Hi Guys,

  I am new to the forum and a 2 month cheese maker. I came here to find ways around UP milk that seems to be taking over the world and thankfully found some ideas to try. You would think that living an hour south of Seattle that all our rain would grow good grass for cows and that milk would be no problem. The Raw milk here is $9 per gallon and thats almost as bad as our gas stations.

  So far I have made 2 kinds of Cheddar, a Blue and a Stilton, and lastly a Gouda.  As I have not yet sampled them it remains to be seen if I am indeed a cheese maker yet.

  And I do have a question.  Instead of wax on my cheddar or foil on my blue, has anyone experimented with a vacuum packer? On the minus side it is not as pleasing as traditional forms and on the plus side I could sure see what was happening inside.

Wax allows some transfer of O2 which is what ages the cheese. A vacuum bag will not do this and your cheese will be in a state of hyper sleep once it goes in the bag. I age my cheese for 3-5 months under wax and then vacuum seal them to eat later.

Welcome.

Mark

Welcome aboard.  I am new as well.  Learning by reading, you have already made more cheese than me, but hopefully that will change :} .

Cheers

Hi Ben-

I live in Seattle and share your frustration about raw milk prices (and milk prices in general thanks to the state of the economy). Dungeness Valley Creamery in Sequim sells raw milk off their farm for 6.50 per gallon if you want a road trip. That’s the best price I’ve found short of milking someone’s cows for a couple gallons in exchange ha ha.

I just wrapped my Stilton today in the breathable two-ply cheese paper. We’ll see how that goes.

I like pretty pictures. Feel free to post some of your cheese!

Heather

Welcome aboard !!! lots to learn here to help out

Well thanks for the warm welcome everyone !!!

Yes Heather I have used The Dungeness Valley milk.  When I started having trouble with the store bought I purchased some Dun. Val. Cr. raw milk so that I could have an example of what I needed to look for.  The raw milk makes great curds but by the time it gets to Tacoma it is $8.75. 

I also like the Stilton and Blue type of cheese.  I took a thin slice of Blue and set it on a slice of very fresh white bread and put this in a gallon zip lock bag.  After a week it started to grow, at ten days it was mostly blue, and at two weeks it had distinegrated into about three TBS of blue powder.  I took a teaspoon of this and soaked it into water then strained it through a fine wire strainer and used the water to incolulate my curds. Boy was it ever strong and the Blue cheese is turning blue at a very fast rate.  I just hope that it is not growing anything else weird.  I guess the Dog will get the first taste and if he is still with me a few days later i’ll try it too.

I make a Blue Cheese, garlic and mushroom meatloaf that I love so I want to make a bunch of it.  And like you, I also am using two ply paper to wrap my cheeses in but I am also a little like Dr. Jeckle and go a little crazy trying things in new ways

what is Ultra pasteurized milk?? and what is pasteurized milk? and what is the difference (how they pasture the milk? which temp?)

i am waiting your feedback

Pasteurized milk is heated to 63°C for 30 minutes to kill bacteria and extend the shelf life. This kills pathogens but leaves safe microorganisms.

Ultra-pasteurization is processing milk at or above 140C°C for at least 2 seconds and this is to kills the less safe microorganisms thus extending the shelf life even further. Apparently it tastes very bad and has no healthy bacteria left at all, which is why it will not work for cheese making. I won’t touch that stuff.

Pasteurized milk left out will rot. Yuck! But unpasteurized milk left out will only sour which means the heathy bacteria in milk have thrived even more.

i would like to add:
-Ultra-pasteurization = UHT milk and this milk is useless in any cheesemaking, this milk can be used for yogurt only

-Thermisation (63-65C, short hold) results in phosphatase positive milk which must be fully pasteurized before cheese making. The purpose is to prevent raw milk spoilage (eg. over a weekend) due to acid or protease producing bacteria.

-Pasteurization (63C, 30 min. or 72C, 16 s) is generally considered the safest alternative, but the full flavour of traditional ripened cheese can not be achieved. Note that over pasteurization causes denaturation of whey proteins which subsequently adsorb to the casein particles. The effects are:

  * Longer flocculation times
  * Weak or no curd formation
  * Excessive loss of fines
  * Poor syneresis (moisture release)
  * Coarse textured curd with reduced ability to stretch, mat and melt. 

-Heat treat (55 - 65C, 16 s) is trade lingo for subpasteurization treatment which is applied to destroy most pathogens but allow some bacteria to survive and contribute to cheese ripening. This process permits fuller flavour of cheese with better control of culture growth (i.e., acid development) than with raw milk. For current regulatory purposes, heat treat is equivalent to raw. Most aged Canadian Cheddar is safely made from heat treated milk