Rustic Medium, #2

Because the previous loaf was so intensely soft, for experiment #2 the cream was omitted. I wanted to see what effect this would have on the curd and pressing, as well as texture and taste (but of course that comes later). I wasn't particularly happy with #1 since it would take any real amount of pressure and it lost quite a bit of the curd during the whey-off and cheddaring. With #2 I could correct some of those mistakes.

Start date: 2/26/2009
Wax date: 3/1/2009
Taste date: TBD

Recipe

• 1 gallon whole milk, pastuerized and homogenized
• 2 cups cultured buttermilk
• 1/2 tablet of rennet
• 3 drops calcium chloride
• Mortons kosher salt

Pressed for 2 hours at 8lbs, then pressed for 18 hours at 40lbs. During the make, the curds were quite a bit firmer than #1, though still creamy tasting. Unfortunately during the whey-off the bottom part of the pan got close to 130F, twenty eight degrees higher than it should have been. I admit I have no idea if this will cause problems or not, I will simply have to make this recipe again and keep to a lower temperature and compare.

This time I wrapped the bottom of the loaf in a very fine nylon fabric, quite a bit finer than normal cheese cloth. There wasn't any loss of curd on the bottom, and the texture of the rind (proto-rind?) on the bottom was very nice and smooth. This loaf was also brined for a few minutes, though without CaCl.

Notes and Thoughts
While I would be hard pressed to call this particular loaf 'cheddar' even though it was cheddared, reducing the amount of fat was definitely a good thing. It helped the loaf retain structure and was much easier to work with than #1. Of course #1 was easy to work with compared to #4, but we aren't quite to that part of the story yet.