Rustic Medium, #5

I was quite pleased with the texture of the curd with #3, but I didn't like how small it turned out. So for #5, I tweaked the recipe slightly by added a cup and a half of heavy cream to the 1% milk.

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

Recipe

• 1 gallon 1%, pastuerized and homogenized
• 1/2 cup cultured buttermilk
• 1 1/2 cups heavy cream
  
• 1 tablet of rennet
• 4 drops calcium chloride
• Mortons kosher salt

Held the make at 88F for 90 minutes, pressed at 6lbs for 4 hours, then finally pressed at 40lbs for 12 hours. This loaf had a nice firm, almost squeaky (though not as squeaky as #3) curd. Brined for 30 minutes in a salt/CaCl solution. I didn't observe any particular change to the loaf after brining.

Notes and Thoughts
It seems that using lower fat milk and adding cream back, in the form of Heavy cream makes for an easier to handle curd. It also seems to press better, however the nylon cheese cloth on this particular loaf managed to pull of some chunks on the edges.

This loaf also came out of the press a bit lopsided. I think I need to change the weight I use (a long steel bar I found in my grandfathers old shop) to something more like round free weights. I think that between the leverage of the bar and perhaps the slapdash way I'm adding the curds to the mold are causing the loaves to be misshapen. Anyway, lots of things to experiment with.