Caciotta recipe
It's aged from 20 days up to 3-4 months. The technique used results a softer cheese that is slightly sour and buttery in taste. With longer ageing, the cheese can get firmer and stronger in flavour. Just like gomolya it can be seasoned, although this is less popular among cheesemakers.
Even though it doesn't require any complicated tools, preparations, the cheese incredible. You can make it in smaller or bigger basket patterned mould, or any mould that you like. I can only recommend try this cheese. Beginner, or pro, I'm sure you will like the fruit of your labour. :D
My favourite version: white mould Caciotta recipe:
INGREDIENTS:
- 20 litres of raw cow milk
- 1 capsule pasta filata and 1 capsule camembert culture for every 20 litres of milk
- 5 ml natural rennet for 20 litres of milk
- small, or big basket patterned mould
- A curd knife, or any large knife
1. CULTURING:
Dissolve the cultures in some water and add it to the milk at 29°C, stir it well.
Slowly heat the milk to 39 °C.
Let the culture come to life for 15-20 minutes.
2. COAGULATION:
At 39 °C mix in the rennet, then stop the milk from moving, so it can coagulate evenly.
Cover your pot with a lid during this process.
The milk will start to firm up after 10-15 minutes, but let it coagulate for another 30 minutes, so it's nice and solid.
3. CUTTING THE CURD:
Check with your palm, if the coagulum is firm enough.
If it is, cut it to 3-4 cm curds.
I use a curd knife to cut it, under 8-10 minutes.
This is a test of patience, but it's worth it, because it results in a better texture, than doing it with a harp.
Cover it, and let the curds rest for 10 minutes.
Cut them further to even 1,5-2 cm in size. This one you can do both with a curd knife or a cheese harp.
An other 5 minute rest is the next step.
4. COOKING THE CURDS:
Heat the mixture to 42 °C, fast, under 5 minutes. Constantly stir the curds while doing it is coming up to temperature, so they release more whey.
5. RELEASING MORE WHEY:
Stir for another 10 minutes without heating.
6. SHAPING:
Use the mould you like, but I use basket patterned caciotta mould. It creates a beautiful surface. Scoop the curds into the mould with plenty of whey, after 10 minutes flip the cheese. At this point the cheese is very soft so do it very carefully. You can choose to either press or not. Since I like its softer texture, I don't use any weight, I let the cheese compress under its own weight.
Flip the cheese systematically, so the whey can release evenly. Flip after: 20 minutes, 30 minutes, 60 minutes, 120 minutes, and so forth 5-6 times all together.
If the cheese sours too fast, it will be too crumbly, if too slow, it can oversour. Poke the cheese with your finger, if it's bouncy, elastic, than it's pH should good (5,2-5,3), this takes 4-5 hours in 20-23°C.
The cheese is ready for salting.
7. SALTING:
Make a brine:
Add 200 g of iodine free salt / 1 litre of 15-16°C water. Soak the cheese 6-8 hours for every kilo. Halfway through flip it.
OR salt it while dry: for 3 days rub fine salt on the surface of the cheese.
8. DRYING:
For 1-2 days let the surface dry.
9. AGEING:
The cheese should be flipped every day. Since we added camembert culture to the cheese, the ageing process should be very interesting. The camembert and geotrichum in the culture will start to develop on the surface of the cheese, if the environment is humid enough. Ageing it in a box ensures the perfect humidity, and protects against unwanted moulds.
Wipe the condensed water from the walls of the ageing box, because dripping water harms the cheese.
The optimal ageing environment is 14-15 °C, 80-85% humidity.
Ageing time: 20-30-40 days, depending on the cheeses size, but it can be3 aged even further.
Decreasing the temperature will increase the ripening time.
HAPPY CHEESEMAKING! :D
