Monday 24 January 2011
Saturday 22 January 2011
Goat/Cow #2 lactic cheese
Today I'm going to make some goat cheese without using any geotrichum candidum or penicillin candidum. This batch is going to be left for 2 months to develop a more natural rind. I could only buy 3 litters of goat milk so I added some organic store bought milk to make it up to 1 gallon. Due to the milk being pasteurised I added 1/8 tsp of M400 culture, 1/8 tsp calcium chloride and 1/8 tsp of lipase. I'm not sure if I'm using lipase correctly, I was told to use it in hard cheese if using store pasteurised milk? Lipase is an enzyme that adds flavour but is damaged during pasteurisation Once everything is added to the 1 gallon on milk I leave for 10 minutes to ripen before adding 1 drop of rennet. This cheese is a lactic cheese so it should take around 24-36 hours to coagulate at 21c.
After 24 hours the curds were ready to cut. I scooped then thinly into a cheese cloth and let it hang overnight. I wanted to get this dry so I could hand role them into little balls. I left one as it was. The other 4 I sprayed with Geo Candidum and dry salted. The remaining 3 I just dry salted.
First 4 cheese were sprayed in geotrichum candidum + dry salted. The 3 on the right were just dry salted and 1 was left as it was.
Rinds
Natural Rinds are very difficult to maintain as there is always food on the rind for microbes to feed off. Inoculating the cheese before pressing will help promote that particular bacteria that will hopefully dominate the cheese and protect it against unwanted bacteria.One example is Geotrichum candidum mixed with a liquid such as brine, brandy, wine, beer or even oil. This can also be inoculated into the cheese curds, added to brine or used as a wash.
After 24 hours the curds were ready to cut. I scooped then thinly into a cheese cloth and let it hang overnight. I wanted to get this dry so I could hand role them into little balls. I left one as it was. The other 4 I sprayed with Geo Candidum and dry salted. The remaining 3 I just dry salted.
After 24 hours the curds were around ph 4.5
After 24 hours of draining + 1kg pressing the curds were ready to role.
First 4 cheese were sprayed in geotrichum candidum + dry salted. The 3 on the right were just dry salted and 1 was left as it was.
Rinds
Natural Rinds are very difficult to maintain as there is always food on the rind for microbes to feed off. Inoculating the cheese before pressing will help promote that particular bacteria that will hopefully dominate the cheese and protect it against unwanted bacteria.One example is Geotrichum candidum mixed with a liquid such as brine, brandy, wine, beer or even oil. This can also be inoculated into the cheese curds, added to brine or used as a wash.
Wednesday 19 January 2011
Limburger test A - Final Result r.i.p,
Unfortunately Limburger Test A got binned. It took a small fall that caused a large crack down the middle. It was only noticed after a few days but I decided to get rid of it due to contamination. May it have a happy afterlife in cheese heaven...
Mystery cow cheese...
This is one of my first breakthrough cheese. Unfortunately I cant remember the exact recipe but what I do know is it was make from raw cow milk, I used M400 starter and its around roughly 8 weeks old! It still has a slight spicy after taste which I'm currently trying to find what causing it. But the overall texture and taste was great.. I feel that I'm starting to get somewhere finally.
Limburger test B - Final Result
As you can see these cheeses don't resemble Limburger! These were based on a Limburger recipe but turned into more washed rind 'epoisses' style cheeses as part of an experiment. After tasting them I wasn't too impressed. They each had a slight difference in taste but it wasn't great. Most of this style of cheese I have made is starting to taste they same and I need to work out why. I was hoping the smoked paprika would give it a slight smokey taste but this wasn't the case. The brandy wash didnt really seem to give it that 'meaty' taste liek an epoisses. From now on Im going to just stick to one recipe instead of jumping ahead.
Limburger test C - Final Result
As you can see this is does not resemble a Limburger. Its interesting to see that a light pressing gave the final cheese quite a thick rind and soft pate. The overall taste had a good balance with a light nutty taste.
This
This
Tuesday 18 January 2011
Goat #1 48 hours after pressing
Once most of the whey had drained I salted the top and left overnight, turned and salted the other side. This helps expel the rest if the whey and flavour the cheese. After 48 hours I moved them to the cheese cave (old fridge) and left at around 7C for a number of weeks. I'm aiming for a mature goat cheese so I'm going to leave them for around 6 weeks.
I read on a blog by a Brooklyn based cheese-maker that charcoal could be used as a supplement of ash coated goat cheese. I used willow charcoal which I will ask is ok to use. Ash acts as a neutraliser for goats cheese.
I read on a blog by a Brooklyn based cheese-maker that charcoal could be used as a supplement of ash coated goat cheese. I used willow charcoal which I will ask is ok to use. Ash acts as a neutraliser for goats cheese.
After just a few days you can see the penicillin appearing on the cheese.
Below you can see the penicillin appearing on the ash cheese
Curd Washing?
After curd formation, the curds are cut and after resting for a few minutes gently stirred as the cut curds are fragile.
Once a sufficient amount of whey is released, curd washing occurs by removing whey equivalent to 25-30% of the original milk volume, adding a similar volume of hot water bringing the curds up to a mild scalding 36C as above normally harms mesophilic cultures, and then stirring more vigorously for 30 minutes to wash the curds and avoid curd fusion. The hot wash water should be added carefully over the whole vat to avoid any local overheating. This washing provides two effects, the dilution of the whey reduces the lactose content of the curds and thereby controls the amount of lactic acid created and thus the final pH of the cheese. In addition the mild scalding enhances syneresis reducing the water content of the curd. During washing stirring is intensified which also aids syneresis. The overall cheese is usually sweeter.
Monday 17 January 2011
Gouda number 1
I found this recipe in my Making Artisan Cheese book. It wasn't until after I started I read that a good Gouda takes a minimum of 8 months to mature. Oh well, might as well get it started now and my aim this year was to make a variety of cheeses. I'll get the hard cheeses out of the way over the next 2 months and venture down the washed rinds in march.
I start off by warming about 1.8 gallon of milk to 32c. Half the milk was raw unhomogenised and the other half was store bought pasteurised milk. 1/5 tsp M400 culture was added and left to ripen for 20 minutes. As half of this was pasteurised I added 1/8 tsp of calcium chloride and 1/8 lipase (sharp). Once everything was stirred into the milk I added just 3/4 tsp of liquid animal rennet and let it stand for about an hour. I made a slight mistake here, whether it will make any different I am unsure. Throughout ripening and coagulation it's meant to be maintained at 32c. I accidentally increased this to 37, I'm hoping this didn't kill my starter? After an hour the curds were cut to about 1cm and stirred to prevent matting.
I then let it rest for a minute and drained off 1/3 of the whey and then adding a few cups of warm water to bring the temperature to 33c. This technique is called washing the curds. It slows down acidification resulting in a higher PH curd which gives a slightly sweeter flavor to the cheese. I continued to stir for 10 minutes to help expel the whey and then finally let it rest for 10 minutes. By now the curds have sunk and the whey is drained out to the level of the curds. I then added 75c water to it which raised the curd temperature to around 38. I then stirred continuously for another 15 minutes before leaving it to stand for 30 minutes.
During this time I preprepared my cloth and press. The curds were then placed in the mould and pressed at around 20lb for 30 minutes, turned and pressed again over night at the same pressure. The next morning the cheese was re-wrapped and pressed fro another 12 hours at 20lb. I kept the whey for the brine and salted it 1 to 5. After 8 hours I took it out and placed in my cheese cave which is usually around 8c, a little too cool but its all I have at the moment. This may slow down the maturing process so Ill probably be seeing this cheese later on in the summer! For now ill give it a swash ever few days in brine..
I start off by warming about 1.8 gallon of milk to 32c. Half the milk was raw unhomogenised and the other half was store bought pasteurised milk. 1/5 tsp M400 culture was added and left to ripen for 20 minutes. As half of this was pasteurised I added 1/8 tsp of calcium chloride and 1/8 lipase (sharp). Once everything was stirred into the milk I added just 3/4 tsp of liquid animal rennet and let it stand for about an hour. I made a slight mistake here, whether it will make any different I am unsure. Throughout ripening and coagulation it's meant to be maintained at 32c. I accidentally increased this to 37, I'm hoping this didn't kill my starter? After an hour the curds were cut to about 1cm and stirred to prevent matting.
I then let it rest for a minute and drained off 1/3 of the whey and then adding a few cups of warm water to bring the temperature to 33c. This technique is called washing the curds. It slows down acidification resulting in a higher PH curd which gives a slightly sweeter flavor to the cheese. I continued to stir for 10 minutes to help expel the whey and then finally let it rest for 10 minutes. By now the curds have sunk and the whey is drained out to the level of the curds. I then added 75c water to it which raised the curd temperature to around 38. I then stirred continuously for another 15 minutes before leaving it to stand for 30 minutes.
During this time I preprepared my cloth and press. The curds were then placed in the mould and pressed at around 20lb for 30 minutes, turned and pressed again over night at the same pressure. The next morning the cheese was re-wrapped and pressed fro another 12 hours at 20lb. I kept the whey for the brine and salted it 1 to 5. After 8 hours I took it out and placed in my cheese cave which is usually around 8c, a little too cool but its all I have at the moment. This may slow down the maturing process so Ill probably be seeing this cheese later on in the summer! For now ill give it a swash ever few days in brine..
Sunday 16 January 2011
Gruyere
I have tried gruyere before without success, I think the main reason was poor quality milk and the lack of propionic shermanii powder. This time round I'm equipped with some good quality raw Guernsey milk from hurdlebrook farm and shermanii powder. To start with I warmed my 1.5 gallon of milk to 33c and added a sachet of thermophil, this is meant for emmantal but I'm hoping it will do the job! After 10 minutes I added 3/4 spoon of shermanii powder and also 1/8 tsp of lipase (sharp) I shouldn't really need this but I added some pasteurised store milk to bulk out the expensive raw milk. I then left this for another 10 minutes before adding just under 1/2 tsp of liquid animal rennet. The aim is to get a good cut around 40 minutes after adding the rennet. It ended up taking around 1 hour before the curds were ready to cut. After doing so I stured them for 15 minutes and then used a balloon whisk to cut the curds gently into smaller pieces. As I did this I raised the temperature to 48c over 40 minuted. By now a great deal of whey had been expelled due to the size of each curd and the temperature.
Below you can see the different staged of shrinkage during cooking for 40 minutes raising the temperature from 32c to 48c.
They were then pressed at 20lb for 20 minutes. Rewrtapped and pressed at 30lb for 2 hours. I then pressed it over night at 50 lb. The resulting cheese was smaller that teh usual Gouda and also very firm. The wheel was then left in a 20% brine for 8 hours and placed in teh cave. Over the next few weeks Ill wash the wheel with a light salted brine and then store for a minimum time of 6 months at 7c.
Below you can see the different staged of shrinkage during cooking for 40 minutes raising the temperature from 32c to 48c.
They were then pressed at 20lb for 20 minutes. Rewrtapped and pressed at 30lb for 2 hours. I then pressed it over night at 50 lb. The resulting cheese was smaller that teh usual Gouda and also very firm. The wheel was then left in a 20% brine for 8 hours and placed in teh cave. Over the next few weeks Ill wash the wheel with a light salted brine and then store for a minimum time of 6 months at 7c.
Saturday 15 January 2011
Goat cheese #1
I'm going to base this goat cheese on a Crottin recipe from my Making Artisan Cheese book. I don't have any Flora Danica starter, can't seem to get hold of it in the UK so I'm going to use some MA400 instead. So, step 1 is to start the process of coagulation. I start if warming 6 liters of store bought goats milk. I'd rather use raw but there aren't too many goats in London. Once the temperature hits 22c I add 1/4 tsp of M400 and leave to ripen for 20 minutes. As this is pasteurized milk I now add 1/4 tsp of calcium chloride and leave for 5 minutes. I usually dissolve in half a cup of spring water. Its now time to add 1/4 tsp Penicillin Candidum and a pinch of Geotrichum Candidum, instead of a pinch I added 1/4 tsp which may have been too much? I decided to add 1/4 tsp Lipase, this is an enzyme found in raw milk which helps with flavor. Once added I stir gently being careful not to break the surface and add 1/4 tsp liquid animal rennet diluted in half a cup if water. The temperature is meant to maintain 22c but I accidentally heated to 24.5c. This may speed up coagulation time so I will keep an eye on tonight as this should take a minimum of 18 hours to coagulate. I'll know when it's ready when I get a nice clean break in the curds.
Stage 1: 6 l
Stage 1: 6 l
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