I have recently got into making quite "hard" yogurt. When something goes slightly wrong and it separates a little much I strain it into a young soft crumbly cheese that tastes like Philadelphia soft cheese, but a bit more sour.
Three times when things have gone really wrong I have ended up with a curd that was stringy/rubbery. Straining this ended up with a cheese that was mostly soft and crumbly like normal and but a certain amount that was firm and rubbery, with a somewhat different taste that is like no cheese I can think of.
What did I make? Is there a procedure to reliably make this sort of cheese?
My usual procedure for yogurt:
- 2l Pasteurised Skimmed Milk
- Microwaved for 21 mins at full (which rises the temperature to above 83 C but does not boil) left for ~ 2 hours to cool down to about body temperature
- Add 25g - 75g skimmed milk powder
- Add 10 - 50 ml commercial yogurt
- Put in yogurt maker, set for 17 hours at 42 C
- Remove from yogurt maker after 15 - 30 hours
- If still warm, put in bowl of water
- Put in fridge for hours to days
The main thing I did wrong to get "hard" cheese seems to be related to some some fermentation before the yogurt maker:
- Two times I started with milk that is about 2 weeks past its best before date. It had separated somewhat, such that I could remove about 15% of the volume before I started with a turkey baster
- The third time I left the cheese for about a day (possibly more) after microwaving but before the yogurt maker. This resulted in only a small amount of the rubbery cheese.
It may be worth noting the one time that resulted in about 50% rubbery cheese I think I boiled the milk in the microwave in an attempt to maximise the proportion of the preexisting culture that was killed.
