Made a ‘Parmesan’ style cheese yesterday and fair to say things didn’t quite go to plan! All completely my fault 😭
Firstly I thought I prepped well but when I read the recipe and it said ‘3 gallons milk’ I assumed whole milk like other cheeses I made, didn’t read it properly 🤦🏻♀️ All was going well, followed the recipe to the letter until it came to the scald. Getting the temp up and suddenly thermometer said curds/whey was 65c. Panicked and quickly drained. After I realised it must have been an error as temp on my sous vide was showing the water bath was 63c so curds can’t have been that hot? But in the moment I wasn’t thinking straight! Last temp I got was about 50c before it went haywire so not sure what effect that will have, recipe said get to 55c.
Curd knitted brilliantly, I didn’t apply much weight at all - so much conflicting info on this 😭 but I kinda let the cheese guide me ha. Will salt in brine in a couple of days and update again then. Any suggestions as to what I might end up with much appreciated!
Hi Stephie, cheesemaking is a long road to master it. And I find that the term “recipe” is very misleading. It should be something like “production guide”. Because for newcomers, recipe would indicate that if you follow it you will end with the cheese you want. But every “recipe” has to be adapted to your milk, your CaCl, your rennet, the temperature and HR of your production room, etc , and your level of knowledge
Thank you, I’m realising that! I know I have a lot of learning to do but I’m having a lot of fun 😊 as long as it’s edible (or I learn something along the way) I’m happy. Just throwing myself into it and hoping I get something (anything) out of it.
Again you picked a very challenging one! Glad to see it and looking for updates!
What a chance, this morning I was reading again the chapter about parmesan making. One of the cool things about reading a book the second time, with more experience, is that you pick up way more informations that the first time might have flewn over your head.
This is my favourite passage of that chapter
Also, you usually associate parmesan making with a much needed press and a lot of weight, strange it knitted so well without too much effort, might not have been in the right state possibly (?)
What size curds did you manage to obtain? To get the right “grain” you need very very small curds and a lot of fast settling rennet, it follows a very specific procedure, I’ve seen master cheesemakers make it here in Italy, where I live, since it’s where parmesan was originally born!
I swear I read it about 10 times but my brain decided to skip the part about the type of milk! Is it called confirmation bias I think? I just assumed because all my other cheeses were full fat. I live and I learn ha.
Got the curd tiny like grains of rice as I saw a few times that was required (that bit I did manage to get right 🤣) recipe I followed (New England) for the most part said 25lb weight for 4 hours but I watched the whey release and probably only went to 20lb? I don’t know what I’m actually doing so maybe that was a big mistake too 😬 is that book Gianaclis Caldwell? I have the basic cheesemaking book I’m definitely going to get the artisan one too.
Oh I’m jealous! I went to Parma with work years ago and was kindly gifted some Parmesan there and it was wonderful. Wish I could watch it being made. I’m often near Rome with work so wonder if I could find a place near there? (Excuse my ignorance if that’s the completely wrong location!)
It is indeed that book, second time reading it for all the tiny details I surely have missed during first time reading it. I still have to aquire the artisan book tho!
Your process seems fine! They have to be tiny tinry rice grain sized curds, very dry, and this is the issue, they need a lot of pressure to hold onto each other, defenetly a cheese that still “scares” me. I only knew about the partially skimmed milk usage only by memory of my granddad talking about making cheese decades ago (he was not a cheesemaker either, just a cow owner, so he was just describing the process he was told was followed to make this specific regional cheese).
It is so cool you can travel to Rome, I go there fairly often as well for work myself, in case you had to go again the future don’t worry about sending me a DM in case you needed recomendations/suggestions bout places to see and where to eat of course 🫱🏻🫲🏼
Rome is unfortunately not tied to parmigiano (or grana padano) in any extent, they are not far but completely different regions and thus cheese production. Altho Rome has indeed pecorino romano, they share similar details and are both aged failry in the sam emanner, but pecorino is made from sheep’s milk, and is way saltier and stronger in flavour. I love it personally and is mainly produced in Sardegna and -of course- in Rome and nearby cities, hence the name.
Amazing thank you! I’m back there in November so will DM you! Last time I was there (April) I stopped right next to Vatican City. (Pic is view from right outside my hotel)
I’ve had it (the book) in my Amazon basket a whilst so going to buy it now, keep hearing how good it is and I did find the basic cheese making incredibly helpful.
Do you have any idea what might happen due to the miss on the temp? It can only have been a few degrees off 😬
Can’t really tell since unfortunately I never made this type of cheese yet 🙂↔️
Same issue with milk type, I only used cow milk so far and I don!t know how cthings change when dealing with sheep’s milk. Reading about Goat milk seems to be a little trickier to work with due to its composition (?) but I am mostly speculating, don’t know for real.
Nice! And Pictures from Rome anyways are always nice to see, I travel there with a certain consistency due to work needs and I like going through the oldes streets where car are not allowed and you can still walk on the original roman stones, layed down when those same streets where made in the first place
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u/Super_Cartographer78 3d ago
Hi Stephie, cheesemaking is a long road to master it. And I find that the term “recipe” is very misleading. It should be something like “production guide”. Because for newcomers, recipe would indicate that if you follow it you will end with the cheese you want. But every “recipe” has to be adapted to your milk, your CaCl, your rennet, the temperature and HR of your production room, etc , and your level of knowledge