moisture in it, which could pose a problem if you plan to age it a long time (higher probability of a bitter flavor). How long does this cheese have to age?
Aging is only a week or two; that’s why I chose this one as my first “hard” cheese. Goat’s milk is naturally homogenized, so they say it firms smaller curds, but I’ll try my next batch with a bit more rennet.
What size mold/follower did you use for one gallon of milk?