Kefir cheese and cracking as it dries

[bernardsmith]

Quick question. I am making a block of kefir cheese and had it under pressure for 3 days. it's now air drying (our apt is hot - we have no control over the temperature in winter because this is a high rise). The cheese is cracking as it dries. Does anyone who has experience with hard cheeses know why it might crack and what I need to do in the future to prevent this. Not going to be a huge problem for this block as I was not intending to "age" this cheese more than about a week but cosmetically, it would like much better if it did not have these cracks. BUT, insofar as the cracks are appearing does this point to an underlying problem that I need to address next time? Thanks.

 

[shelly_belly]

Cracks form when the cheese dries too fast. It's usually a result of low humidity. Try raising the humidity by putting a colander over the cheese or even a cardboard box with a few small holes in it for air exchange. Some small cracks can be repaired by wrapping the cheese in damp cheesecloth and changing the cloth as it dries.

 

[bernardsmith]

aha - drying too quickly. Makes some sense . My room temperature was around 60 but the humidity may have been low.

 

[AlexZH]

Hi Bernard, I’d love to know your cheese making process from milk kefir! How much pressure do you add? How large are the wheels and do you use cheese plates? If you have a photo of the finished results I’d love to know! I wonder why hard cheese from kefir isn’t well documented.

 

[bernardsmith]

I make all my cheeses using kefir made from grains to culture the milk. Never buy freeze dried cultures, but that means that between times I need to feed the grains, but I am not a fan of kefir as a food, so I collect about a gallon of kefir every couple of weeks (I need only about a half cup of kefir to culture a gallon of milk).
I allow this to drain over about 24 hours through quality cheese cloth and then I place that bundle under about 4 lbs of pressure for about 8- 12 hours. I then double the pressure for another 8- 12 hours. I then salt and herb the cheese and then scoop this into a mold. The cheese is then pressed under 16 lbs for about 4 hours, then 30 lbs for about 8, then about 45 lbs for 8 and then about 60 lbs for another 24 hours. I then release the cheese and allow it to air dry for two or three days at room temperature (The cheese I make in my basement which is about 60 F. Room temp in my kitchen is about 68 during the day and 60 overnight).
This is the only shot I have. You can see, I think, that it is quite crumbly, and not smooth like cheddar. The thing is that the kefir is quite acidic and the cheese has no added rennet because I cannot obtain any break - clean or otherwise, so the wheel is formed only through pressure. Others may have a different process.