I start off by warming about 1.8 gallon of milk to 32c. Half the milk was raw unhomogenised and the other half was store bought pasteurised milk. 1/5 tsp M400 culture was added and left to ripen for 20 minutes. As half of this was pasteurised I added 1/8 tsp of calcium chloride and 1/8 lipase (sharp). Once everything was stirred into the milk I added just 3/4 tsp of liquid animal rennet and let it stand for about an hour. I made a slight mistake here, whether it will make any different I am unsure. Throughout ripening and coagulation it's meant to be maintained at 32c. I accidentally increased this to 37, I'm hoping this didn't kill my starter? After an hour the curds were cut to about 1cm and stirred to prevent matting.
I then let it rest for a minute and drained off 1/3 of the whey and then adding a few cups of warm water to bring the temperature to 33c. This technique is called washing the curds. It slows down acidification resulting in a higher PH curd which gives a slightly sweeter flavor to the cheese. I continued to stir for 10 minutes to help expel the whey and then finally let it rest for 10 minutes. By now the curds have sunk and the whey is drained out to the level of the curds. I then added 75c water to it which raised the curd temperature to around 38. I then stirred continuously for another 15 minutes before leaving it to stand for 30 minutes.
During this time I preprepared my cloth and press. The curds were then placed in the mould and pressed at around 20lb for 30 minutes, turned and pressed again over night at the same pressure. The next morning the cheese was re-wrapped and pressed fro another 12 hours at 20lb. I kept the whey for the brine and salted it 1 to 5. After 8 hours I took it out and placed in my cheese cave which is usually around 8c, a little too cool but its all I have at the moment. This may slow down the maturing process so Ill probably be seeing this cheese later on in the summer! For now ill give it a swash ever few days in brine..
