Emmental Disaster 2 - Hot Brine

All was going well until brining! The recipe explains that the cheese must be kept around 22c while pressing and brining. As its pretty cold here in London I used a water bath heater and left this over night. I realised the next morning it had heated the brine to 38c. The cheese was pretty firm as if it had been cooked so I'm guessing my Emmental Version 2 is also a failure?

Emmental the second

I decided to have another crack at an Emmental after over heating my first during maturing. The first few weeks is dedicated to forming the eyes within the cheese, this is done leaving out at room temperature around 20c - 24c. Unfortunately I accidentally heated the room to 32c which caused the cheese to soften and tun into a frisby! I also added a little more rennet as my target took and extra hour to get a clean break. Below shows the different stages of during cooking the curds to 49c.

5 mins of cooking

20 mins of cooking

40 mins of cooking

All was going well until brining! The recipe explains that the cheese must be kept around 22c while pressing and brining as as its pretty cold here in London I used a water bath heater. I left this over night and only realised the next morning it heated the brine to 38c. The cheese was pretty firm as if it had been cooked. I'm guess my Emmental Version 2 is also a failure? Ill do a bit of research to see if I can save it.

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