Why are my cheese curds not well-knitted after pressing?
I've made several cheeses at home following a cheddar recipe. After I've aged the cheeses and cut them open, I'm usually finding that the cheese has a somewhat spongy, open texture with small visible holes in it, similar to provolone:
This is in place of the denser, solid texture that I expect from cheddar:
The taste of the cheese is quite good, but I can't figure out why the texture isn't turning out as expected. What am I doing wrong?
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Try more pressure and a bit less salt.
My guess is that less salt will mean more moisture is retained, which might make the curds fuse together more completely.
Several possible reasons...but without seeing the recipe, your make notes, pH markers it is rather hard to say.
However, I would say that most likely would be too much moisture left in curds due to:
initial curds cut too large
too much rennet, meaning that more moisture was locked into the curd, resulting in the cut being made later than it should be (did you use the flocculation method to determine when to cut the curd?)
pH was too high at various periods during your make, resulting in a "sweeter" curd
too much time between addition of rennet and the cut of the curd (see 2...related)
lack of or insufficient cooking of the curds prior to cheddaring, resulting in too much whey (moisture) left in the curds.
insufficient salting
insufficient pressing (unlikely, since the previous 6 control moisture much more than the pressing)
Any, some or all of the above.
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