Go to the Recipe: Melty Cheese Slices
This will sound weird, but what is this slicer that you are using and why I don't have one yet?
Another easy technique for slices - pour the warm cheese over a rimmed sheet pan lined with plastic wrap and spread to an even thickness, then you can cut the sheet into squares very easily. I do love the idea of circular cheese slices for circular burgers, but sometimes with square slices, any extra cheese on the sides gets super crispy in the pan!
If I wanted to turn this into a cheese "sauce" would I just bottle it after the blending process? Or would there be a better alternative?
I see the temp 167' f used a lot here on this site. Usually for dairy based recipes... Is there a reason why 167 is chosen for these other than killing bacteria?
http://www.amazon.com/Norpro-330-Adjustable-Cheese-Slicer/dp/B000HMB0IM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1408545923&sr=8-1&keywords=cheese+slicer these are my favorite type of slicer. Also when the wire wears out you can just replace it with new wire so you don't have to buy a new one.
You will probably want to increase the milk in recipe slightly. Start at around 15% more. All cheeses act little different, often times even between batches of the same cheese. Also, consider if you will be holding it warm, room temp, or cold etc...
test
Is there a difference in doing things stove top vs sous vide?
Have done slices via grating with cheese and SC only (but am open to SHM) etc with good success
and I don't see a difference in total time spent, unless I'm missing
something....like the outcome differences? Thanks!
In other recipes they only use sodium citrate, can you please explain the use of the other salts, and how they act/work?
Camilo—look out for our Burger Class launching Tuesday, August 26. It includes a meaty section on working with melting salts.
If just using sodium citrate, will I need to adjust the percentages of the recipe?
Do you seal the SV bag before putting it into the bath, or just leave it open and clamped on the side of the pot?
Do you mean stove top in a bag? Or just in a pot vs in a bag? We use a bag so there is no evaporation. This yields more consistent results. As for the different salts. It is possible to yield good results with only sodium citrate, you may need to adjust percentages however.
Just leave it open and clamp it.
Just in pot. Consistency is a great thing. Even with good success, I am convinced I will have to give SV method a try. Thanks!
For more information, enroll in the burger class (there's a pretty hefty section on melty cheese in the class): https://www.chefsteps.com/classes/burgers/landing
Here are some basics, taken from the class:
Know Your Salts
Sodium citrate: A little bit of sodium citrate—the salt of citric acid—will help emulsify the proteins and the fats in cheese, preventing them from splitting and forming a dry, stringy mess. Sodium citrate is also used in spherification to regulate acidity and reduce calcium content to prevent early gelation. It's a common ingredient in commercial beverages, as well.
Sodium hexametaphosphate: When you make cheese with sodium citrate alone, then melt, cast, and cool it, it can wind up crumbly. Adding a bit of phosphate salts—such as sodium hexametaphosphate—along with the sodium citrate will often yield better results. In addition to processed cheese products, this stuff shows up in artificial maple syrup, canned milk, whipped topping, packaged egg whites, jelly, frozen desserts, dressings, breakfast cereal, ice cream, and beer. Like sodium citrate, it's also used in spherification to raise the pH of a liquid.
Sodium caseinate: This is the salt of casein, a protein found in the milk of mammals. The casein in this commercial product gets fragmented and denatured a bit during the drying process, so combining it with an older or younger cheese has a similar impact to adding a middle-aged, high-quality melting cheese like gouda (see more on this below). Sodium caseinate shows up often as an ingredient in processed cheese, as well as cereals, breads, whipped desserts, ice cream and sherbets, and special-diet foods. It's also a protein helper for Activa(transglutaminase), improving meat glue's bond.
https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/cheddar-cheese-sauce
Just a slight error in the 'swiss' recipe. The amounts are given as 'ea' as opposed to in 'g'
Would you recommend using a silpat silicone baking sheet in place of the acetate when making a mold for the cheese?
If just using sodium citrate you'll get a somewhat different texture, but you don't need to adjust the values.
What is the reason for using clarified butter vs whole butter? Seems like whole butter would enhance flavor instead of just adding fat
How would I modify this recipe for a juicy luicy? I'd like something that will melt at relatively low heat, yet not be too susceptible to the liquids in the meat if I were to prepare these the night prior.
Increasing the moisture content in the cheese is the easiest way. Try to adjust it to the texture you want at the temperature you want, before you let it cool and harden, because that's pretty close to what it will revert to when you heat it up.
Whole butter adds water and a lot of milk solids that don't help the texture.
@Ben: "We use a bag so there is no evaporation" - but aren't you leaving the bag open?
Got a batch chilling in the fridge at the moment. Acetate isn't something I had lying around so I just used a couple of sheets of printer paper folded over (so 4-sheet thickness) and then lined the inside with plastic wrap. I'm guessing the price I'm going to pay for this is a cylinder which isn't so pleasantly smooth on the outside, but given that I'm going to cut it into slices anyway I'm guessing nobody will notice.
You might have some trouble getting the paper of of the cheese.
Nah, I lined the inside with plastic-wrap so the paper and cheese were not in contact at any point. Seemed to work just fine.
Will making blue cheese slices with only sodium citrate not work? Is there an alternative recipe?
what the casein does and why we have to use 10 % on the recipe? and what is the function of the Sodium hexametaphosphate?
FYI I use very thin cutting mats widely available (and cheap) on amazon cut in half and rolled up instead of acetate. I had them sitting around anyway and hated using them for cutting (mine were terminally curled) but hadn't thrown them out yet. They want to uncurl more than acetate I would guess (I don't know how well tape would work to hold them together), but I have a stack of ring molds surrounding them and they work great. Just another option in case you don't want to source the acetate, or already have a thin plastic cutting mat laying around.
Does anyone have any general/practical advice on how to increase the "stretchiness/stringiness" of the cheese slices (or even thick cheese sauces) made with emulsifying salts? I've made several of these constructed cheeses, and none of them have really had much "stringiness" although "meltability" has always been just fine.
I read the paper linked in the geekery section here (several times), and a lot of it went over my head (no real chemistry background aaaand I'm dumb), but it seems to suggest that lowering the pH (I assume this means using a little less emulsifying salt) would help. There is an extremely good chance I am misinterpreting/oversimplifying, however..
Anybody have any thoughts/experiences? There are so many variables at work here, but I'm just looking for some general guidelines (if they exist) to simplify my troubleshooting process...
I have had amazing results with smoked cheddar (I cold smoke sharp cheddar for 6 hours in Mesquite every few weeks) using this recipe. That said, I want to try this with smoked Gouda. Before I start experimenting, has anyone done this with Gouda yet that could offer a good starting point?
Made my first Cheddar cheese and it was amazing, everyone loved it!
but wondering how long for it life span?
I would try to use it within one week. Although it could possibly last longer, once you start heating and cooling and blending and contaminating its hard to be absolutely sure.
I haven't done gouda specifically, but I would think it would be pretty similar to cheddar, maybe slightly softer?
I"ll post back here once I've had a run. I ended up making a few pounds of cheddar last night, and the wife has requested her swiss today. Hopefully this weekend I"ll give it a shot.
Can i speed up the cooling process and putting the in the freezer after a couple of hours in the fridge?
"300 ea Swiss"
I'm having problems sourcing Swiss without extensive traveling. Can I substitute Germans?
(I think you omitted some "g's")
Sorry for the late answer, but have you whatched the "How to cook like Heston (cheese ep.)" video on youtube? He makes the longest "stretchable" cheese. Hope it helps.
Excellent, I'll check it out. Thanks!!
what will the effect be on blue or chevre if i don't use the sodium caseinate?
Will Mexican - Queso Chihuahua work for this recipe technique? Thank you!
Burger bun and melty cheese costing - I wanted to ask a question regarding burger cost efficiencies on a commercial level. I want to have a banging burger and love the idea of making my own buns and melty cheeses but I’m wondering from a costing standpoint if when you take the labor costs into consideration along with the various ingredients whether it makes financial sense to go about doing things like this from scratch. I’ve been in the industry for years but more front of house and I don’t remember pricing figures from when I was back of house - and never really was looking at anything this specific. So, I’d love to hear what you guys have to say. Thanks in advance!
Hi, I would like to know what would be a good substitute for the sodium hexametaphosphate? Can I replace it with sodium triphosphate? Thanks
do you have any troubleshooting tips to where i might have gone wrong with the cheddar recipe? i followed it to a tee and it never really set in the fridge, when i tried cutting it was more like jello than hard cutable cheese, it kept falling apart. i ended up remelting it and using it as a nacho cheese dip instead, so not all lost.
The amounts for Swiss are in "ea" is that supposed to be grams?
After trying some of these my opinion is that the recipes are good and using a circulator bath works resulting in a good quality slice. But, there is far too much loss of cheese from retention in the bag used to melt the cheese and then in the VitaMix used to ensure emulsification at the end. This is particularly bothersome when using expensive cheese in the mix. I tried to do my best to remove as much residual cheese as possible but still had an unacceptable loss. I am going back to the single stove-top vessel method using a stick blender adding shredded cheese to the simmering milk/salt mixture. This has three advantages in my mind: 1) You assure that all of the salts are dissolved and mixed prior to the addition of cheese, 2) the stick blender gets everything emulsified quickly as the cheese melts, and 3) you can use a spatula to remove almost 100% of the cheese in the pot at the end with only a small amount of loss on the blender stick.
Downside to the stove-top method? less residual cheese to snack on while continuing to cook :-)
I would also like to know this.
I will NEVER try ANY of these recipes. The only reason is that you decided to use "melty" in the description. Shame on you. Seriously, I hate to read or hear this more than "moist." The idea that any of you would want to put something "melty" in your mouths makes me want to take a bath in a tilt kettle full of bleach.
Just stop it. Why can you people just be happy with the word "melted?"
The least you can do when you are joining on FREE classes over the internet is to keep your hateful feelings to yourself and jerk it of before you sleep at night. Who cares if they want to use the word "Melty", What if I tell you that I hate the name "Bill" and makes me want to squirm like a dirty worm in animal excretes. Why? because your comment is full of it. So keep your nasty feelings to yourself and leave this site quietly. Come back at me when you have something not rude.
Martin
I wouldn't worry about Bill as there is always one or two that show who they really are when they are anonymous. Besides, he might be too busy with his bleach bath. Or he's secretly making this MELTY cheese recipe.
Either way I, and vast majority, enjoy a lot of what ChefSteps show as the recipes are pretty concise albeit website navigation needs some help.
One, Bill has mouths. Two, please enjoy your bleach.
I would like to know this as well, since its hard to get in my area.
You could also use a quart size Mason jar in the sous vide bath, and then use a stick blender in that.
Moist & Melty. Moist & Melty. Moist & Melty. Moist & Melty. Moist & Melty. Moist & Melty. Moist & Melty. Moist & Melty. Moist & Melty. Moist & Melty. Moist & Melty. Moist & Melty. Moist & Melty. Moist & Melty. Moist & Melty. Moist & Melty. Moist & Melty. Moist & Melty. Moist & Melty. Moist & Melty. Moist & Melty. Moist & Melty. Moist & Melty. Moist & Melty. Moist & Melty. Moist & Melty. Moist & Melty. Moist & Melty. Moist & Melty. Moist & Melty. Moist & Melty. Moist & Melty. Moist & Melty. Moist & Melty. Moist & Melty. Moist & Melty. Moist & Melty. Moist & Melty. Moist & Melty. Moist & Melty. Moist & Melty. Moist & Melty. Moist & Melty. Moist & Melty. Moist & Melty. Moist & Melty. Moist & Melty. Moist & Melty. Moist & Melty. Moist & Melty. Moist & Melty. Moist & Melty. Moist & Melty. Moist & Melty. Moist & Melty. Moist & Melty. Moist & Melty. Moist & Melty. Moist & Melty. Moist & Melty. Moist & Melty. Moist & Melty. Moist & Melty. Moist & Melty. Moist & Melty. Moist & Melty. Moist & Melty.
Moist & Melty.
I could be wrong here, but I don't think strechy/stringy is something you can add to cheese; it has to come during the cheese making process. Mozzarella is almost kneaded during making it.
I don't think there is a big reason behind it. 167F is 75C, so I think it's kinda like setting your oven for 350; it's just a round number that a lot of things cook well at.
You can skip it and use extra sodium citrate. Just add 50% more sodium citrate andyou should be good. You can use the calculator here to formulate your own recipe using just sodium citrate. http://modernistcuisine.com/2012/10/melty-cheese/
this is an awesome idea- I bet you could get away with not using a mold if you're using a mason jar anyway!
melted is a verb, ex.: the cheese has melted
melty is an adjective. ex.: the cheese is melty
the reason is because in the english language, verbs are not interchangeable with adjectives. if you still have an issue with that, there are other languages where syntax and grammar differ significantly
Smart!
www.thefreedictionary.com/melty
Bill apparently has some severe issues...
Have either of you tried the mason jar idea yet? Any challenges?
I tired this out last night with the chevre. A wide mouth, quart jar is just the right size for this recipe. I did measure, cook, and immersion blend in the same jar. There was significantly less cheese lost this way.
For presentation sake, and for ease for eating later, I poured the finished cheese into mini 4 ounce mason jars. They look kind of like candles But they taste great and it is convenient to melt in its own jar as needed.
Be forewarned that this will not always give the exact same results as use of SHMP, and your final cheese will have a distinct tanginess to it, which you may or may not enjoy.
