Hi everyone, it’s been a while since I made cheese , but am starting again. I made a plain Gouda on Nov16 using about 10 litres of milk. It turned out just fine if appearance counts for anything. Having checked on the internet ( it said 3 -4 hours for every pound and it weighed 3 pounds) I brined it for almost 12 hours in a 2 cups salt to 10 cups water mixture, and dried it. Just before waxing, I ate a little crumb that had fallen off and it seemed incredibly salty. I waxed it and it is now in the cold storage room for ripening. My question is this, will the ripening period of flipping the cheese every day, draw that salt inward towards the middle of the cheese, or is this cheese going to be inedible. Any thoughts? P.S. just recieved a jersey something cross milk cow for my birthday this week. She is due to calve in March. Lots of cheese coming up!
Yes, over time the salt will permeate the entire mass. Right after brining, the salt is concentrated in the outer layer, so it would certainly taste like eating just brine. Remember, patience is a virture! BTW, you’re going to love making cheese with fresh raw milk.
Defenitly have to be carefull with brineing, 2 hours can be enough, triel and error. Some cheeses may be easier to penetrate then others depending on how the batch turns out.
2 cups of salt + 10 cups of water us a super over saturated brine. Did all the salt disolve?
A 18-22% saturated brine should consist of 1 part salt to 5 parts water by weight, not by volume as you did.
Ouch, didn’t know that, about the weight, not volume bit,actually did that with an earlier Leiden and although it was dry and crumbly, the salt was just right. Only thing was I forgot to write down in my notes how much it weighed and how long I brined it for. We like our Gouda/ Leiden young, so we will be cutting into it in a couple of weeks and I’ll let you know how it tastes.
A good brine for Gouda and Leiden is made with about 200 gram salt on 1 liter of water. The PH should not be above 5. That can be done by adding 20 ml vinegar per liter, this will result in about 4.9PH. A fresh brine needs also some CaCl, 15 ml per liter.
The time to brine is depending on the weight and size of the cheese (duhhh), but also on amount of moisture (pressing), percentage of fat (Leiden made from skimmed milk needs a longer time in the brine) and in theory the temperature of the brine (higher temperature will result in slightly shorter time to brine).
A good average for a well pressed Gouda-type cheese is 6 hours per 500 gram. Sorry that I’m to lazy to convert the units
My Gouda recipe says to use a 20% brine made with 220gm salt to 800ml cooled boiled water.
Brining times are approximately 2hrs per 250gm of curd weight.
Oh dear. Just before reading this I made my third hard cheese, a Caerphilly style more or less following the recipe in 200 Easy Cheeses but using plain yoghurt as the starter (cultures are ordered, haven’t arrived yet, couldn’t wait…) and scaled down from 16 litres of milk to 5 (still have to get that bigger pot). After pressing I put it in brine for 20 hours, following the recipe exactly. The cheese is now air-drying and looks lovely, but is it going to be very, very, very salty? If so, is there anything I can/should do to remedy it at this stage?
Struggling here under a very steep learning curve!
That does sound like a very lengthy brining time. But don’t worry too much about the “steep learning curve.” Its things like this that make indelible lessons; and we all profit from our mistakes. I’d suggest you do nothing until you try the cheese. You can then tell how much adjustment you need to make. I will caution about one thing: I once tried to reduce saltiness by soaking in plain water, hoping some of the salt would dissolve out of the wheel. I ended up with a very gooey cheese - so you may not want to go there.
I agree with Rich. Experience is priceless and you should never be afraid to make a mistake. If only you could see the amount of failed cheese I have fed to the chooks…
I did consider throwing it into a plain water bath to try and leach out some of the salt, but thought I’d ask the experts first - just as well! I’m learning fast that cheese doesn’t do what (my) common sense says it should do.
Is 20 hours a long time to brine a 16 litre recipe? Hopefully I will have acquired a nice big pot by the time the proper cultures arrive, so there will be no more struggling to scale down recipes. I also managed to find a fairly new second-hand wine cellar online that should be delivered sometime this/next week - great timing, as the weather is getting steadily warmer. Can’t wait to fill it up with yummy cheeses.
I don’t know how much ‘failed cheese’ I can survive, though…people here think I’m crazy for even trying!
If you never try, you can never succeed or as Einstein said “I have not failed, I have merely discovered ten thousand ways that do not work!”
I suppose the real trick is to learn from each failure. Before you throw the cheese out you must examine it. What went wrong? Why? How to fix the problem? Several of my mistakes have proven to be delicious. I tried to make a stilton recently that proved too hard to rub up properly, as a result it bloomed into a beautiful creamy blue cheese that was most delicious. A failure sure but I have also discovered a brilliant new blue cheese recipe!
I keep a detailed notebook about each cheese I make. Differences’ from the actual recipe, acidity etc. It is an important aid when I go to re-try a recipe or recreate a success.
In any case, do not write your Caerphilly off too soon. You could be pleasantly surprised. If so, please share it with us.
