Last week my shermani culture arrived, for a while I have wanting to make Emmental, not so much for the flavour but the challenge of making a cheese with 'eyes'. After reading a number of recipes I decided to use a recipe from '
Making Artisan Cheese' by Tim Smith book. The one key thing about making this cheese is to leave it out at room temperature for 3 weeks to help promote co2 that form the eyes although it doesn't mention this in all recipes. It's also a low moisture cheese so the curds are cooked at a height temperature (49c) as well as being cut to the size if rice. So, I bought some raw milk from my very expensive farmers market in Islington, north London and also added some store bought pasteurised milk to help bulk it out. As I'm a newby to cheesemaking I'm still at the bottom of the learning curve which means I do encounter the odd problem from time to time.
- heat 1 gallon milk to 33c, once target is hit add 1/8 tsp of Thermophilic culture and 1/2 tsp of shermanii powder to the milk. Although it didnt mention inthe recipy I added some lipase to enhance the flavour, this also helps when using pasturised milk.
- Let it ripen foear 10 minutes maintaining 33c. Then add 1/4 animal rennet and let it stand for 30 minutes. It actually took around 2 hours to get a good clean break. I noticed coagulation always seems to take a little longer when using Lipase, maybe I'm wrong but I must look into this.
- After a clean break I used a knife and cut teh curds into 1cm cubes, then used used a whisk to break them up even smaller
