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Hi. Jack, here. In this video, we're going to be making a soft cheese. What's different
about this from the previous 2 videos is that we're going to be using all of the elements
that we've looked at in the beginners section of HomemadeCheese.org.
In front of you, you can see about 2½ liters of milk. The difference with this milk is
this is un-homogenized. Un-homogenized makes superior cheese. We're going to be using a
starter culture, which is the first cheese in the series in which we've used it. Also
on the table, you can see the pan I'm going to use. It's not a double-boiler; I'm just
going to use an ordinary large saucepan and apply very gentle heat. I've got the thermometer
hooked into it, and I've got our trusty old slotted spoon.
First step is we need to get our milk up to temperature. For this cheese, that's going
to be 32° C. The milk in the pan is at about 18°. It's now on a very gentle heat, which
is going to very slowly bring it up to 32° C, the ideal temperature for the starter culture
that we're going to use, which is M-A4002. Whilst the milk's heating, I thought it would
be useful to show you just how little starter culture we need. That little sachet that you
saw in the beginning, which I've now clipped up; what's left in there is going to go back
into the freezer to be stored in there. it can stay in there for about a year or so.
That little sachet is enough to treat 50 liters of milk. We have to, best as we can, figure
out what 1/20th of a sachet looks like to make our cheese, which clearly is a very difficult
thing to do. By best guess is what sets on that teaspoon at the moment; a really, really
tiny amount of starter culture to treat just over 2½ liters of milk.
The milk has come to 32° C, which is ideal for our starter culture. The small amount
that you've just seen, I'm going to add to the milk right now. Just give it a good stir
just to make sure everything comes off the teaspoon. Then it needs a good thorough stir
to make sure that it is well distributed throughout the milk itself. Give that a good stir for
30 seconds. What I'm going to show you next while the starter culture does its thing,
creating lactic acid, I'm going to show you just measuring out the vegetarian rennet;
this time we've got liquid rennet. This can be kept in the fridge; it lasts in the fridge
for about a year or so. What we need for our recipe, perhaps 2½ liters of milk, is just
12 drops. That gets diluted into a little bit of water that has been previously boiled
and has been allowed to cool down to room temperature, which gets rid of the chlorine.
We simply just count those drops in . . .10-11-12. That's perfect to add to our milk as soon
as the half-hour has passed for the starter culture.
The starter has had as much time as it needs now to get the lactic acid underway for a
soft cheese. Now it is time to add the rennet, which is here. That's what we mixed up a short
while ago. I'm just going to pour that in like so, and just use a little bit of the
milk to rinse it through, and then a good up-and-down stirring motion. Rennet is heavier
than milk, or more dense than milk, so it will sink. What we need to do therefore, is
to use a nice up-and-down motion to mix it thoroughly throughout the milk. I'm going
to do this for about a minute or so. We'll come back to it and check it for setting in
about an hours' time.
What I want to do is show you a clean split in the curds, which we have achieved. You
put a sharp knife in; you see it goes through a layer of whey and the curds underneath.
If I push, you can see that the curds have formed nicely. It's a good split underneath
that; it's very firm. What I'm going to do now is cut that into slices horizontally and
vertically to give me cues on the surface of about 1½cm in width. Knife in all the
way to the bottom and all the way to the side, and up again. About 1½cm, same thing. We'll
keep doing that. It's important to try and keep the curds as uniform as possible, as
the size will dictate the moisture level in the cheese. What we don't want is varying
levels of moisture throughout the cheese that we create. When we've made our vertical columns,
what we need to do is try and cube the cheese in the pan. To do that, I'm going to go in
at an angle. The results of all of this cutting should be roughly equal-shaped curds, with
size of about 1½cm in cubes.
To set the curds twice and let them settle for 2, 15 minute periods. We're ready to decant
them from the pan into the molds. What you can see on the screen is I've got 4 different
size and shape molds set out on what effectively is just a grill pan. What that's going to
do is allow the whey to drain out of the mold, and then it will drain into the tray. One
thing to bear in mind is as we start scooping in the curds with the slotted spoon is that
whilst the curds are in the mold, they are of course, going to give up more liquid. As
they give up that liquid, they're going to shrink down into the mold. What we don't want
to do is use all of our curds out of the pan, filling multiple molds up. Instead, we need
to make sure that some curds are left in the pan so that as the curds and the molds shrink
away, we've got curds left to top them up. I've left the curds about 10 minutes. You
can see already just how much they've settled. I'm going to put in some more into these molds.
I'll keep topping them up, and I'm going to be doing this probably for the next hour or
so.
The cheese has been stored overnight now, and you can see just how much they've shrunk
down. I did turn them once in the night. It was too dark, really, for it to be filmed,
so I'm just going to show you that technique now. It's quite straightforward to do: Again,
cheese out, swap pans, pick them all back up, put it, there we go; cheese turned.
The next stage is to weigh out the cheese so we can get the correct amount of salt.
For this particular recipe, we need a 1% salt to curd weight; that's 1% of the weight of
the cheese. The case of the heart, we're 156 grams of cheese, so we need about 1½ grams
of salt. Sprinkle some on here and just spread it around. Same again on the other side. Now
the cheese is salted. I'm just going to leave it to drain on a little cheese draining rack,
over the top of the plate. That will allow just the moisture, the whey, to drip out underneath
and leave the cheese completely.
Now they have been salted and left to stand for a few hours, all that remains is to put
them into an airtight container and they can be kept in the fridge. They should last at
least 2 weeks really, over which time they will mature and the flavor will improve.
That brings to close the soft cheese video. Time to move on to the practice section where
I have a lot more detail and the intricacies of making more complex cheeses. I hope you
join us there, at HomemadeCheese.org.