Monthly Archives: February 2016

How Gouda is It? – February 15th, 2016

Hard Cheese, Semi-hard
Gouda
Is the baby Gouda cute?

Gouda is a Dutch yellow cheese made from cow’s milk. It is named after the city of Gouda in the Netherlands. I don’t eat a lot of Gouda, but I generally like it and it is often found waxed in the red wax I use for most of my cheese. This batch was from the Gouda recipe on Cheesemaking.com.

The recipe does say that you can wash it  with beer or add spices to the mix.

It was made from a couple gallons of king soopers milk.  Gouda is a washed curd  cheese, so after the curd has been cut and stirred, a third of whey is drained off and replaced with 1/3 with hot water(98°-102°) and stirred more.

Ingredients:

  •  MA4002 – 1/8 tsp
  • 1/2 tsp Calcium Chloride
  • 1/8 tsp lipase
  • 1/4 tsp double strength microbial rennet

Brining: When it came time to press the curds I decided to make 2 wheels of different sizes and vary the brining time. 1/2 lbs wheel got only 2 hours of brine while the 2pound wheel was brined for 8.5 hrs.

These were waxed right after brining. The aging is 2-6 month, so May-December we should be eating these.

Trappist Style – Saint Paulin – February 26, 2016

Semi-hard, Semi-soft,
After 30 days of washing with B. Linens
After 30 days of washing with B. Linens

Trappist Style Cheese is named for the Trappist Monks that originally made the cheese. They were each named for the particular monastery such as Port Salut, Saint-Paulin.

These cheeses have a distinctive orange color and a smelly locker room kind of a smell, but the taste is worth the smell.

The recipe calls for 2 cultures or a blend of Thermophilic and Mesophilic cultures. For this make I chose MA4002 which is a blend. I also chose a combination of milk 3/4 gallon goat and 1/2 gallon grocery store whole milk.

At this time I didn’t have any B. Linens so I just washed it with brine. I did this for about 6 weeks before I grew tired of washing it just waxed it.

I left it in wax for 2 months until I took an advanced cheese making class and the teachers were really down on wax.  So I came home from the class and un-waxed this wheel and decided to  wash it with beer (New Belgium 1554). Every couple days I would wipe it down with a wet paper towel of beer.  The bottle lasted about 3 weeks and I continued with regular brine for another couple weeks before it looked really good. Then I put it in a seal-a-meal bag and forgot about it.

Update: Here we are 8 months later and I have tasted it a couple times and it is awesome. The rind is a little funky and adds to the mystery of this 1 pound wheel.  I have done a triple batch of Trappist and have a lot more to say about this style, so see the next Trappist entry.

 

Feeling Abandoned?

Hard Cheese, Semi-hard

As I look at my last posting, I realize that it has been sometime since I last posted.  Luckily, I have been making cheese, just not talking about it.  I have also been eating some, I took a class and have been watching my Frig carefully.

My plan is to begin to add in the entries for cheese I have made since October. So, if you have been following my progress you should check back soon to see all of those entries.  I am also going to post some updates on cheese that I have finally eaten.

Let’s start with what I cut into today. I had the Gruyere from June 5th of last year. It had

Gruyere
Gruyere

been developing a little blue mold in the sealed bag, not a lot so I wasn’t worried. After cleaning it up, I cut a few pieces to try.  It was a bit dry like parmesan and tasted kinda like that too.  The outside edge also has a little bit of a blue taste.  Anyway, I like the way it tastes and the way it is aging, so I put it back into the same seal-a-meal back and sealed it up again.

The other thing I opened was the Jarlsberg Remake from October 9th, 2015.  This was a 7

4 month Jarlsberg
4 month Jarlsberg

gallon batch of Jarlsberg, two – 3.5 gallon batches combined into three wheels.  I believe that the wheels turned out to be 3.5 lbs., 2.5 lbs. and 1 pound wheel.  The smaller one is what I cut open as it was in a seal-a-meal bag and easiest to get open.  This wheel has always had a nice springy feel to it.  Once I opened it I noticed it was a little damp and that moisture has keep the cheese soft and creamy.  It’s consistency was nice in your mouth without an overpowering flavor. It has only been aging for 4 months and that’s the way it tasted. As I remember back to the the first Jarlsberg I made, it wasn’t impressive at 4 months either, but at 7 or 8 months we couldn’t stop eating it.  So hopes are high!

So it is 2016, let’s make some cheese.

 

Guido’s Cheese – Groundhog Day 2016

Semi-hard, Semi-soft

Guido’s recipe from “Home cheese making” p 146 seems to be a favorite of many, yet somehow I waited 18 months before I got around to making it. When we ended up with a snow day on February 2nd, it seemed like the natural choice.

Started with 2 gallons of King Soopers whole milk, TA-61 Thermophilic culture, Calcium Chloride , and some animal rennet.  Heat the milk to 80° and then add the culture, let set for 30 mins. Continue to heat milk to 90°, add Calcium Chloride, mix,  and add the rennet.

After a clean break, heat to 120° for 40 mins.

Once we add the curds to the forms,  press at 3 lbs for 15 mins. and flip, another 15 mins and flip again, and again. Pressing lasts a full 24 hrs.

The recipe called for 24 hrs of brining, but I was going away on vacation so my Guido’s cheese went on vacation with me. I have several Tupperware that nicely fit my 2 pound wheels, so it worked out fine.  I was able to dry the wheel for a couple days on a plate covered by the Tupperware to get it ready for waxing.  I brought home the wheel in the empty Tupperware. I decided to wax it right away and get it into the frig for aging.

The aging is 4-6 weeks.

Note: A week or so after I made this wheel, I was on a cheese forum and they were discussing this recipe and several people said the brining  was way too long and that the cheese will come out salty.  They suggested 2 hours of brining per pound of cheese.

We will see how it comes out.