Little Green Cheese

Mozzarella Video Tutorial

2012-05-12T00:51:00.000+10:00

Curd Nerds rejoice! I have made another cheese video tutorial.

It has been a while since I put a cheese-making video together, so as I was making mozzarella on last night for pizzas in the Cob oven tonight, I thought I should document it. It took just over 45 minutes to make due to filming every step, but it worked out well.

If you would like the full recipe, then visit my post titled "30 Minute Mozzarella". It is so easy to make, and tastes delicious! Mozzarella is a great cheese to start with if you are thinking about embarking on the wonderful world of cheese-making.

Mozzarella Workshop #5

2012-04-29T21:01:00.000+10:00

Today, I taught my fifth cheese making workshop, which was basically a repeat of last weeks workshop that I held in my undercover area that I wrote about on my main blog.

There were four students, all who wanted a repeat go at making 30 minute mozzarella, because last week, all they ended up with was ricotta instead of the magic cheese they were promised.

Anyway, here is the set up.

Students tables, all neat and tidy, with a gas camp stove each to heat their milk.

This is my table where I hold all the ingredients and measure everything out for them. I find that is better this way, so they don't have to worry too much about what to add. They follow the procedure on their recipe sheets, and I explain what each ingredient does to the milk and what its purpose is. You can find the recipe and the method at my post titled "30 Minute Mozzarella".

Two of the ladies stirring their milk having a good time.

Here is one of the pots with the milk after the rennet has been added.

Finally, after we had cut, drained and heated the curds, it was time to stretch the cheese. This is the best part. Each student then formed the cheese into balls and dipped them in iced water to set.

After a taste test, they did all the washing up, which was nice of them. Here is the finished product.

By using lipase and the organic milk, I have hit upon a winner which is quick and simple to make. The taste is creamy and subtle the first day, with the full flavour developing on the second. It lasts for about a week in the fridge, but often due to demand only lasts a few days at most, once the hungry hordes get hold of this sweet tasting cheese.

For those in the Melbourne area I am teaching another mozzarella workshop this Saturday at Spotswood Community House. Details below if you would like to join me.

Cheese Making Workshop
In this 3 hour workshop learn the basics of making your own mozzarella from organic milk and non animal rennet.
Date: Saturday 5th May
Time: 10:00 am to 1:00 pm
Cost: $50
Please phone 9391 2613 to reserve your place.

If any readers are interested then please call the number above at the Spotswood Community House, but remember places are limited.

Until next time... keep keen curd nerds!

Cheese Facts

2012-04-20T20:03:00.000+10:00

Just love this poster!

A Bit Like Feta

2012-04-01T20:34:00.002+10:00

Feta style cheese is so easy to make, and only needs 4 litres of milk instead of the normal 8 that I use for a harder type cheese. With minimal stirring after cutting the curd, and a pressing of only 4 hours, what is not to like about this cheese. Here is a batch that I made last week.

I don't use a normal press, with this two litre milk bottle filled with water serving as the weight. It doesn't need much pressure to form the block. The curds starts off in both moulds, then at the two hour mark, they have shrunk enough for me to squish them together in a single mould forming one block. If you look closely you can see the join line.

Once pressed, I make up a strong brine by adding half a cup of salt to two litres of the left over whey, and a quarter of a cup of white vinegar. This was the first time that I had used the whey as the base for the brine, and found that it worked very well and it improved the final flavour of the cheese.

I let is soak in the brine for two days before cutting it in half, and storing it in two smaller containers that fit in the fridge. I use the same brine to keep the divided cheese moist.

The finished product is a firm, crumbly, yet creamy feta that can be stored for at least 6 months in this manner. It is great crumbled on top of pizza or cubed into a Greek salad with lots of home preserved black olives!

It is just so simple to make and took me 3 hours from start to press, then about 15 minutes with the brine and putting it in the fridge to mature. If you want the full recipe, check out this post titled "Feta - Video tutorial". Enjoy.

Romano - The Verdict

2012-03-05T01:00:00.000+11:00

I made a Romano cheese in January 2011, which has been aged for a 13 months in my little cheese fridge/cave.

This cheese was due to be taste tested in October 2011 after 10 months maturation, however as I have probably said a few times before, events got away from me. It wasn't until a request for an Alfredo pasta sauce that it prompted me to break the wax seal and try some of it. Here it is devoid of its wax covering.

This cheese was made with Jersey milk, which is quite high in butterfat (4.0-4.2%), and I chose it specifically at the time because I was disappointed with normal "no name brand milk", and I found that Jersey milk had improved the quality of my Caerphilly, so thought that it would help improve a Romano. Let me tell you about it in my normal format:

De-waxing: No additional moisture under the wax. The cheese had some fine white crystals over it, which is just hardened lipase.

Texture: It cut well, with no crumbliness. No holes or blemishes. It grated very well.

Taste: I tried it on a plain water cracker, and it had a full body and was very strong. It was not as strong as some Parmesan that I have made, and it had a milder flavour. If I remember correctly, it was very similar to the last Romano that I made, so I believe that my recipe is now tried and true.

I have another Romano in the cheese fridge that I made from raw milk, however that is not ready until December 2012 if I leave it to mature a full 12 months. It is the cheese I made for my last video tutorial.

I highly recommend making this cheese for its delicious taste. It is as easy as Parmesan to make, and just uses full cream milk instead of semi-skimmed. Give it a go, but make sure you use good milk.

Poor Parmesan

2012-02-29T19:59:00.000+11:00

Cheese can be a funny thing. Of late, I have made a few mistakes, which have come good in the end. This example of a poorly executed Parmesan is no exception.

I was performing a cheese muster on the weekend to make sure that everything was okay in there after a bit of hot weather, and was curious about this cheese in particular. Over time it had swollen and started to dry out, even though it had another month to mature.

So without the benefit of a cheese trier, I had to cut this wheel in half. I had a bit of a shock when I did open it, as it looked like an Emmental on steriods. It was also very dry and hard to cut.

I did what any good cheesemaker would do, and decided to save the cheese by grating it. Because it was so hard, it took just under an hour to grate just half of it, but it was definately worthwhile in the end. The taste was not as strong as my normal parmesan would be, partly because of the dryness and lack of maturity.

To be frank, it was like a rock, and turned into very fine gratings. The inside was a little more moist, however the outside just powered. It reminds me of that underwhelming grated Parmesan that you can buy in the shops made by Kraft! At least my version is made to the traditional recipe and not processed.

I have thought about why this Parmesan among many that I have made, turned into Mr Bloaty. Here is the conclusion that I have come to;

a. Not left in the brine long enough.
b. Brine not salty enough, therefore allowing the culture to continue working
c. The milk quality was not premium and was bog standard shop bought milk
d. It was far to warm when drying at room temp for a few days.
e. I oiled it instead of waxing it.

So these five factors contributed to an extremely hard and bloated Parmesan cheese. It pays to buy good milk from a non-industrial source, and ensure that your brine is strong enough so that it retards additional, unwanted culture activity.

We all live and learn and at least I managed to save it. It made the best Basil Pesto!

Farmhouse Pepper Blue

2012-02-10T07:00:00.000+11:00

Make no mistake, I must have a gift. My cheese disasters seem to turn into fantastic creations!

Quite a while back in September 2011, I made two wheels of Farmhouse Cheddar with Peppercorns. Kim and I opened one, shared half with friends and I wrapped the other half in cling wrap and put it into my big cheese box in the normal fridge at 4C. I sold the other wheel to one of Kim's friends, who loved it.

To my surprise, when I opened the cheese box on Sunday, 5th Feb, the half was still in there. It was now over 6 months old, and still in the plastic wrap. However something wonderful had happened. Somewhere along the line, this cheese had become inoculated with penicillium roqueforti, and had grown blue mould. I believe that I did have some Stilton open in the same cheese box, so it must have passed the mould on. I was a bit dubious at first, but had a smell, and it did not smell off, just blue. So here is the verdict:

Texture: Now I wasn't sure how this cheese would taste, because when it was a Farmhouse cheddar it was sharp and very crumbly. I didn't know how far the mould had penetrated the cheese as I had not pieced any holes in it as I would when making a blue or Stilton. The crumbliness had gone, which had developed into a rich creamy texture that was easy to cut.

Development: Once I cut it in half, there was indeed some marbling in the top half. As the Farmhouse cheddar had been so crumbly, there were air gaps and cracks in the top when I first put it into the fridge after de-waxing. These gaps had helped the blue mould seep deep into the cheese, enhancing the flavour.

Taste: So then I had a taste. OMG, it blew my mind. This was a wonderful cheese. The cheese was no longer sharp, but had a smooth creaminess to it, with a mild blue taste. Then the pepper hits your palette to add to the complexity.

I have never tasted anything quite like it. I am so pleased with this serendipitous discovery. I wonder if I can make it again? I might make it exactly the same, but spray it with some blue mould after two months normal maturation in the cheese fridge, wrap it up and store it in the normal fridge at 4C for another four months. I think I will pierce it a few times to help the mould develop inside just in case.

As I have said before, cheese making is more art than science. What a fluke!

Temperature Control Of The Milk

2012-02-06T20:54:00.000+11:00

I recently had a question from Holly G that reads;

"Gavin, I'm having trouble with my cheesemaking. This evening I cracked open a wheel of Jack that I had made on 11/11/11. It was better than the last two, but still pretty crumbly and sharp with what seemed to me to be a hint of iodine. I seem to have a lot of trouble regulating the temp while cooking the curds. It goes for a while with no temperature change and then jumps up too high. I am cooking them in a pot on a gas burner. Do you have any suggestions that might help? Thanks"

Well the answer is quite simple. Use a double boiler. Here is a photo of my set up, and how it helps me regulate the temperature of the milk during the cheese making process. (click to enlarge)

I learnt this trick on the very first cheese making course I went on. Due to the fact that there is no direct flame on the main pot, it heats up quite evenly. All I do is fill the smaller pot about a third full of tap water, and keep an eye on the thermometer. It heats up quite slowly, however when you reach the target temp, turning off the heat does not cause the milk to keep rising in temperature. It just seams to sit around the target. I also leave the milk on the double boiler (heat off) when I am waiting for the culture to develop, and waiting for the rennet to set. With the lid on the main pot, the heat from the water alone keeps the milk at the target temperature which makes it very simple to control. It may drop a few degrees over the period of an hour, but no real harm is done.

As for your Monterey Jack, here is a variant, Pepper Jack one I carved into quite a while ago.

The recipe that I used was from the Tim Smith book, "Making Artisan Cheese". I believe that the cheese is meant to be a little crumbly, as that is the way it has turned out for me every time I have made it. It does have a sharp taste, however certainly no iodine smell. It just smells cheesy!

Hope this helps.

Gav

Komijnekass - The Verdict

2012-02-05T20:44:00.000+11:00

Komijnekass (Cumin Cheese) was a cheese recipe that I kind of made up as I went along. The base recipe was a farmhouse cheddar, whereby I added cumin and caraway seeds to during milling. I made two identical wheels from this batch.

This was way back in late October last year, and I have had this cheese in the cheese fridge/cave maturing for about 3 1/2 months. I did intend on tasting it for Christmas, but time got away from me. I only remembered that it was probably time to try this cheese when I turned all the cheeses in the cave today! Better late than never.

So the verdict.

De-waxing: There was no additional whey when I opened the wax, and the outside was very moist.

Texture: When I cut into it, I could tell that it was a little crumbly, but did not fall apart. The seeds were evenly distributed throughout, which was a good sign.

Taste: It had a sharp cheddar tang with nice soft cumin overtones that hit the palette after a few seconds. You could really taste the cumin after a while which took over from the sharpness. It was a very nice cheese, that also got a big thumbs up from my wife and son. I vac-packed the rest after we demolished 1/8th with some crackers and wine! I find that by vac-packing the cheese and storing it in the normal fridge at 4C, stops the cheese from aging and it keeps for a long time with no problems at all.

For those who want to replicate this recipe, you can find it at the original post titled "Komijnekass". During maturation, I turned it every day for the first two weeks, then once a week after that. I kept it at around 13C in wax.

Bon Appetit!

Blue Cheese Update #4

2012-01-06T21:00:00.001+11:00

Today my wife and I cracked open the blue cheese that I made quite a while ago. This series of posts describes the process and each update. It was a bit of a mess when I wrapped it up a few months ago, but it looked quite nice today when I unwrapped it and cut out the first wedge

Kim said, "This cheese is the best blue cheese she has ever tasted!" Well I can certainly vouch for that. It was divine. There was a slight blue marbling throughout, and a little bit of red and white mould on the exterior which added to the flavour. It was really a cross between a sharp brie and a soft blue. We demolished half of it for supper because it was just so good. It went well with a nice bottle of Merlot!

So it just goes to show that even in failure there is always something worth saving! May I suggest that if you do have a blue cheese disaster, persevere with the remnants. It will taste like heaven if kept wrapped for a few months in the normal refrigerator.

Has anyone else saved a blue cheese from disaster?

Raw Milk Food Standards Australia

2012-01-05T21:11:00.000+11:00

As I mentioned yesterday, I did a bit of research on the ASNZ Food Standards website, and there has been a recent ammendment to using raw milk in cheese making. Here is the regulation.

Standard 4.2.4 - Primary Production and Processing Standard for Dairy Products

16           Processing of dairy products to make cheese and cheese products

Milk or dairy products used to make cheese or cheese products must be processed –

(a)          in accordance with subclause 15(1); or

(b)          by being held at a temperature of no less than 62°C for a period of no less than 15 seconds, and the cheese or cheese product stored at a temperature of no less than 2°C for a period of 90 days from the date of processing; or

(c)          such that –

(i)            the curd is heated to a temperature of no less than 48°C; and

(ii)           the cheese or cheese product has a moisture content of less than 36%, after being stored at a temperature of no less than 10°C for a period of no less than 6 months from the date of processing; or

(d)          in accordance with clause 1 of Standard 4.2.4A.

So I have two choices. Pasteurise the milk, as per the instructions in (b) and then make cheese with it, or follow clause (c). So that means that I can make Romano, Parmesan, and Gruyere with raw milk as long as I follow these rules. Luckily all these cheese recipes comply or can be adapted to follow the rules. With the cheese being at a lower temperature of 10C vice the normal 13C it will take a bit longer to mature anyway and loose a fair bit of moisture. So will the rest of the cheese in the cheese fridge, but just for the taste it is a sacrifice that I am willing to take!

Here is to more raw milk cheese making!

Romano - Video Tutorial

2012-01-04T23:24:00.000+11:00

Finally I have finished processing the Romano video that I took over a month ago. I follow the recipe that is listed at the post titled "Romano". In this video, I am using raw milk which was given to me by a friend. I have done some research regarding food laws here in Australia, and it is quite legal to make Romano, Parmesan and Gruyere with raw milk as long as you follow some guide lines. More on that in another post though.

Here is the long awaited video tutorial. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did making it (the cheese and the video)!

The Great Cheese Rescue

2011-12-22T11:25:00.000+11:00

Back in the very early days of my cheese making journey, and a little less knowledgeable about the cheese making process, I attempted to use Ultra High Temperature (UHT) milk to make a hard cheese. I thought I would try my hand at making a Wensleydale cheese infused with sage leaves in the middle. I had just purchased a cheese press during the week before hand and I was all set to give it a tryout.

Well that was the plan anyway. It all started out well. I used the UHT full cream milk which I thought was apparently okay to use in cheese making. I added the right amount of Calcium Chloride to de-homogenise the milk (make the fat globules bigger), then added the starter culture, and waited for the prescribed 45 minutes. So far so good. I kept the temperature at 32C for the entire time, and then when time was up I added the rennet and waited another 45 minutes for the curds to set.

I checked the milk and expected to see a nicely set curd, but it was not to be. It was still milk! That was disappointing, so I added another lot of rennet and waited another 45 minutes. To my surprise it was still bloody milk! No curds had set. I thought back to the cheese making class, and I remembered that one of the ladies mentioned that if the curds doesn't set after a second go, never throw out the milk because you can always make Ricotta Cheese out of it.

So, out with the cheese making book and off I went. Brought the milk to 90-95C stirring all the time to ensure that the milk didn't burn, and then added half a cup of white vinegar. This is meant to separate the milk into a basic curds and whey. Guess what. Nothing happened. This was the most stubborn milk I had ever come across. So in a panic, I threw in another half a cup of vinegar. It finally worked. The whey was visible and the curds were so tiny that you could just see them. I strained the curds and whey through cheesecloth in a colander and waited for 5 minutes. The cheese was still very hot so I had to be careful not to burn myself.

After a bit of mucking around, I ended up with two containers full of creamy Ricotta. I added half a teaspoon of salt to each container and stirred well. This is what the final product ended up like.

Here is a close up.

This type of Ricotta is great used in Lasagna or any other pasta dish for that matter! It tastes very nice indeed and much better than the store bought muck even when made with UHT milk.

The moral of this tale is two fold. Firstly, do not use UHT milk to make a hard cheese as you cannot get the rennet to coagulate, and secondly, UHT does make a nice Ricotta.

You live and learn and since then I have found that fresh milk is always the best!

Whey Ricotta

2011-11-14T02:00:00.000+11:00

I was busily making Romano on Friday night with the milk that Kate sold me, and was left with this wonderful creamy whey. Now, I didn't want it to go to waste, so I looked up the recipe for Whey Ricotta, as I knew that it would go down a treat in Sunday nights Lasagne!

Anyway, the process for this cheese is very simple, and I caught it all on video for all to see. I hope you enjoy one of my cheese making video tutorials.

Raw Milk Excitement

2011-11-11T21:07:00.001+11:00

Yesterday, I sold a Wensleydale with sage for half price, however the discount was for a great reason. It was for 7 litres of raw milk, all the way from Sophie the Jersey Cow who lives in Cygnet, Tasmania! How many people in the suburbs actually know the name of the cow that their milk comes from? Not many I bet.

My good friend Kate from Vegetable Vagabond dropped by on her way to Adelaide, and we haggled the deal in advance. The milk tastes absolutely delicious and definitely worth the discount that I gave her. Just a note, I pasteurised the milk before I made the cheese, as it still keeps the cream and milk separate, and I have never sold any raw milk cheese to friends and family!

Just look at all that wonderful cream floating on the top. Kate froze the milk before transportation, as it is no problem when defrosted. I am making Romano out of all this milk, which I am filming for another cheese making tutorial that will be ready over the weekend some time.

Anyway, even if raw milk has to come from Tassie, then so be it. It is difficult to come by at the best of times. What a treat!

Here are my thoughts on the raw milk issue that I wrote on The Greening of Gavin back in February this year.

Raw Milk Madness

I noticed today that there was an article in some Australian newspapers kicking up a fuss about raw milk, or for the uninitiated, milk that has not been pasteurised. Have a read of the article titled "'Mooshine' milk udderly bad for you. It tells a tale of some poor bloke in Bondi fined A$53,000 for selling raw milk to the public for drinking purposes, who actually knew exactly what they were buying. No cover up, no scandal, just supply and demand for a healthy product. Madness!

Well let me tell you a thing or two about raw milk. When I was knee high to a grasshopper, I lived on a dairy farm run by my Dad and Mum. It was a great dairy farm with lovely cows with Dad having a name for nearly every single one of the 150 head herd. Dad paid very particular attention to the cleanliness of the milking equipment and even washed the cows udders before putting on the suction cups that sucked all of the milk out. Me, my siblings, parents, grandparents and most of the town of Loxton North drank raw milk with no ill effects, and I am still alive and kicking. The cows were fed on grass, not grain or silage, and had a very healthy diet. All things considered, no one ever got sick from drinking our milk that was sold from the diary door by the billy can full. So what is wrong with raw milk if the entire process is treated with respect? Probably nothing in my experience, however I don't have a science degree in biology to be 100% authoritative on the subject so take my opinion with a grain of salt if that kind of attestation is required by you.

Raw milk is used in many countries throughout the world for cheese making including the large cheese producing countries of France, Italy, Greece, and Spain, and is considered safe to use in the USA if the cheese is matured for greater than 60 days. However this is not so in Australia. Talk about a nanny state or what!

I for one would use raw milk in cheese making at the drop of a had, only if I could get my hands on a fresh supply in my immediate area. Let the people choose for themselves. If they want to buy it, then let them. It certainly cannot be any worse than alcohol or tobacco which are legally sold. Health authorities should get a little perspective. More people probably die from road accidents in a single hour in this country than get sick from drinking raw milk, yet they still let people drive. Grow up governments, and let people choose!

After all, it is very difficult to taint fresh raw milk with melamine now isn't it? Just ask the Chinese.

Komijnekaas

2011-10-22T12:21:00.002+11:00

Komijnekaas or in English, Cumin Cheese, is very popular in the Netherlands where this type of cheese was first made.

Normally it is made with semi-skimmed milk with 5% buttermilk added to it, as well as the obvious cumin seeds. So without being too fancy, I decided to make my own variety of komijnekaas using my basic farmhouse cheddar recipe as the base. Usually the Dutch use Gouda as the base for this cheese, but from experience, my Gouda does not taste very nice, so I went with a cheese that I knew was very nice.

I made the cheese as normal in my 14 litre pot with 13.7 litres of milk. As I was heating up the milk to 33C I added 5ml of calcium chloride mixed with half a cup of water, as I was using homogenised milk. In a smaller saucepan I bought 1 tablespoon of cumin seeds and 1 teaspoon of caraway seeds to the boil in 3/4 cup of water. Once boiling, I simmered for 15 minutes, then strained the seeds and kept the water. When the milk reached the target temp of 33C, I added the cumin water which was a nice yellow/brown colour.

I then proceed to make the cheese as normal until milling. After the 2 tablespoons salt was added to the milled cheese, I added the cumin/caraway seeds and mixed well, then pressed as per my normal recipe into two 1kg moulds.

This is what it looks like now that it is out of the mould and air drying for the next week.

As I have mentioned before, herbs and spices can add such a different perspective to an ordinary cheese and turn it into something extraordinary!

I am so looking forward to tasting my creation in two months time.

Mozzarella Cheesemaking Workshop #2

2011-10-17T21:36:00.001+11:00

On Saturday I taught another cheesemaking workshop in the lovely little town of Gisborne, Victoria. It was for a group of ladies who have formed a gardening group, and tracked me down via this blog.

We had a great time, and here are a few photos of the workshop.

7 pots of milk all in a row.

The commercial kitchen was wonderful to work in. The stove had 12 burners, and plenty of room for the 7 budding cheesemakers.

Expelling whey after the first time in the microwave.

Chief Microwave Technician!

Here comes the stretch! Everybody's mozzarella turned out perfect. For a two students account of the workshop, pop on over to Christine's blog, Slow Living Essentials, and to Kirsty' blog, Bowerbird Blue, including what Kirsty made with the mozzarella. A big thank you goes out to Christine who organised the entire event and venue. It would not have been held without her hard work.

I have another Mozzarella workshop in two weeks time at the Spotswood Community house on Saturday, 29th October from 10am to 1pm. There may be spaces left, with a maximum of 8 students. Here is some contact info in case you are interested.

Spotswood Community House
598 Melbourne Rd, Spotswood 3015
Phone: 9391 2613
Fax: 9391 1898
Email: coordinator@spotswood.com.au

Blue Cheese Update #3

2011-09-28T20:15:00.000+10:00

I could wax lyrical about all the cheese that I have made that went according to plan, but I don't think I have ever mentioned one that has gone terribly wrong! This is one of those times.

If you have been reading my adventures about a Blue cheese that I have been chronicalling, this is the final post in the Blue cheese adventure.

It started out looking kind of nice and something like this. There was enough curds for two small and one rather large cheeses.

Over the course of the last few weeks, I totally neglected these cheeses. They required turning every 4 days and humid conditions. At the 30 day mark I was to scrape off the mould and it would have looked nice.

Anyway, because of the neglect, this is what they looked like on Monday night!

The large one had mostly had a melt down, but was salvageable of sorts, but the two small ones had totally lost their form and were runny inside. A bit like blue cheese Camembert I suppose. As for the taste, well they were fantastic. A great creamy blue cheese flavour.

This is what I managed to do with them.

I scraped all of the mould off of the large cheese, then wrapped it in cheese wrap and put it into the normal refrigerator to see what happens. I could use it now, but it would be just good for spreading on crackers like a blue cream cheese.

As for the two small ones, we stored them for a day in the fridge and turned them into a wonderful blue cheese sauce. Kim cooked up some Penne pasta and lots of cauliflower, broccoli, carrot and corn, mixed it all together with the some rue which she added the cheese to make a blue cheese sauce and baked it in the oven. The flavour was amazing and the meal was delicious. Ben went back for seconds as did I!

If this is what is known as a disaster in the cheese world, then I am happy with it! I love it when we learn from mistakes that can be turned around to something edible and yummy. It just goes to show that cheese making is not all about recipes and following rules, it can be about serendipitous mistakes as well!

I will leave you with this cheesy quote of the day:

"People who know nothing about cheeses reel away from Camembert, Roquefort, and Stilton because the plebeian proboscis is not equipped to differentiate between the sordid and the sublime." - Harvey Day

Cheese Loves Herbs and Spices

2011-09-27T18:00:00.009+10:00

I have been making herb flavoured cheese since back in 2009. I find that a good cheese becomes a great one with the addition of a few simple herbs or spices. Here are a few examples.

Here is a Wensleydale with Sage that I recently made.

All I do is pick some Sage from the garden, dry it on a tray in the oven at 120C (230F) for 5 minutes. They shrivel a little, but you only spread a single layer once you put in half the milled curds into your mould. The flavour that it imparts to the cheese is amazing. Here is the finished product.

Another of my favourites is Pyrenees with green peppercorns. All you have to do is add 1 tablespoon of green peppercorns to half a cup of water and simmer for 15 minutes. Strain the water, cool it down, and add it to the milk before the culture. Add the peppercorns during milling or before putting the curds in the mould.

The cheese has a sharp flavour enhanced by the soft green peppercorns.

If you like chilli, then Pepper Jack is another spicy cheese you could try. Same method as Monteray Jack, but add 1 teaspoon of dry chilli flakes to half a cup of water and simmer for 15 minutes. Add water before culture and chilli flakes at milling.

This cheese goes great with crackers and an ice cold Cerveza!

Lastly my all time favourite, Farmhouse Cheddar with red peppercorns. I used the Farmhouse Cheddar recipe from Ricki Carroll's Home cheesemaking book and added red peppercorns as per my normal method.

The combination was simply fantastic and is a great match with a glass of red wine.

This Friday, I will be attempting a variation on the Farmhouse Cheddar, this time with cumin seeds. Same method of preparation, same Farmhouse Cheddar recipe. I have tasted Edam with cumin before and was very impressed. I think I will only add a teaspoon of seeds to the water, as I don't want the flavour to be too overbearing. I will report back after the taste test in a few months!

So, in conclusion, the addition of extra ingredients can literally spice up your cheese and add that certain something that you may have been craving for. I highly recommend giving it a try. You will thank yourself for it!

Pyrénées Cheese with Green Peppercorns

2011-09-26T20:53:00.002+10:00

Time for another cheese tutorial. I first made this cheese a few years back, and I love its sharp and peppery flavour.

This is a cows milk variety of Ossau-Iraty (normally made from sheeps milk) which is quite acceptable, and originates from south west France.

Ingredients:

8 litres full cream milk, at least 3.4% fat
1 quarter teaspoon direct set Mesophilic starter culture
2.5 ml Rennet mixed with 60 ml unclorinated water
2.5 ml Calcium Chloride mixed with 60 ml unclorinated water
1 Tablespoon of cheese salt (non-ionised salt)
1 Tablespoon of green peppercorns
1 half cup of water

Procedure:

As usual I set up all the utensils and ingredients before I begin, then I sterilise everything in water in the 8 litre pot for 15 minutes.
Boil, then simmer the peppercorns in the water for 15 minutes. Strain the peppercorns, retain the water.
Heat the milk to 32C (90F). Add the pepper water, then add the starter culture, stir, maintain the target temp for 45 minutes. Add the diluted calcium chloride and stir for 1 minutes.
Add the rennet to the milk, stir top to bottom for 1 minute. Cover and set aside for 45 minutes.
Test for a clean break, then using a curd knife, cut the curd into 1 cm cubes (half an inch).
Gently raise the temperature to 38C (100F). This should take about 30 minutes. Gently stir whilst raising the temp.
Once target temp is reached, cover for 5 minutes, then pour into a colander lined with cheesecloth. Tie up the curds into a ball and let them hang from a long spoon resting on the edges of a large pot to drain for one hour.
After an hour the ball will be firm and moist, but not hard.
Mill the curds into thumbnail sized pieces them mix through the salt and the peppercorns with your fingers. Transfer to the 1kg mould, fold the cloth over and put the follower on top. Press lightly, about 2.5 kg (5lb) for 30 minutes. Remove, turn over and repress at 5kg (10lb) for 15 minutes. Turn again and repress at 10kg (20lb) for 12 hours. Remove, turn, and repress for a last time at 10kg for 12 hours.
Remove cheese from the mould and cloth, and let air dry on a wooden board. This may take from 3 to 5 days. Be sure to turn the cheese a few times a day so that it dries evenly.
Once your cheese has developed a rind, ripen at 13C (55F), and 80-85% humidity, from 4 to 6 months.

I prefer to wax the cheese once the rind has developed, because from experience, this cheese dries out too quickly. Try it at 4 months as it is very tasty at this stage, however it gets sharper with age.

Part One

Part Two

Bon appétit!

Farmhouse Cheddar Video Tutorial

2011-09-19T19:54:00.000+10:00

Friday night was cheesemaking night, and as the Farmhouse Cheddar tasted so good, I thought I had better make a replacement toot sweet! So as I made the cheese, I filmed it as well, and over the last few days I have been editing and producing another of my tutorial cheesemaking videos.

So here it is!

This cheese is just so simple to make and has a great taste, especially when you add peppercorns!

Curd Cutter

2011-09-15T10:00:00.001+10:00

Up until now I have been cutting curd with a long flat knife, which has served its purpose well. The vertical cuts are easy to make, but I always come unstuck with the horizontal cuts, which can be difficult to cut evenly and of a uniform size. I end up with big long lumps of curd that I have to re-cut as I begin to stir the curd. This is a proverbial pain in the bottom, but is one of those things you have got to put up with when you make cheese with just equipment out of the kitchen.

A few months ago, a fellow cheese maker from Manitoba, Canada named David, contacted me about one of the cheese recipes that I posted and asked a few questions. We became cheese making pen pals so to speak, and the other week, he told me about a curd cutter that he made from stainless steel. Here is a picture of it.

It looks great, and I have always envied those commercial cheese makers that use this type of tool for making the horizontal cut in their curds. Anyway David describes how to use it as such;

"Cutting the curds diagonally from the top always resulted in lots of big pieces, certainly much bigger than the 1 cm that was stipulated. Mine is tapered because my pot slopes in from top to bottom and the width is the same as the radius of the pot. So I just push it down and rotate the pot 180 degrees, then do the vertical cuts. The whole thing is stainless steel with nylon fishing line as the cutting 'wires'. It works very well for me anyway."

I was so impress, that I asked him how to make one, with which he offered to make one for me out of wood and send it over to me here in Australia for free, as a thank you gift for all of my cheese tutorial videos. So on my doorstep yesterday, this arrived. Click on the photo to enlarge.

This curd cutter is a work of art! The attention to detail is second to none. The wood is very stiff, and I think it may be maple as David mentioned that this was probably a perfect wood for the task. The cross bars are dowel, and it is screwed and glued together. The cutting wires are nylon fishing wire and the entire tool is lacquered and solid as a rock.

Thank you so much David, I shall use it during my next cheese making session on Friday and let you know how it goes. I am over the moon!

Farmhouse Cheddar with Peppercorns - Taste Test

2011-09-14T21:57:00.000+10:00

Today I decided to crack open one of the two Farmhouse Cheddars with Peppercorns that I made back in June after 12 weeks of aging.

One point of note with this batch was that after I removed both wheels from their presses, I dried them out for a full week until there was a yellow rind all over the cheese. I waited until they were totally dry and then I waxed them which you can see in this post.

Here is the cheese label. It has been maturing in the cheese cave since about 2nd July 2011.

First thing I noticed was that unlike the first Farmhouse cheddar I made there was no liquid under the wax. I believe that it was the long drying period before waxing that helped prevent liquid build up.

Once the wax was removed, the smell was promising. It smelt like a mature cheddar.

It cut well and was not crumbly. The texture was firm, creamy, peppery, and yummy, with no pockets of air within the cheese.

The final verdict from Ben was that it was delicious! It had a nice creamy peppery flavour, in fact it is one of the best cheddar type cheeses that I have made for a very long time. I would almost go as far as saying that it was as good as Wensleydale with sage, which is my all time favourite creation. Especially seeing that it took half the time to make Farmhouse Cheddar (4.5 hours) as it does for Wensleydale (9 hours) and so much less complicated.

No guesses for what I am making on this Friday nights cheese making session! This cheese has me salivating just writing about it. I believe I am on a winner here.

Quince Paste

2011-09-13T20:30:00.000+10:00

Any Cheese maker worth his salt should be able to whip up a few accompaniments for their cheese, so I gave it a go.

I read somewhere that Quince paste was a really good complimentary flavour that goes with most cheeses. Having never tried it before, it was a bit of a gamble, but one that paid off in the end. The flavour is sensational, and I would recommend this fruit paste to anyone who is wondering what to do with a few spare quinces.

I found a recipe from Taste.com.au and followed it exactly. It worked fine, except that I added a full cup of water at the start because it looked like it was going to boil dry! Pretty easy process. Peel, core, chop, then stew. After the chopped up quinces turned to mush, I blended them in the food processs whilst hot and then returned the fruit to the pot and added the sugar.

So that I could capture the long 3.5 hour process, I took photos at 15 minute intervals.

I just love the way it changes colour during the cooking process.

Then I lined 6 ramekins with plastic wrap and ladled in the paste, and when it cooled a little, we folded over the wrap to protect it as it set.

I left them on the kitchen counter overnight and we had some for lunch with a piece of ash coated brie and castello white cheese. Unfortunately, these are not my creations, because of Sustainable House Day preparations, but will be getting stuck into cheesemaking again next week.

The taste was great and it really brought out the flavour of the cheese. A great accompaniments indeed. Not quite sure how to store it, but we have it in a sealed container in the fridge. Hopefully it will store for a while, at least until I get a Caerphilly made and ripened! I can just taste the sweet and salty together, yummy.

Can anyone help and and let me know if I can freeze Quince Paste? Comments welcome.

Farmhouse Cheddar

2011-09-06T20:33:00.000+10:00

Originally posted on 26 June 2011.

After such an ordinary day at work on Friday, I decided that it would be a great idea to start the weekend off with a bang and make cheese. I picked up 16 litres of milk on the way home from the train station, kissed Kim, ate dinner, then got stuck into my favourite hobby. Cheese making!

Now to make things more interesting, and to save time and effort, I have decided to expand production by purchasing a new pot. Usually, I make a kilogram of cheese from 7.6 litres (1 gallon) of milk, so I bought a 15.1 litre pot so that I could simply double the recipe and make two 1kg rounds in the same time I normally make one, and all in the same pot.

It is a beauty and I picked it up for $15! The only problem is that whoever made this pot couldn't count. It only held 14.8 litres of milk and there was no way that I could have fitted in another 300ml. Anyway, I figured that it would make enough curd to fit in two cheese moulds, which may have been a bit of a problem if I hadn't have purchased an additional cheese press.

I purchased the press from from Green Living Australia and it arrived in 2 days. Luckily I had planned ahead and ordered it earlier on in the week about the same time I bought the large pot. The press also came with a 50lb spring, and a 1kg cheese mould and follower. I was all set. I sterilised everything in the pot except the plastic stuff, which I put on a 65C wash through the dishwasher, then sprayed with vinegar.

I set up all my ingredients. This cheese is very simple to make.

Farmhouse Cheddar

recipe for 1kg
7.6 litres full cream milk
1 heaped smidgen (1/32 teaspoon) Mesophillic direct set starter culture
1/2 teaspoon liquid rennet diluted in 60ml cool boiled water
1/2 teaspoon Calcium Chloride diluted in 60ml cool boiled water (if using homogenised milk)
1 tablespoon cheese salt (non-ionised salt)

Then I set up the sink area. I sprayed the area with vinegar and wiped it all down with a clean dry cloth.

Here is the method:

Method

Heat the milk to 32C (90F). Add the Calcium Chloride (if necessary). Add the starter and stir well. Cover and let milk ripen for 45 minutes.

Add the diluted rennet and stir gently for 1 minute. Cover and let stand at 32C for 45 minutes or until you get a clean break.

Cut the curd into 1.25cm (1/2 inch) cubes. Increase the temperature to 38C (100F) slowly, no more than 1 degree for every 5 minutes. Stir to ensure that the curds do not mat. This should take about 30 minutes and the curd will shrink a bit.

Cover the pot and let stand for 5 minutes. Pour the curds into a cheesecloth lined colander, drain for a few minutes then tie the corners of the cheesecloth into a knot and hang the bag and allow to drain for 1 hour. The curds need to stay warm so hang at room temperature.

Place the drained curds back in the pot and gently mill into walnut sized pieces. Mix in the Salt, then pack into lined cheese moulds.

Fold over cheesecloth, top with follower and press at 5kg (10lb) for 10 minutes. Remove the cheese from the mould, gently remove the cloth and turn, re-wrap, and press for 10kg (20lb) for 10 minutes. Repeat and press for 25kg (50lb) for 12 hours.

Remove from the mould and air dry the cheese on mats at room temp on a wooden board. This may take between 2-4 days depending on the season. Turn the cheese often, at least 4 times a day so that moisture does not collect on the bottom. When a thin yellow rind has formed, wax the cheese and age at 13C for at least 1 month. The longer it is left the sharper the taste.

Peppercorns

I added pink and green peppercorns to my recipe. To modify this recipe, add 1 tablespoon of peppercorns (green or pink but not dried black ones) to 1/2 cup of water and simmer for 15 minutes. Strain and reserve the water and add the liquid to the milk just before the starter. At the milling stage, add the peppercorns and mix gently but thoroughly before putting the curds into the mould for pressing. Press as per the recipe. I find this adds some zing to this cheese, even though it is wonderful without it. You will find this has a sharp taste and crumbly texture, which improves with flavour as it ages.

The entire process took about four and a half hours from milk to the last pressing. Pretty quick for a very tasty cheese.