Hi All,

This is my first post here, and am newbie, i made like only 15 batch of cheese from goat, sheep, and cow raw milk.

I am facing a strange issue, which is the way i am always having the curd (coagulated) (before cut) sank in the pot with whey on the top‚ (even with very clean break).
All pictures i saw for testing the clean break, shows the curd is on the top shining, but in my case the whey is always on the top, and the curd in the bottom of the pot (firm).

What does that means?

please help me

Is your cheese turning out, sounds like the curds are just dense and the culturing process went real well, Mine starts to sink at 2 hours, 90min it seperates from the sides and starts separating the whey.

Dear Neil;

What do you mean by ” is your cheese turning out?”
yes the curds was firm and dense and sank in the bottom of the pot, and they whey were floating.

so this is normal and good sign? as you mentioned above. 

Turn out as in the cheese u are making/aging tastes good etc.
It sounds fine unless Rick has something to say about it, just sounds like a very vigorous culturing process going on.

Dear Neil

No all my cheeses did not turn out like i expected, my cheese is so crumbly and dry, even just after removing from the press (the curds were warm so they should mate)‚ i want to know‚ why? How acidity affects the curds‚ is this related to high acidity or low? high cooking temperature ??‚ how much the PH should be in each stage (incubation‚ cooking ‚ pressing ..!!) how can tell that my curds is ready to be pressed ? and will produce firm rubbery cheese? shall i test the curd if they spin? (like mozerella?) by the way i always use raw fresh milk.
i am folowing http://biology.clc.uc.edu/Fankhauser/Cheese/Cheese98.htm  with home made buttermilk starter http://biology.clc.uc.edu/fankhauser/Cheese/BUTTERMILK.HTM#buttermilk_from_scratch

This issue make me feel hopless, but yesterday, i did not wait for the starter overnight, just 30mins, i added rennet at 35C, and i had clean break, i cut, keep warm at 32C for 1 hour, i pressed, after 24 hours the cheese was rubbery and firm, i cut a peice, i put it in 85C and it was spinned very nicely. my point here that it never was firm and rubbery when i remove it from the press. i guess it iwill work. 

what do you think about all my questions above? was it related to high acidity? how can i tell ?

my guess is that its high acidity, suggest bet some litmus paper from chemist/drug store and see. Never used buttermilk only cheese culture. Crumbly cheese usually is too much salt, but since no salt added at the beginning that should not be the case, the only time when I got crumbly is when making parmasan and maybe it cot too much cooking or maybe thats the way its supposed to be, don’t know.