July 5th, More Swiss and Spressa

I started the weekend with 10 gallons of milk, yesterday I made a small batch of Swiss. Today, I  used the rest to make even more Swiss and something new called Spessa.

Spressa is an Italian cheese that dates back to 1249 AD. It is fairly simple as its ingredients are milk, culture and rennet. Spressa can be made with Thermophic culture,  3% yogurt or even day old whey.

The basics of the recipe are  heat the milk to 70, add culture, continue heat to 95. At 95 add rennet.  Wait for clean break and Quickly cut curd to rice size pieces.  Quickly stir curds and heat slowly to 108 (3 minutes per degree). Let the curds fully ripen, that is they will shrink try to stick together. Press for 12 hours. Brine in 20% solution. Age for a 2-12 months wipe with brine as needed.

Aging of Swiss:

• cold age July 5 – july 20
• warm age July 20 –