We had a very busy day of making cheese today. Under Steve's close supervision my job was to make Providence, our signature raw milk washed rind rennet set vat cheese. It follows a traditional Taleggio recipe. First step is to place 75 gallons of milk into the vat you see below. The milk is carefully warmed to 90 degrees, cultured and allowed to acidify. Rennet is added and the curd checked for firmness 30 minutes later.
The best part is the cutting of the curd which you see me doing here. Several horizontal and vertical cuts are made to obtain a uniform curd size.
Once cut the curd rests for a few minutes, the 'healing' stage, it is stirred gently by hand then vigorously with a paddle for several minutes while being heated. This further helps expel whey to firm up the curd. This is a dryer cheese than most of the others we make. Here you see me stirring the curd while it is being cooked.
Next we quickly drain the whey off the top of the settling curd. Steve is holding a colander type bowl with the intake of a mechanical pump hose inside of it to prevent curd from being sucked out.
After cutting the next best part is the scooping of the curd into the molds. This requires quick work by two people to empty the vat so unfortunately I don't have any photos. The curd fills 10 large molds each with a plastic cap on the top and bottom to contain the curd and aide draining of the whey. The caps also provide a rustic straw mat-like pattern in the finished cheese.
For the remainder of the day we flip each of the cheeses several times to aide even drainage (photo below). Tomorrow the cheese will be taken out of the molds, trimmed and placed in a saturated brine solution overnight. After that they go into the cave for weekly a washing and turning over 3 months. The first batch of Providence made earlier this year will be ready in about 3 weeks.
The best part is the cutting of the curd which you see me doing here. Several horizontal and vertical cuts are made to obtain a uniform curd size.
Once cut the curd rests for a few minutes, the 'healing' stage, it is stirred gently by hand then vigorously with a paddle for several minutes while being heated. This further helps expel whey to firm up the curd. This is a dryer cheese than most of the others we make. Here you see me stirring the curd while it is being cooked.
Next we quickly drain the whey off the top of the settling curd. Steve is holding a colander type bowl with the intake of a mechanical pump hose inside of it to prevent curd from being sucked out.
After cutting the next best part is the scooping of the curd into the molds. This requires quick work by two people to empty the vat so unfortunately I don't have any photos. The curd fills 10 large molds each with a plastic cap on the top and bottom to contain the curd and aide draining of the whey. The caps also provide a rustic straw mat-like pattern in the finished cheese.
For the remainder of the day we flip each of the cheeses several times to aide even drainage (photo below). Tomorrow the cheese will be taken out of the molds, trimmed and placed in a saturated brine solution overnight. After that they go into the cave for weekly a washing and turning over 3 months. The first batch of Providence made earlier this year will be ready in about 3 weeks.
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