Cheshire Cheese Recipe

We all know what Cheddar is, but hardly anyone has heard of Cheshire, even though it is one of the oldest English cheeses still in evidence. Its consistency is similar to Cheddar cheese, but there are different variations: moister/drier and Cheshire is much milder than Cheddar. There is also a variant with blue mold that resembles Stilton cheese.
With this recipe we will be able to make a moister and more elastic cheese with a sweet nutty taste.

Required:

Recipe

  1. Before starting, we should disinfect all surfaces and dishes that may come into contact with milk.
  2. Determine whether milk is suitable for making cheese. It has to go through the bactericidal phase (cold milk from the previous day usually works). If you have a PH meter, the PH level of milk should not be outside the PH 6.55–6.75 range (which is very rare).
  3. Pasteurize milk: heat it to 65 °C and keep it at this temperature for 30 minutes. Can heat up to 70 °C and hold for 15 minutes.
  4. Quickly cool the milk, for example, in a cold bath to 30 °C (it could take 15 minutes), or heat the already pasteurized milk.
  5. Add Lactoferm MSE (0.6gr.) cheese culture into the milk (PH 6.53).
  6. Add annatto (8 drops).

  7. After adding a rennet, start the timer to determine the flocculation point. Generally, the flocculation point for most of the cheeses is 3. That means that if the milk has thickened (forms a curd) within 12 minutes, you can move on to the next stage only after 36 minutes (12x3 = 36 minutes).
  8. Cut the curd into 0.5-1cm cubes, approximately, and leave for 10 minutes.
  9. After 5 minutes, carefully divide even more finely (about half) with a whisk or knife into 0.6-0.7cm cubes and leave for another 5 minutes.
  10. After 30 minutes, the acidity level of the cheese should be around PH 5.2-5.4. If the acidity of the cheese is not achieved during this time - increase the dose of culture next time and wait more time for now. The cheese at this stage is elastic and squeaky, while chewing. 


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    * Freshly milked milk has bactericidal properties for a few hours, during the so-called bactericidal phase, when bacteria suppress reproduction. Cooling the milk prolongs the bactericidal phase. If the milk is obtained in strict compliance with sanitary regulations and rapidly cooled to +40 °C, the duration of the bactericidal phase is 24 hours and more. At the same temperature bactericidal phase period, impure milk has at least two to three times shorter temperature. The duration of the unrefrigerated milk phase is, on average, 2 hours.
    (Source: http://www.ezerzeme.lv/lv/zinas/noderigi/5222/par-piena-kvalitati)

    ** The time of milk coagulation (thickening) depends on the quantity of calcium chloride and rennet. It can be adjusted for best coagulation time, which should ideally be 12 minutes. For instance, if the first time your milk has thickened after 20 minutes, then increase the next dose of enzyme.

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