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Squeaky Cheese Curds

grant

Anyone out there made squeaky cheese curds before? I have made lots of cheese before(so lots of curds) but never squeaky chewy ones. I am going to be using them on poutine!

So trial 1 for me now is as follows:

7600g whole milk ph 6.65
.5g calcium chloride dissolved into 20g water(because the milk is homogenized and pasteurized)
.5g thermophilic culture( Thermo b TM-81)
.25g rennet tablets from BioRen dissolve into 20g water

Heat to 96f for 90 minutes to ripen. pH is 6.6
Add calcium chloride. ph is now 7.0
Add culture. Stir in then let rest 30 minutes.
Add dissolved rennet. Stir in and let rest 35 minutes. pH is now 6.4
Cut curds into 1" cubes. Stir for 3 minutes
Bring temp up to 116f (2f every 5 minutes)
Stir and continue to cook curds for the next hour. pH is now 5.3

Drain, press with 8lb(l gallon water) and let ripen for 13 hours at room temp(less than 75F).

I'll post what happens soon.

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Brendan_Lee_56950

Poutine is in my blood, can't say that I've ever made fresh squeaky curds though. My grandparents used to live down the street from a cheese factory so we'd get 1lb bags still warm for like $5 and chow down. Great summer snack!

seijoed

And that's just some of the benefits of an all cheese diet! (Dilbert)

Yitzchok_Bernstein_30651

I've often gotten squeaky curds by accident, using homogenized milk, then accidentally over working it when I would stir in the rennet.

Bread it and fry it, great way to deal with many failures.

grant

I am having trouble with the cheddaring step. Cant seem to find any info that supports each other. You need to hold the pressed cubed curds at 100f for a couple hours to release more whey. I want them squeaky and smooth! Then broiled.

prince_of_porcelain

@Grant - if you get this working let us know! I'll need to order some rennet and thermophilic culture, but anything that ends with poutine is a good project to undertake.

grant

I am almost there. I have nice dry sqeaky cheese curds as of now. But(it's a big but), they are a little grainy. I have found some papers that say you need to remove the curds from the whey within 30 minutes. Otherwise, the pH will drop too low making them too acidic(these are) and grainy. So I will do another run today and see what I can get. The whole cheddar thing is confusing to me.

grant

I might give up for now! Cant believe it. Just cant get any information on what I really need to be doing to get them squeaky. They keep coming out chewy and I cant seem to get enough whey out. I am going to have to ask Beecher' across the street.

andrea.feldman

Did you see this piece from Culture magazine titled "Why Cheese Curds Squeak?" Probably like sending coals to Newcastle, but on the off chance you HAVEN'T seen it: http://www.culturecheesemag.com/readers_write/fall_2011/cheese_curds

grant

I have, thank you. I also think I have figured it out now. When all these papers say that to "cheddar" you need to stack the curd and keep at 100f, what they are not mentioning is that it's not about the "stacking". In all these settings, if you stack the curd then turn over several times, you are exposing the curds to lots of pressure. These are practical techniques adapted to factories making tones of cheese. They are being pressed quite a bit, which does not translate into the home when making a kilo. So I have been weighing them down with about 6 kilos and heating them in the oven and they have been amazing!

The recipe wil go up soon

grant

We did it!!!!! They are perfect! Super squeaky. Lower temp, shorter cook times and lower cheaddaring temp. We will be shooting this asap and i will go up in the next couple weeks.

Special thanks to Beecher's Cheese for their help.

Grant