I have never made it before so this is a bit of a trial. It has a very long ‘cooking’ time after the curds have been cut – 3 hours in the whey and then another two drained (heat is kept at 35° the whole time). This should drive out a lot of moisture whilst also letting the culture really develop some lactic acid – both of which are key to Cheshire cheese.
Ingredients
10l of non-homogenised fresh milk
0.35g of MM100 starter
2.5ml of 50% CaCl solution
2.8ml of 140 IMCU/ml rennet
20g of salt
Starter Culture being weighed for the Cheshire Cheese. Yep that’s 0.35 of a gram. I had to get jewellers scales to measure out culture as they can measure down to 100ths of a gram.
Rennet being measured out for the Cheshire Cheese. The rennet is diluted in cooled boiled water before being added into the milk and I add a drop of vinegar as our water is slightly alkaline.
Curds and Whey. After a few hours of cooking the curds have become quite dense (almost like chewing gum). They sink into the whey as soon as the stirring has stopped and try to matt back together.
The curds after the whey has been drained. They spend another 2 hours like this being kept warm. They continue to shed whey and need to be vigorously stirred to stop them matting back together. (Daylight was running out on me, sorry for the washed out colours here)
After nearly 8 hours the curds have finally made it into the mould for pressing. They are pressed with a pretty significant weight on them (10kg) for 2 days. It is interesting to note that the cheese at this point has become quite hostile to life. It is very acidic (ph 4ish), salty and has a low moisture content.
After it has been pressed for 2 days it is allowed to dry (another 2 – 4 days) then waxed for aging.
Oh and speaking of aging this cheese is going to need some time, at the very least 3 months but 6 is better. We won’t be cracking this one open till Xmas!
