New to cheese

[MrFeltimo]

Hey guys, new to cheese make but a long time brewer, FWIW.
I really wanna make aged Cheddar.
I've just finished my first attempt via an online recipe and instructions.
FAIL.
OH WELL,
lets try again
Does anyone have any constructive advice, tips, does or don'ts.
i would really appreciate the help.
Thanks
Dan

 

[passedpawn]

Hey guys, new to cheese make but a long time brewer, FWIW.
I really wanna make aged Cheddar.
I've just finished my first attempt via an online recipe and instructions.
FAIL.
OH WELL,
lets try again
Does anyone have any constructive advice, tips, does or don'ts.
i would really appreciate the help.
Thanks
Dan

I've made a ton of cheese, and also had many failures. If you want success, and you're willing to make it boring for a while, pick one cheese and keep making it until you can get two repeat successes. Don't bother aging - eat it within a few weeks.

Most failures are due to poor curd development - either the curds don't form, or the curds are too dry and don't knit into a wheel. Once you can repeatedly make cheese that forms a wheel as you planned, then it's time to delve into aging.

Cheesemaking is harder than beer.

More advice:

• Buy a notebook and record everything, ingredients and process, and DON'T FORGET TO GO BACK AND RECORD THE RESULT - ESPECIALLY FAILURES.
• Don't bother with wax. Perhaps never, but in the beginning it's far far easier to use vacuum bags (akaFoodsaver).
• Start with fresh liquid rennet. Dry rennet seems to have varying strength.
• I find the recipes on cheesemaking.com to be very good. I have cheese books, but there is no need in the beginning.
• Raw milk is awesome, but also quite difficult to source. There are non-homogonized milks available, they work well. Organic milk and heavy cream and some other stuff is "ultra-pastuerized". It will not make cheese. Don't buy organic anything. You can make pretty decent cheese with pastuerized, but get the freshest milk you can find. When you finally make a good cheese, stick with that milk brand.
• Get a pH meter. If there ever was a hobby that benefited from a pH meter, cheesemaking is it. A good one for cheesemaking is the Extech pH100. When you add bacteria to make cheese, you're really looking for acidifciation (the bacteria gobble milk sugars, lactose, and make lactic acid). That acidification is critical in most of the steps of cheesemaking. Knowing what's going on is likewise important. RECORD EVERYTHING.
• I could go on and on. haha.

 

[MrFeltimo]

Great advice thanks
I'm only looking to make cheddar and I'm willing to repeat the process over again.
I have a pH meter already.
All started well yesterday until I poured my curds into the cheese cloth lined colender, it all melted away and went to the size of cornmeal and almost all went through the holes. Sloppy mess.

 

[shelly_belly]

That's usually what happens with unsuitable milk.

 

[passedpawn]

Ayup. I've had that happen. I did everything imaginable to salvage that mess, but no luck. It might be possible to make ricotta with it by further acidification and heating, but even that was a loss IIRC.

 

[bernardsmith]

Always good to provide details of your process and recipe. A failure to create firm curds can be caused by the use of ultra high temp pasteurized milk. High temps destroys the ability of the calcium to form curds. Even at lower temperatures the calcium can be easily damaged so you need to add Calcium Chloride.
The other cause of poor curd formation is that you failed to add active rennet. You dissolve the rennet too early , when you add it, it is no longer as able to help the milk coagulate.
Even if the rennet is active, if you cut the curds before they have properly formed (and this can take 40 minutes or an hour) , before you have a clean break when you insert a knife , the curds will not be able to hold any whey and will more or less dissolve again into (cultured) milk.
One other possibility is that you are not using rennet although you think you are. Cheese is not junket. There is not enough coagulating power in the rennet-lite that is used for making junket. Check your rennet.
One last thought, if you stirred the curds with too much vigor you could have so badly damaged the curds that they simply broke apart and gave up all their whey when you poured them into a cloth lined colander. If you poured them you might want to use a slotted spoon to move the curds from the kettle to the cheese cloth...

 

[MrFeltimo]

I think I may have stirred to vigorously,
I went and made a second batch using the same recipe and method. This time I was more patient and calibrated my thermometer. Much better results.
Thanks

 

[passedpawn]

I think I may have stirred to vigorously,
I went and made a second batch using the same recipe and method. This time I was more patient and calibrated my thermometer. Much better results.
Thanks

That looks like a pretty good knit there. Did you use the same milk source?

 

[MrFeltimo]

That looks like a pretty good knit there. Did you use the same milk source?

Actually, no.
Both milks where standard store bought, nothing fancy. But different supplier

 

[shelly_belly]

Looking good!