u/Best-Reality6718

I reduced half a gallon of whey slowly over five hours and incorporated the reduction back into four gallons of milk and made cheese. I was looking for a caramel flavor in a young cheese. Didn’t get that, but did get a great tasting toasty cheese!

I reduced a half gallon of whey slowly over about five hours. Then incorporated the reduction back into four gallons of milk. The hope was a nice caramel flavor in a young cheese. Not at all what I got. It has a strong umami type flavor and is a lot more complex than it should be at three months. The surprise is a delightful grilled cheese sandwich toastyness. Very unexpected. The texture is not grainy like I was worried about and it didn’t over acidify. I was curious what concentrated lactose would do in the paste. I did try to keep the acid at bay in the make and salted early. Super weird cheese. The kids demolished an entire wedge already. So it’s a solid thumbs up from them.

Definitely the best cheese I’ve made in this style. Dense, sliceable and elastic. Lovely little spicy kick in the rind. There is a nice contrast in flavor from the center to the rind. This is a smaller wheel so I aged it for just nine weeks to preserve a little moisture.

All true, unfortunately.

The interesting thing is the color all metabolized out of the diced onion. That’s why cheese is so difficult to color. The bacteria in cheese have their way with most pigments. This one is absolutely a winner and I can’t wait to get it in a grilled cheese sandwich with tomato soup!

I used freeze dried diced red onion and garlic. Adds a nice texture in the creamy paste. Really pleasant additions to the cheese. I ate more than I should have.

Vacuum aged. Hispanico inspired recipe.

Made this and babied it while it aged for the last three months. Put a cayenne, smoked paprika and olive oil rub on it and everything.

Very grainy and a bit dry. Post mortem is too much acid before hooping creating the poor knit, and probably poor moisture retention in the curds as well. The flavor is good but sharper than it should be at three months in a washed curd cheese. Might have fared better if it was salted sooner. It went overnight in the press and the low PH just continued to drop. I really thought I had this one where I wanted it based on what I saw and tasted coming out of the press. Looked great. But definitely over acidified now. This has a cayenne, smoked paprika and olive oil rub. Whatever went wrong definitely happened in the vat. I’ll age half for another six months to see what proteolysis does but I don’t have high hopes. The rest will be grating cheese for cooking. Definitely disappointed, but it’s also interesting to see!