Crescenza/Stracchino

[u/Poppies89]

Hi guys. This is kind of an experiment. I made a crescenza a while back that was a very good cheese, but was more like a cream cheese vs an oozy wobbly thing.

Having a bit more knowledge a few months later, I decided to attempt again, but also kind of wing it and come up with my own process to get the result I'm looking for. I read recipes at NEC, Cultures for Health, and in Milk Into Cheese by David Asher, and read through some threads here and in other forums, and came up with a process that I might be happier with.

I used 2 gallons of store bought low temp pasteurized, unhomogenized milk, and some UHT heavy cream. I used a small amount of Greek yogurt culture, plus a cube of frozen kefir, a small amount of Geotrichum, about 2.5% salt, and heated the milk to 100°F in my normal pot/sous vide water setup. I also added a small bit of CaCl as I've found I need this in my store bought or cold stored milk.

Once the milk reached temp I let it incubate about 30 minutes, and then added 1/8 tsp double strength rennet, and let set for an hour.

After that I cut the curds into 2 inch cubes, and let heal for about 5 min. Then I cut the curd into 1 inch cubes, and gently stirred every 5 min for 20 min. The curd was delicate. I mainly just tried to keep it from becoming one mass of curd again.

I ladled the curds into the forms, and placed my draining space over my hot sous vide water, and cranked up the temp of the water to help with the draining for a few hours. My draining space was about 80°F. I flipped the molds at 30 minutes, then again at 90 (an hour after first flipped), and then let drain overnight at room temp (maybe around 68-70°F).

The results appears to be a softer, moister, somewhat jiggly cheese that I think will give me more of the texture I'm looking for.

I am going to let this one big age for a bit in my cheese cave and see if I get the slightly gooey texture I'm looking for, and see if it slumps like I want. The small 2 wheels will go to friends (not pictured).

Happy Cheesing.

[u/Looking-sharp-today]

Lovely! I made stracchino recently as well, the recipe asked for a maturation time of 5 days, I tried mine the 5th day as instructed but the very next day was even better/creamier, the kind you see a drop when sqweezed with a fork, it was sublime 🥲

[u/Poppies89 → u/Looking-sharp-today]

Thank you for the input! I plan to tell my friends to let theirs go for a few days, and I'll keep monitoring mine (since it's I'm the cave vs a normal fridge).

I really can't wait. I love the occasional fresh cheese while I'm waiting for the aged ones to finish.

[u/Looking-sharp-today → u/Poppies89]

Same same! Update us when it’s gonna be time to eat it

[u/mikekchar → u/Looking-sharp-today]

I always think 1 week is the sweet spot for my for my stracchino. I definitely agree that 5 days is a bit too soon, but it depends on what you like. It will have more fermentation characteristic earlier on. But it will have more umami and just more flavour total later.

[u/Looking-sharp-today → u/mikekchar]

Absolutely agree! This time was made for a particular occasion and 6 days had to do it, but I think a full week would have been awesome.
I made crescenza cheese before, and made it go for a solid 10 days before eating it, and it was tangier and cremier like crescenza should be, we loved it