Word of the Day

It has been well documented that, as an avid fan of Dictionary.com's Smartyphone app, I take great joy in learning new words and astounding my friends and family with unfamiliar vocabulary when they least expect it. I despaired, however, of accessing my Word of the Day while I was in sunny Massachusetts, because (as I have lamented elsewhere) my Smartyphone was more or less down for the duration of the weekend. I need not have worried, however: the arcane art of fromage fabrication has a cabalistic lingo all its own, rendering my app-lessness less onerous than I had feared. Despite my information blackout, I was mightily gratified to have a new word introduced to me first thing on Saturday morning.

That word was flocculation.

Have you ever heard anything more fabulous in all the world? My day was already complete and it was not yet 10:00 am! But since context is everything, you must wait a bit before hearing of flocculation's relevance to the casaro's craft. First, I must take you down down down into the cheese-meister's basement for some serious cheddaring.

Jim was already heating up the day's milk when we arrived, so we were presented with his setup au fait au complet. I was struck by how it was at the same time very similar to and yet quite different from my own domestic mozzarella manufacturing model and pondered its implications for my own future efforts.

First, Jim's cheese pots were the size of, like, those huge vats in which they used to boil whale blubber. I reasoned that for my own much-smaller two-gallon batches, I could make do with the wide variety of spaghetti pots and jam pans that live on top of my refrigerator. I also noticed that Jim's setup included a water bath. My own cheesemaking to date has been accomplished in a pot set directly on my front-left Wolf burner, but I instantly saw the wisdom of this arrangement for consistent, gradual heating. I can probably jury-rig a similar setup with my own resources, but if not - well - I view a trip to the restaurant store as a treat to be savored rather than a chore to be endured.

What was brewing in the pot? No less than six gallons of raw milk and an appropriate dose of mesophilic culture. I subsequently heard a lot about mesophilic and their high-temperature counterparts, thermophilic cultures, over the weekend, but this early in the game I was as yet uninitiated to their wheys (get it?). Turns out, mesophilics such as those used for cheddar-making are happiest and hungriest at a temperature of 86 deg F (not so coincidentally, the same temperature at which the milk had been sitting for the better part of 90 minutes). This meant that the milk was ripening as it sat in its bath: the bacteria were already getting to work breaking down the casein proteins whilst converting all that evil lactose into lovely, flavorful acids that would also help the rennet to do its job. While it didn't seem that much was going on in the pot, it is during this stage that a good deal of a cheese's final character is determined.

Speaking of rennet, after the 90 ripening-minutes were up that went into the pot, too. Subsequently, the process started looking a lot like mozzarella-making, although I was beginning to suspect this was an optical delusion - or at least, deceptive to the untrained eye. We were now embarking upon the coagulation process, whereby the protein, calcium and butterfat-containing curds are disentangled from the milky and lactosey whey. Remember when I decided that I could still eat the cheese in our fridge because Harold McGee promised me it was lactose-free? The man wasn't lying: all the lactose is either digested or gets left behind during curd formation.

Coagulation has two distinct aspects, the enzymatic phase (which happens first) and the physical phase (which happens next). In the enzymatic phase, the water in the milk is re-trained to repel proteins, thus throwing them out of suspension - much like a bouncer ejecting an unruly patron from a trendy bar. Perhaps it is fitting that this phase is also known as the famous flocculation phase. I just looked it up: flocculation is a synonym for precipitate - but isn't it much more fun to say?

Anyway, you check that your flocculation is proceeding apace by dropping a blob of milk into a glass of water and waiting for a little mass to form - a process not dissimilar to (though chemically distinct from) the soft ball test in candy making. The first time Jim tried, flocculation had clearly not been achieved, a sad fact reflected by the milky cloud that floated and dissolved in his glass. The second time he tried it, a few minutes later, we had curdage! I didn't get a picture, as I was looking the other way at the time. I trust that it actually happened, though, given the events that followed.

Next up came the physical, or hardening, phase of the coagulation process. This is the part during mozzarella-making that I call wait and see, when I put the lid on the pot for 20 minutes and go off to check my e-mail or make myself a cup of regenerating Earl Grey. On Saturday, we took the opportunity to engage in a lively political discussion about raw milk.

It had never previously occurred to me that I was particularly unusual in having access to two different raw milk dairies (Jerseys at one, Holsteins at the other), each selling their wares on the open market, proud, resolute, and unashamed, for $6 per glorious gallon. I took the situation for granted: indeed, access to the real McCoy is one of the factors that made cheese-making so straightforward an enterprise to begin with. I discovered during that wait-and-see conversation what a lucky, lucky girl I am - not just to live near two such worthy establishments, but in the great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania itself (who'd have thought it?).

Turns out, we are one of the few states where raw milk has not been banned by the Evil Minions of Agribusiness, who are doing their best to ensure that the only milk to which the public has access has been ultra-pasteurized to a gazillion degrees F. Why we Pennsylvanians should be so fortunate is a matter deserving of future research, but I am relieved to report that I currently don't have to hang around dangerous streetcorners at night (as some of my colleagues are forced to do), gallon pails in hand, whispering furtively to dark-cloaked strangers, 'Pssst. Buddy. Got any raw milk?'

But Jim's basement is a happy, happy place and soon we were able to shake off our despair and rejoin the fun. We tested that sufficient coagulationisity had been achieved by performing the cut test - another relic from my mozzarella-making, but one which Jim performed with much more flair and elan. The trick, apparently, is to let the curd break itself apart merely through the disruption of its surface tension. The knife is the instigator, rather than the perpetrator of the cut. It was pretty cool and I shall be working to perfect this technique in my own practice. Since the cut was deemed adequate for our needs (the curd broke cleanly, the cut grew under its own steam and promptly filled with milky whey) a further few slices with the knife were executed and - hey presto! - the sorts of tofu-like cubes with which I am familiar.

At this point, it became necessary to make like Miss Muffet and separate our curds from our whey. This was achieved through more slicing (with a fearsome implement called a cheese harp), plus more stirring and heating (again, in a process reminiscent of my mozzarella experiences). While the heat in the pot was slowly brought up to 102 deg F, the curds were kept in constant motion through the insistent application of a humongous stirring spoon. This agitation encouraged the curds to give up their moisture whilst simultaneously inhibiting their clumping tendencies. Since the heat must be applied slowly (two deg F every five minutes) and the stirring kept gentle, the overall process was a stately and dignified one, taking almost an hour in total. 

When it was done, Jim checked the readiness of the curds in a variety of interesting ways. First, he scooped out a handful from the pot and checked their 'break': that is, after he'd squeezed them together he judged how easily they came apart again under the pressure of his thumb (rather like those SEALS whose opposable digit serves as a lethal weapon). The only hard and fast rule about the break is that its desired difficulty is directly related to the anticipated age of the final product: the longer you want to age your cheese, the drier it should be at this point - hence, you want to be required to put some effort into your break.

The second assessment was a visual one. The curds looked a lot like fluffy popcorn, which was extremely pleasing for all concerned. They were firm but not rubbery, although they did bounce around on the basement floor in an impish manner.

And although an expert like Jim often eschews an additional step in favor of the judgement brought about by long experience, one could also test the curds' pH at this juncture to make sure they are sufficiently acidified. One of the main characteristics of cheddar - that contributes to its cheddariness, if you will - is that all of its acidulation has occured before it goes into the mold and gets the living daylights squished out of it. At this point, a food-safe pH reader (I shall be liberating one from the lab when the Boss isn't looking) should read 6.1.

To finish the acidification of our curds, we cheddared them. Yes, it's an actual verb and another new word for the day, although my app denies it. The purpose of this crucial step is to separate completely the whey from the curds before they are molded - again, the drier the curd, the longer they may percolate in their cave (a principle in direct opposition to that of my age-defying Clarins night cream, as it so happens). Jim drained the curds into a cheesecloth-lined washtub (saving the whey for a mysterious future purpose), patted them into a big square pancake, and let them sit (draining quietly) - at an ambient temperature of 100 deg F achieved through two accompanying bowls of hot water and a lid. After a bit he unwrapped the pancake, cut it into two pieces, piled one atop t'other, and returned them to their sauna so the cheddarization could run its course.

Since the cheese was getting a much-deserved opportunity to rest, we decided we should too and adjourned for lunch, satisfied that we had done enough damage for one morning.

Next up: it is revealed that properly-cheddared curds looked exactly liked cooked, shredded chicken breasts and we discover that you can make tangy cultured butter (the kind that costs beaucoup Euros) from the drained whey.