Post by bigbluegrass on Feb 3, 2017 10:40:50 GMT -5
Last summer and fall my wife made up a dozen or so batches of cheese. She used a few different recipes. She loves cheddar cheese, so over half of it was a type of cheddar - Farmhouse and traditional. She tried Parmesan. She tried some other types that I cannot remember right now. Most of it was hard cheese that needed to age. We started opening them up the past few months and almost all of it has a bitter taste. Some is spongy. Some is seeping through the wax. I think one in 10 turned out so far, and even that batch had an off flavor. The chickens are getting the stuff that we don't feel is safe. None of it has been really good. This is the second time she has tried making cheddar cheese. The first time all failed also, but afterwards she discovered the thermometer was bad and we didn't have anyplace cool to store them, so they were at room temp (which got up to 80 in the summer). So, I am asking for help in troubleshooting this. Also, is there a fool proof cheese that is similar to cheddar that a person can make up and eat sooner. I am not milking a cow right now (next cow will calve in mid-March). I would really like her to be able to make good cheese. I know she would love it. But right now she is so depressed about it not turning out. I feel bad, because she spent hours and hours making it. I need some help in how to encourage her and how to boost her confidence with cheese - and also I need to be certain the cheese failures are not my fault, since I do the milking and cow care.
I do the milking and I really hope none of this is my fault. I hand milk into a bucket. Strain with a disposable filter. I do not CMT test the cows regularly, but I do have the kit. I do a water rinse daily with cold water. There is not hot water in the barn so the soap, vinegar, hot water cleaning is more of a weekly cleaning. The cows diet is whatever she is grazing plus (lots of fescue here, clover, alfalfa and "weeds" in the pasture). I also give about 4 lbs of a grain mix of corn, oats, distillers grain, peas last summer, once a day. I milk once a day. The cow is a Jersey cow. She seems healthy. We drink the raw milk. I have not had any of it tested.
To get specifics on the actual cheese making, I will need to ask my wife, but here is what I know about the procedure she used:
She used both fresh milk (straight from the cow) for some batches. She used milk from the fridge for others. None of it was pasteurized - all raw. Most of it was whole milk. The skimmed milk was just skimmed with a ladle, not mechanically.
She had trouble with the temperature last time, so she was using a much more accurate digital thermometer which was just for cheese making. I checked it a few times against another thermometer for accuracy and I think it was right on.
She used dedicated stainless pots. She did make the cheese in the kitchen and we have kids. It isn't a clean lab environment. There were a lot of variables on the timing, since she had other things going on at the same time.
She used several different brands of renet and cultures. It seems there was no connection between the brands and how the cheese turned out.
The cheese is pressed with a SS press she bought off ebay that someone made. It works pretty good but is tough to gauge the pressure. I put a spring system with a scale on it to get an idea of what pressure it was at. Most of the cheese was pressed to 40 lbs (the accuracy of the press and gauge I would say it could be between 30-50 lbs). I know it was cleaned between batches, but not sure if it was boiled or put in vinegar (I don't think it was).
After pressing the cheese was set on the counter in the kitchen to dry for two days. Most of the batches smelled good, like cheddar, at this time. A few already had an off smell. Some got spongy already and were pitched before waxing. Then it was waxed and put in a wine cooler. The wine cooler was set in the 50s for temperature. For some reason, when we loose power the wine cooler resets to 68 - so at a few times over the summer/fall the cheese did get to 68 during storage. I think the first time it happened it may have set at 68 for a week. After we realized what was going on, I was more diligent about checking the temperature on it and resetting it after a power outage. We get a lot of little short (10 second) power outages. Just enough to reset the clocks (and the wine cooler).
I feel like I am starting to ramble, so I will post this. Ask questions, but mainly I am looking for advise on how I can help my wife make good cheese. Maybe there is a gift I can get for her that is pretty much foolproof. Or some kind of beginners kit. Or maybe, I just need to back off and let her throw in the towel. Or maybe I need to try to make cheese. Of course, if my wife can't make it I doubt I can. But if there is something that I did wrong with the milking that is causing the cheese problem, I need to fix that before I try talking her into trying it again.
Thanks!
I do the milking and I really hope none of this is my fault. I hand milk into a bucket. Strain with a disposable filter. I do not CMT test the cows regularly, but I do have the kit. I do a water rinse daily with cold water. There is not hot water in the barn so the soap, vinegar, hot water cleaning is more of a weekly cleaning. The cows diet is whatever she is grazing plus (lots of fescue here, clover, alfalfa and "weeds" in the pasture). I also give about 4 lbs of a grain mix of corn, oats, distillers grain, peas last summer, once a day. I milk once a day. The cow is a Jersey cow. She seems healthy. We drink the raw milk. I have not had any of it tested.
To get specifics on the actual cheese making, I will need to ask my wife, but here is what I know about the procedure she used:
She used both fresh milk (straight from the cow) for some batches. She used milk from the fridge for others. None of it was pasteurized - all raw. Most of it was whole milk. The skimmed milk was just skimmed with a ladle, not mechanically.
She had trouble with the temperature last time, so she was using a much more accurate digital thermometer which was just for cheese making. I checked it a few times against another thermometer for accuracy and I think it was right on.
She used dedicated stainless pots. She did make the cheese in the kitchen and we have kids. It isn't a clean lab environment. There were a lot of variables on the timing, since she had other things going on at the same time.
She used several different brands of renet and cultures. It seems there was no connection between the brands and how the cheese turned out.
The cheese is pressed with a SS press she bought off ebay that someone made. It works pretty good but is tough to gauge the pressure. I put a spring system with a scale on it to get an idea of what pressure it was at. Most of the cheese was pressed to 40 lbs (the accuracy of the press and gauge I would say it could be between 30-50 lbs). I know it was cleaned between batches, but not sure if it was boiled or put in vinegar (I don't think it was).
After pressing the cheese was set on the counter in the kitchen to dry for two days. Most of the batches smelled good, like cheddar, at this time. A few already had an off smell. Some got spongy already and were pitched before waxing. Then it was waxed and put in a wine cooler. The wine cooler was set in the 50s for temperature. For some reason, when we loose power the wine cooler resets to 68 - so at a few times over the summer/fall the cheese did get to 68 during storage. I think the first time it happened it may have set at 68 for a week. After we realized what was going on, I was more diligent about checking the temperature on it and resetting it after a power outage. We get a lot of little short (10 second) power outages. Just enough to reset the clocks (and the wine cooler).
I feel like I am starting to ramble, so I will post this. Ask questions, but mainly I am looking for advise on how I can help my wife make good cheese. Maybe there is a gift I can get for her that is pretty much foolproof. Or some kind of beginners kit. Or maybe, I just need to back off and let her throw in the towel. Or maybe I need to try to make cheese. Of course, if my wife can't make it I doubt I can. But if there is something that I did wrong with the milking that is causing the cheese problem, I need to fix that before I try talking her into trying it again.
Thanks!