Tomme recipe

Here is a Tomme recipe I found on www.cheeseforum.org. This is for a classic Tomme style cheese using cow or goat or sheep milk or a blend.

Mode:

• Warm 2 gallons milk to 32c
• add 1/4 tsp MA400
• Ripen for 30 mins at 32c
  
• Add CaCl2 diluted in cold water
• Add 3/4 tsp of animal rennet dissolved in 1/4 cup distilled water
• After 45 minutes cut curds into 1/4 " cubes and let it heal for 10 minutes (preventing matting)
  
• While stirring increase temperature to 38c over 30 minutes. Hold at 38c until the curd is at the right texture. You can tell this by pressing This can be checked by squeezing some curds in your hand. If the curd matts it's ready, if it breaks, leave for a few minutes and try again.
  
• Drain in a mould (pH should be 6.35 or higher) and let it press under its own weight turning every 30 minutes, then every hour for 5 hours.
• Press overnight or until pH is 5.4
• Brine in 20 % saturated bring for 8 hours turn after 4
• Leave at room temperature. Once dry move to the cave and leave to age for 3-6 months at 10-12c, 85-90% (or higher if using special b linens)

Wipe/scrub down every day for 3 days with a 20% brine, then every other day for 5 days, then twice a week for 3 weeks. This washing/scrubbing helps prepare the rind by introducing various cultures that over the weeks protect the cheese pate. As you can see the rind is starting to harden.

http://cheeseforum.org - Linuxboy

"This cheese should have a relatively high (relative to other meso cheeses, similar to alpine styles) mineral content, meaning that calcium phosphate will not be degraded, and whey drain pH will be high (6.3+). This results in the curd sticking to each other and matting quickly. If you settle under whey too long, you will have a wheel already formed. Suggestion is to use a pot with the same diameter as the mold so you can plop it right in to the mold"

"For a washed curd tomme, follow the process through cutting, healing, but raise heat much more slowly for the first 15 mins. Target 92F, and stir gently for those 15 mins. The whey should separate enough to where you can draw off enough whey to equal 1/3 of the total milk amount. Before you draw it off, heat a volume of water that is 1/3 of the milk amount to 130F. Drain off the whey and add the heated water in two stages. Add the first half and stir gently for 5-10 mins until the curd firms up a little more. Then add the second half. Your final temp should be the same as with a normal tomme, right around 100F. Do not heat to the high end of mesophilic (105). You do not want acid production to be that fast. If concerned about temp, add the heated water in three stages so you hit 100F. Then stir the curds until they are the right texture, as noted above in the list"

"Just a suggestion....to my taste I have always preferred a washed curd tomme. It's less acidic, more plastic bodied and I have always found it to bring out the nuttiness of the milk. To wash you simply remove 1/3 of the whey before heating the curd to 100F and replace that whey with 135F water (raising total temp to about 100F). The rest of the recipe is the same. I'm thrilled to see someone else using flocculation, I have had heated ebates in the "industry" about this. Automation and large scale production seems intent on making everything set times, but with variable milk supply (like here in NZ) it's impossible to do that and get consistent result. With that said 3 is a great multiplier for Tomme, most of the time. If your wheels can't hold their shape cut the multiplier in half and go from there. If you make the cheese often you can try and extend the multiplier and see how far you can go to get the ideal moisture content of the curd"

Tomme #1a & #1b

I went to the farmers market today and bought 4 Gallon of raw milk. On the walk back I decided to make 2 gallon into a Tomme style cheese. Tommes are usually low in fat as they are produced from the skimmed milk left over after the cream has been removed to produce butter.

To start I heated the milk to 32c and added 1/8 tsp Lipase milk and 1/8 tsp of Calcium Chloride and let it stand for 15 minutes. I then added 1/4 tsp M400 starter and let it ripen for 30 minutes. Once ripened the PH would have dropped a little, I then added 1/4 tsp animal rennet diluted in water and gave it a genital stir for a minute and left it to coagulate. Ive yet to try the flocculation technique but I need to feel more confident in doing so. Maybe Ill do it on tomorrows batch? Once I got a good cut, I think it took around 40 minutes I then cut the curds into 1/4" cubes. The coagulation time for Tommes should be around 30 minutes so the acidity may me a little too high? Maybe next time Ill use a little more rennet. once the curds were cut I then continued to stir to prevent matting, the idea is to now raise the temperature to 38c over 30 minutes to expel more whey from the curds. I have decided to wash the curds as I read that reducing the acid in the whey gives a more nutty and slightly plastic feel to the cheese. I replaced 1/3 of the whey with warmer water over 20 minutes to raise the temperature to 38c. This was meant to take 30 minutes so I just stirred for 10 minutes to make up the time. After leaving the curds to settle I spooned them into my press. Tommes are usually left to press under their own weight but I miss read the recipe. I only pressed it very lightly so I just left it, after 3o minutes I undressed it from the cloth and repressed again at a very light weight. The remaining curds were left to press under its own weight naturally.

Curds ready to cut

Curds straight after cut

Curds after 30 minutes of heating to 38c

Curds in press

Left over curds left to press naturally

Curd Washing?

After curd formation, the curds are cut and after resting for a few minutes gently stirred as the cut curds are fragile.

Once a sufficient amount of whey is released, curd washing occurs by removing whey equivalent to 25-30% of the original milk volume, adding a similar volume of hot water bringing the curds up to a mild scalding 36C as above normally harms mesophilic cultures, and then stirring more vigorously for 30 minutes to wash the curds and avoid curd fusion. The hot wash water should be added carefully over the whole vat to avoid any local overheating. This washing provides two effects, the dilution of the whey reduces the lactose content of the curds and thereby controls the amount of lactic acid created and thus the final pH of the cheese. In addition the mild scalding enhances syneresis reducing the water content of the curd. During washing stirring is intensified which also aids syneresis. The overall cheese is usually sweeter.