heinennellie

Alpine, B 187

2011-11-17T14:25:00.001-08:00

I haven't made an alpine style cheese for a while. The last one I made was in April, batch 165. The reason being is plural. It is not a cheese which I can make when I don't have a lot of time. I find it requires more concentration and focus than other styles which I am more familiar with. Especially the pH targets are critical in this cheese. The last two wheels I had cut into weren't of the best quality. They were too dry and crumbly due to missed pH targets. The flavor profile was not that bad, they were sweet and nutty but did have a sharpness to it which I considered a major defect. Apart from this, I find the pressing procedure cumbersome, the wrapping in cheesecloth, the turning and wrapping again etcetera. Added to this the fact that it takes a longer time to test the results, gives me enough reasons to opt out and make another style of cheese.

However, I do like alpine style cheeses and I am planning to make them once I have the creamery ready. It seems like is a good cheese to have in the repertoire because of its storage ability and flexibility in marketing.

About a week ago I cored two wheels with the trier which I had made at the end of last year. They were much better, the texture resembled more what I have been looking for. This gave me new courage to try another alpine style of which here are some images of the procedure

In the first picture I am taking a milk sample to do a lactic test. I was taught to do this by Peter Dixon. This test will give me a rough idea of the cleanliness of the milk. It is a very simple procedure. You fill a sterile test tube with milk of 70F to which no culture starter has been added. To sterilize the test tube, I boil them for about 5 minutes. You keep the tube with the the milk at room temperature for two days at which time a lactic coagulation will have occurred. The resulting curd will tell how clean the milk is. If the curd is solid without any disturbances, voids or gas bubbles, the milk is very clean. The more disturbances, voids or gas bubbles, the less clean is the milk. Lately, the milk I use has been very consistently clean as one can see in the picture below. The tube to the right is the one I just filled but the tubes next to it are filled with curds from my last two makes which were respectively two weeks and four weeks ago.

In the next image, I am adding the starter culture to the milk which is at 70F. I use 1/4 tsp of TA60 (Streptococcus Salivarius Thermophilus), the same amount of LH100 (Lactobacillus Helveticus) and 1/16 tsp Propionic bacteria to 10 gallon of raw Jersey milk. It took about 10 more minutes to raise the temperature to 90F at which time I added 5.5 ml of microbial rennet. To determine the flocculation time, I use the spinning bowl procedure. One floats a bowl on the surface of the milk and make it spin every once in a while. As soon as the bowl doesn't want to spin anymore, flocculation has set in and the time between adding the rennet to this moment is called the flocculation time. For this type of cheese, I use a factor of 2 to determine when it is time to cut the curd. The flocculation time was 12 minutes, times 2 makes 24 minutes, which brings us to the next picture. It takes about three minutes to cut the curd to rice size pieces after which I heal the mass for 10 minutes. This means let it be undisturbed so that the small curd pieces can heal their skin.

The next step is cooking the curd. I gradually raise the temperature to 114F over about 40 minutes, making sure that especially the first 5 minutes don't go too fast as not to shock the curds. After this cooking procedure I let the curds heal again for 10 minutes before I drain most of the whey. At drainage the pH of the whey is 6.54. I think I am on target. (Never mind the value shown in picture with the pH meter, this was taken at a different stage).

Next, the curds are being pressed. I have captured them in a linen cheesecloth. I like to do the first pressing in rough woven cloth to enhance the draining, hench the linen. After I turn it once or twice I change the cloth into a finer cotton weave. I leave the cheese in the press overnight. In the meantime I have made some ricotta from the whey which, while draining, functions as a pressing weight.

By the time I remove the cheese from the press, the pH has dropped to 5.44. I think I am good. All is left the salting. I brine the cheese in saturated brine for 30 hours, roughly 3 hours per pound.

Now it is just waiting for 6 months to see whether I succeeded in making an acceptable alpine style cheese.

Moved The Vat

2011-09-26T19:05:00.000-07:00

Finally I have moved the vat from its storage into the cheese making room. The floors are done, the walls are ready and I have doors. I also bought some large sinks on Ebay. I am very excited, the creamery starts to crystallize and it looks like I might be making cheese within the for see able future. I even submitted the paperwork with the state.
Their is still much to do however. The electricity needs to be installed, the plumbing for the water has to be put in and the various heating systems have to be installed. Their is quite a bit painting to be done and other miscellaneous touch up work. And than there is the cave. The cooling installation has arrived but I haven't had time to install it yet so that has replaced the vat in the storage. I also have to built the shelving units for the cave. I have been thinking about how to do this efficiently and cost effectively. I haven't come up with a design yet and whether to use wood, metal or a combination for the structural elements. The aging shelves however will be wood. Luckily my inspector has given me that allowance.

B173 and B175

2011-07-18T15:05:00.000-07:00

The title of this post stands for the batch numbers of these two cheeses. In cheese making, it is important to keep good notes in case something goes wrong but also in case things turn out well.

To keep track of my batches, I number them all and imprint the number into the cheeses. In this case, the numbers are hard to see. The imprint in the cheese above is overgrown with mould and the cheese below lost a lot of the imprint from washing the cheese. Nevertheless, I can still distinguish the numbers.

So far, things have turned out very well for these two batches. The upper cheeses (B175) were made June 28 in the style of a classic tomme (though I got distracted while heating the milk so the initial ripening temperature was a little high). The lower cheese (B173) I made a week earlier combining the procedure for tallegio and reblochon. Both cheeses were made from Jersey milk and are aging in the basement of our house in upstate New York.

The microflora in this cellar is very diverse as is evidence in the cheeses from B175. The basement was built in the beginning of the last century from natural stones which there are plenty of in Delaware County. It has a concrete floor with lots of cracks and and fresh dirt on it. There are plenty of cracks and air holes in the structure so ventilation a plenty. I think it closely resemblances a natural cave. The average temperature is about 58F and might be a little high but the relative humidity of 95+% is perfect.

I did not do any rind treatment on B175, the molds are a result of the natural habitation of the basement. I intend not to do anything to the rind, I'll let it grow naturally and will observe the stages of mold development.

The cheeses of B173 I washed with a light salt brine which is traditional for reblochon. Because I am not upstate all the time, this washing schedule won't be very regular. But so far the cheeses don't seem to suffer from it. They smell fantastic.

Creamery Construction Update

2011-06-04T18:42:00.000-07:00

Finally, here is an update of the creamery in progress. I am nestled in approximately 1200 square feet in the left hand corner of the building above, behind the white door and the adjacent windows.

The photo below shows the outlay of the floor drains, cut into some very hard and thick concrete.

The make room and the cleaning room have a 2 feet high concrete knee wall made of three courses of concrete block. This will prevent the wicking of water from the floor and is required by NY state regulations. On top of this I have constructed a 8 feet high framed sheetrock wall. This part of the wall is covered with FRP (fiber reinforced panel) a.k.a. dairy board which makes it into a washable surface. Both of these rooms will have underfloor radiant heating. One can see the pex and concrete reinforcement laying on 2 inches of blue insulation foam board. I am about to pour the concrete for this.

The last photo shows the dry area. The walls here are bare sheetrock which will eventually be painted. At the end of this space, in the center of the picture, one can see the the entrance to the aging room. I will dedicate a post to this room in the near future.

New Cheese Cave

2011-05-27T09:53:00.001-07:00

It has been a while since I posted. This doesn't mean I have been sitting on my laurels. I have made quite a few cheeses and ate quite a bit of it too. I have also been working on the construction of the creamery in Walton. In the next few weeks, I will add some posts about some of the batches I did and some updates on the creamery.

Apart from making cheese, I have moved my cave. I lost the cave under the Brooklyn sidewalk because the lease to the building it came with, expired. Luckily my wife and I had just bought a house in Brooklyn with plenty of space. So I have moved my cheese in there. I have converted a space under the basement stair into a cave. I have cleaned it, tiled the floor and white washed the walls and ceiling. Because the space isn't cool enough, I have installed a air conditioner run by a coolbot. This easily keeps it to the right temperature but because I did not insulate, the air conditioner is running 50 % of the time on cool mode. I might try to squirt some expansion foam into the walls or otherwise insulate the space.

To keep up the humidity, I have installed a vaporizer. I know, this kind of defeats the purpose of trying to keep the space cool as the vaporizer steams up the space. But when I have some more time on my hands, I will change this into a humidity sensor controlled mister system. As I have planned a system like this for my cave in the creamery, this would be a good opportunity to investigate its workings.

Triple Cream

2011-02-21T18:45:00.001-08:00

Every time when I make a batch of semi-lactic cheese, the cream starts to rise to the top. By the time the curd is ready to be ladled into the moulds, there is a thick layer of cream on top. Especially this time of year when the solids in the milk are high. Lately I have been experimenting with another procedure. I let the milk acidify to a pH of 6.2-6.0 before I add a few drops of rennet. At this time I stir the milk, distributing the fat globules, which are already on top, back into the milk. By adding the rennet only at this pH level, the time it takes for the milk to coagulate should be short enough to prevent the fat particles to rise to the top.

So far, I have not mastered this procedure. Only one time I had some success. Hardly any cream was floating on top. Granted, this was when I used Ayrshire milk. The fat globules in this milk are small and less likely to rise. It is much harder to achieve with Jersey milk of which the fat globules are rather large.

In the past I used to scoop the cream from the top and used it as creme freche. Lately I have ladled it into the moulds and drained it with the rest the curds. This has resulted in some delicious triple or perhaps even quadruple cream cheeses. Yum...

A big British cheese in France

2011-02-06T15:59:00.002-08:00

A few days ago I received these two clippings about Patrick Rance in the mail. They were sent by my father-in-law, Michael, in London who has been going through his papers. My wife has been pressuring him to sort them out. Michael has never thrown away much as is evident in these two clippings. The first clipping is from the Observer, dated Sunday 3 September 1989. It is a review of Patrick Rance's "The French Cheese Book" by Jane Grigson. The second clipping, from The Independent of Wednesday 25 April 1990, is an announcement of the Glenfiddich Tropy awarded to major Rance.
I suppose the reason he kept these clippings is that his cousin Janet was married to Patrick Rance. Janet was my wife's godmother and when I got interested in cheese three years ago, my wife told me about Patrick and how he was a cheese maven. She told me about Janet and Pat and how she spent time in their home and cheese shop in Streatley. She told me how one could enter the house through the shop and see mounds of cheese, but--a teenager then--my wife was otherwise preoccupied.
When she first told me about Patrick Rance, it didn't really register. I thought he was just another cheese seller. Not until I got hold of his books, in particular "The French Cheese Book", did I realize the height of his stature. I have read this book several times and we have used it as a travel guide through France. When my wife was spending time in Streatley, she had no idea what legacy was being built in that little cheese shop, neither had she any idea what part cheese was to play in her life.

Walton Umber

2010-12-05T13:32:00.000-08:00

Following is a description of a cheese which I developed over the last year. I named this cheese Walton Umber after the town in upstate New York where my creamery is under construction and the earthy notes of the cheese. The cheese was described by a cheesemonger friend.

From upstate New York, Walton Umber is a cheese that is toothsome and full bodied with a long finish. Made from local raw Jersey cow milk, it is at once earthy, sweet and nutty. In a classic shape that resembles a small pecorino, the texture is firmer with buttery notes and a lightly grainy mouth feel. When eaten with the rind hints of caramel come out. Having a long tangy acidity, this cheese would pair well with fuller bodied pale ales with a good malt backbone and medium bodied red Bordeaux wines and fuller Chardonnays and would be a good complement to apples, cured meats, anti-pasti and pickles.

Trying Cheese

2010-10-19T08:56:00.001-07:00

It has been a while ago since I bought my cheese trier. Since then I used it once. I have never dared to cut a core out of a cheese, afraid I would damage or contaminate it. But today I decided to give it a try. I have quite a few cheeses aging and I am curious how they are. I figure it will be a good learning curve to taste a cheese at different stages of development.

The first cheese I cored was a washed curd tomme made on July 6. The number imprinted in the rind refers to the batch number. At 3 months, this cheese was well developed and had a good body. The paste was smooth, perhaps a little granular. Being a washed curd cheese, it occurred to me that it had a typical Gouda undercurrent. I will let it age some more, I am sure it will improve with age.

The second wheel I tried was the last batch of blue I made. This was September 7, a sunny day in NYC according to my records. This cheese was made with Ayrshire milk, the breed of choice for my blue cheeses. I used my own homemade Penicillium rocqueforti, which I wrote about here. Initially I was afraid it wasn't working, it took a while for the blue to show up. But the core clearly shows blueing. At six weeks, this cheese is very mild and is definitively in need of some more aging time.

The last cheese I used the cheese trier on was an 8 months alpine style. Made on February 13 from Jersey milk, this cheese is almost ready to be cut into. The paste smells buttery, it has a sweet taste and it melts on the tongue. Being a cheese made from winter milk, the paste is a little pale.

Creamery Construction

2010-09-10T10:25:00.000-07:00

In the last post I promised an update on the progress of the creamery I am building. Well, here are some pictures of the construction as well as plan of the creamery. As one can see by the white out, it has been through many changes and I am sure this won't be the final version yet.

So far the floors have been trenched to run the plumbing for the floor drains, sinks etc. This was a hell of job. The concrete which had to be cut was 8 inches thick and of old fashioned quality. It bore a machine shop for many decades.

Besides cutting the floor, I have been laying blocks. The make room and the cleaning room will have 2 feet high concrete knee walls. This will prevent the wicking of water behind the material on the wall. This was strongly suggested by the inspector and I don't want to start out on a arguing basis. On top of these walls I will put an 8 foot high frame wall. The large room in the back will be the aging room. The walls of this room are entirely made from concrete and insulated by 6 inch polyisocyanurate rigid foam insulation. I am not sure how to cool this room. I am deliberating various options.

Cave Content

2010-08-31T16:18:00.000-07:00

I have been upstate for a month or so working among other things on the creamery. I will post an update about the creamery within the next few weeks. As I don't have easy access to internet upstate, I haven't posted much lately, my excuses for my absence.

I had taken all the cheeses with me and put them in the basement under the house. It stays relatively cool in there and the humidity is high. But above all, the micro flora is tremendous as can be seen in the previous post.

The first two picture shows some tommes, varying from a few days to six months of age. The third picture is a cabinet with mainly alpine style cheeses, also of varying age. The last pictures show some blues. These cheeses are about two months old. The bread on the shelf above the cheeses I put there to grow some mold. With this little experiment I try to grow my own blue mold which I can use to inoculate the next batch of blue cheese. The bread is rye.

Tiny Mushrooms

2010-07-20T07:45:00.000-07:00

Here are some tiny mushrooms. They are growing on one of the cheeses from the previous post. They appeared after about three weeks of aging in the basement upstate. Pretty cute.

Rind Development

2010-07-06T13:48:00.000-07:00

Last week I took two cheeses upstate to age them there. I wanted to see the difference between the rind development in the two different locations. My cave in Brooklyn seems to be rather sterile these days since I installed a Coolbot about a month ago.

Although the Coolbot keeps the cave at the desired temperature (56F) and the relative humidity is at 90%, I am afraid the constant air-movement created by the Coolbot has chased out all the microorganisms. At least, this is my guess. Some of the rinds on some cheeses even show little cracks. I find this very disconcerting especially as I was planning to control the climate in the planned cave at the creamery upstate in a similar way. I shall have to do some more research and consulting how to prevent this or at least come up with a better compromise.

The first four pictures are of one of the cheese I took upstate. Notice the beautiful mold development after only one week. The next two pictures are of a cheese after about three weeks in the cave in Brooklyn. No growth at all.

The last two pictures are of a cheese I made in early January. This one has been aging since then in the cave in Brooklyn. As one can see from the rind of this cheese, the cave did contain a wide variety of organisms before the Coolbot was installed.

An Article

2010-06-12T14:55:00.000-07:00

This article about me appeared recently in a cheesemaking publication. The publication is part of the popular kitchen series from the editors of Hobby Farms magazine. To read the article, click on the images to enlarge them.

Cheese Board

2010-06-08T06:44:00.000-07:00

Here are a few cheeses I took out when some friends were over recently. I won't describe them all, just a few words in general and some more words about the ones in the pictures below.

Most cheeses were made over the winter from cows milk . I don't have access to goats milk in winter. The goats have just started to lactate again.

The cheese below I made mid February from Jersey milk. This cheese was made in the style of Mont d'or/Vacherin. Although it doesn't resemble any of these types cheeses I have had in France, I did achieve my goal of making a runny buttery cheese. Some of my friends hailed it the champion on the board.

The cheese in the picture below was made from Holstein milk in the style of Chaource. At the time of cutting the cheese it was 12 days old. It had a smooth milky flavor and a definite undercurrent of the farm.

Coolbot Continued

2010-06-04T06:16:00.001-07:00

The Coolbot is working, hurrah. It turns out to be the little miracle device I had thought it would be.

When I first installed the unit, I had misinterpreted the instructions. But with the generous help of the inventor/maker/seller, we finally got it to work right. It has been running the air conditioner for a week now and it works great. It keeps the room at the desired temperature and the humidity level stays at about 95%. This is much better than before. It already cut down the mites population, so the cheeses are save and I don't have to move them upstate.

Coolbot

2010-05-21T15:36:00.000-07:00

Summer is starting to sneak up on us in New York City and the temperature in the cheese cave is starting to rise. In the previous years I would move all the cheeses upstate to a cooler place now. But this year I would like to keep them in the city as I expect to spend more time here. I would like to tend to the cheeses more regularly.

Last year most of the cheeses grew very wild rinds and were badly infested with cheese mites due to very high humidity. Having the cheese here allows me to monitor the conditions in the cave and keep the rind development and cheese mites under control.

Having said all this, climate control in the cave is of the essence. A while ago I read about a device called Coolbot in an article about cheese caves. I had always thought climate control would be very elaborate and expensive. The systems I have seen are large and pricey. Granted the caves are usually larger but a conventional system for my cave would still be complicated and expensive. This little device seemed to be the answer. As said on the website; the Coolbot turns any off the shelf air conditioner into a turbo charged cooling machine.

I ordered the Coolbot several weeks ago and installed it using a small frigidaire air conditioner I had lying around. This was during the first heat wave in New York. It ran for several days. To my dismay nothing happened, no drop in temperature, nothing. Initially I thought the ac unit wasn't compatible with the Coolbot. According to the Coolbot manual, most fridigaire air conditioners have metal frost sensors which don't work well with the Coolbot. After closer inspection I realized that the air conditioner was broken. I felt relieved. I had almost lost my trust in the Coolbot.

I read the manual again (I have read it several times during my trials) and went on a search for a small LG, Samsung or Haier air conditioner. These are the recommended brands. I needed a unit which was physically small as well as small in BTU's. As the whole cave is formed by at least a foot thick concrete, the only space for the unit is the entrance. Any unit too wide would block the entrance. After some research I found a small Haier, about 18 inches wide, perfect for my application.

After I installed the unit I waited with great anticipation. The temperature in the cave dropped a little but not significantly. I changed the settings on the Coolbot several times, checked the connections between the air conditioner and the Coolbot and read the manual over and over again. The Coolbot wasn't the miracle I had hoped for.

Several weeks past and the outside temperature dropped again and the temperature in the cave wasn't as pressing. But recently the weather has warmed up again and without a doubt, soon it will be sweltering hot in the city. I directed my attention again to the climate in the cave. This had to work.

After reading the manual again I realized that insulation plays an important role. I had not realized that the concrete worked as a cold sink. The concrete of the roof of the cave felt definitely warm. After insulating this with 2 inch styrofoam, the temperature in the cave dropped by 5 degrees after a day. This was a real achievement. I regained my trust in the Coolbot, maybe it could be the miracle device. With the help of the temperature outside, I could now cool the cave to 56 F. But with rising temperature in the city again, it was time for more insulation. Today I insulated most of the other walls with 2 inch styrofoam. Whether this will be is enough, time will tell. I am confident now that I can reach my desired temperature. The Coolbot might just be a small miracle.

Cheese Vat

2010-03-29T14:25:00.000-07:00

For a while I have been looking for a cheese vat for the the creamery I am building. I have contacted several makers of cheese making equipment and received as many quotes. As I am planning to make raw milk cheese, I don't need a vat pasteurizer. This lowers the initial investment but a new 150 to 200 gallon round cheese vat costs anywhere in the range of 15-to 20,000 dollar, a major investment. These cheese vats are triple walled and have an insulated outer wall. Hot or cold water circulate in the jacket of the vat. This is done by means of a spray pipe for indirectly cooling or heating the product. These vats last forever and have a high resale value. However, I would rather spend less an buy a used vat. But they are hard to come by, hence the high resale value.

I have located a used cheese vat in the Netherlands. The construction is slightly different. Instead of an insulated stainless steel wall, the outer wall is made of wood. The wood used is Teak which was traditionally used in Holland to built cheese vats. Wood has been banned as a material to make cheese in a long time ago but it is perfectly adequate as a insulating material for the outer wall for a modern cheese vat. In fact, because of the wood these vats hold the temperature better than triple wall stainless steel vats. The wood is treated with a two part food safe lacquer and thus made impervious, a concern my local dairy inspector had. Including shipping to the United States it will only be about a third of the price of a new vat, a major savings. But the vat is a larger than I would have liked. It has capacity of 240 gallon and the minimum filling is one third. This means the smallest batch I can make in this vat is 80 gallon. As I am planning to collect the milk in cans from farmers, it will be a lot of hauling. A 100 pounds a a full can will be back breaking work to fill up the entire vat. But I really like the look of this vat as well as the price.

Cave Content

2010-03-27T19:56:00.000-07:00

In the last post I promised an update of what's in the cave. The first picture shows some soft washed rind cheeses made on February 13 after a recipe for Vacherin. Since I took this picture I have cut into one of the cheeses. Although it is very soft, it doesn't remind me of a Vacherin as I remember them. I have washed the cheeses regularly with brine to develop a rind of the coryneform bacteria. The cheese at the right is from the same batch but I didn't wash it. I let it grow "wild".
The second picture shows some simple tommes with a washed rind. This batch was from mid January. Below it a batch of reblochon made February 22. This was a 5 gallon batch resulting in 5 two pound wheels. I washed 4 wheels regularly with a brine mixture and I let one wheel go wild as shown in the 4th photograph.
Below it two alpine style cheeses, each about 10 pound, one from early January, the other from mid February.
All cheeses mentioned above were made from Jersey milk. The cheeses in the last two pictures were made from Ayrshire milk. Some blue in the first and some lactic washed rind cheese in the last.

Tomme in Press

2010-03-21T19:45:00.001-07:00

I haven't posted for a few weeks and feel awfully guilty. This lack of posting doesn't mean I haven't made any cheeses. On the contrary, I have made quite a few. I will post an update of the content of the cave in a few days. For now just a picture of some tommes I made yesterday being pressed.

67 days

2010-03-01T17:07:00.001-08:00

The epoisses is 67 days and holding up very well. This little cheese I removed from the cave at about 45 days and wrapped it in wax paper before putting it in the refrigerator. The rind is dryer than the cheeses I wrapped in saran wrap.

60 days

2010-02-26T08:29:00.001-08:00

Last Monday my latest batch of epoisses style cheese reached 60 days. This is the minimum time required by federal law that cheeses made from unpasteurized milk have to be aged before they can be sold. Although I am not selling any cheese because they are not produced in a licensed facility, I am in the process of setting up a small creamery. I am toying with the idea of producing a raw milk epoisses style cheese when I have the plant set up. As far as I know there is no such cheese available on the American market. All the imported epoisses are produced from pasteurized milk and I don't know of any domestic produced cheese in this style.

This batch of epoisses held up remarkably well up to the the 60 days mark. I had moved the cheeses from aging cave at around 45 days, wrapped them and put them in a refrigerator at about 42 degree F. After 60 days they weren't ammoniated at all and when properly stored I think they can easily last for at least another two weeks before becoming too ripe.

The cheeses have been very well received. Below a response from a cheesemonger who tried the epoisses:

"I thoroughly enjoyed the epoisses. It had a nice mustiness and a wonderful dense tang with an almost whiskey sweetness at the finish. It was an accomplished bit of cheesemaking."

Alpine Cheese

2010-02-17T20:18:00.000-08:00

For a while I have been fascinated by the traditional Alpine style hoop. For the longest time I had no idea how they work and I am still unclear about the proper procedure. I watched several videos online and looked at many images but couldn't really figure it out. Recently I saw some clearer images of the actual hoop in a cheese making supply catalog from Switzerland. This inspired me to try to make a hoop myself and try to figure out how it works. Ad here is the first result. I put one to the test while making an Alpine style cheese. I had also built a small screw type press for it.

It worked alright, I just have to get the hang of it. It would probably be easier if the hoop was much larger like the real ones, 20 to 30 inch in diameter I think. But as a press it did everything it had to do. It pressed the curd and released all the whey.

The cheesecloth I used was perhaps a little too rough. I had bought some linen hoping to create a rind similar to large comtes. But for such a small cheese, the rind ended up being a bit too coarse.

Reblochon, Grand Bonnard

2010-01-27T13:02:00.000-08:00

Today, when I was in my local cheese store in Brooklyn, my eye fell on a reblochon. I don't see this cheese often in cheese stores probably because most reblochons are made from raw milk and usually don't make it to 60 days. I asked whether it was a raw milk cheese, and indeed, this was the case. It was from Maitre Fromager Rolf Beeler from Switserland.

This reminded me of my visit this summer to Bertrand Perrillat, a reblochon maker from Grand Bonnard in the Haute Savoie.

Bertrand Perrillat makes wonderful cheeses in the traditional style twice a day from his herd of 24 milking cows. He doesn't have heifers neither calfs. The breeding is done by other farmers using the gene pool from the Perrillat's herd. His herd is a mix of Abondance, Montbelliard and Tarentaise.

As said, he makes cheese twice a day, after each milking. He doesn't have bulk tank. The culture for the cheese comes from the cooperation and is distributed among the members. He makes about 70 t0 80 wheels a day. His equipment is very rudimentary, a small stainless steel vat with a butane fueled burner to heat the curds. The vat looked to me to be about 100 gallon. It didn't have a draining valve.

After the draining and pressing Bertrand brines the cheeses for two hours after which they are dried. This is all done in the making room. When the rind has formed sufficiently, the cheeses move to the aging room where they are regularly washed with water until they are ready for sale.

Alpine Cheese

2010-01-25T13:16:00.000-08:00

In a recent post I mentioned I had found a small farmer who produces high quality milk. I haven't had the milk tested yet, but I am convinced it has a very low somatic cell count. The farm has about 25 milking Jerseys, fed on grass and dry hay in the winter.

A few weeks ago I made an Alpine style cheese from this milk and I was amazed by the yield. The resulting wheel was much larger than the wheel from the same amount of milk from another Jersey farm. I had already noticed since switching milk that the curd sets much firmer. Amazing...

Humidifier

2010-01-13T13:01:00.001-08:00

Since the cold weather here in Brooklyn, the temperature in the cave dropped down to 40 degrees Fahrenheit. I already had a little heater in the cave, but it wasn't adequate. I installed another little heater. This raised the temperature to the desired level but, although I have a tray with water sitting on the heaters, the humidity was negatively affected. The dry weather outside and the heat inside made the humidity drop to 70 %. To compensate I had to install something like a humidifier.

I don't know anything about humidifiers, but I guess, there is not much to know. All they have to do is put moisture into the air. I found a simple vaporizer humidifier the first store I went in.

Seeing it produce all that steam while testing it, I didn't want to put the unit directly into the cave being afraid of creating a sauna in there. So I hooked up a hose to the humidifier and lead this into the cave. This way the steam will have cooled before entering the cave. The humidifier runs on a timer, set at about half an hour on every two hours. We'll see how it goes. No doubt, some cheeses will like it better than others.

Washed Rind

2010-01-03T09:37:00.000-08:00

This cheese I made mid October from some Jersey milk. I washed the rind several times a week for about four weeks. I first used a brine for a week and after this I washed the cheeses with Marc de Borgougne for another three weeks. The white on the rind is a micrococci which appeared after I stopped the washing process.

Tomme

2009-12-20T13:29:00.000-08:00

I made these cheese about two months ago in the style of Reblochon. Whether they taste like a this cheese, I don't know. I had the pleasure of eating Reblochon only once, this summer in France. As far as I remember, the cheeses here did not taste like the cheese I tasted in France, but I imagine the not all Reblochon tastes the same.

But this is not the reason for this post. These three cheese came from the same batch. I treated the rind different during aging and ended up with three rather different cheeses.

The cheese in the first two photos I washed with lightly salted water. Besides some mould in the cavities, the rind is smooth orangy yellow. The wheel in the next two pictures I washed in Marc de Borgougne. This promotes the development of coryneform bacteria which gives it a meaty flavor. The last cheese I let go wild, I did not do anything to the rind. This rind is dry and crispy, musty and crusty.

Loomis Blue

2009-12-18T14:26:00.000-08:00

Loomis Blue is a blue veined cheese made from Ayshire milk in the style of Devon blue. The cheese is covered in a beautiful white rind and has a firm marbled blue creamy texture; it's ivory paste is smooth with a of complexity of flavors that burst in the mouth.

Taleggio

2009-12-15T14:14:00.000-08:00

My desire to make a more moisture cheese has brought me back to a Taleggio recipe on Peter Dixon's website. I have tried this recipe numerous times when I started making cheese and I always liked the result. My skills as a cheesemaker have improved since then and so has my equipment. I use a pH meter now to monitor the acidity level of the curds and whey and am able to create cheeses of more consistent quality. The milk I use now is also of a better quality. Recently I have found a source of very high quality Jersey milk. The lactic test I did with this milk for this batch formed a very solid curd. It did not have any imperfections, no gas formation or other breaks in the curd. It was very exciting to see the test result.

I made this batch on December 6, so the cheeses have been in the cave for a few days. I have start washing them with beer and the first signs of yeast and corynefrom bacteria are apparent.

Epoisses

2009-12-08T08:10:00.001-08:00

Finally I have managed to make a cheese with a resemblance of Epoisses both in appearance, texture and taste. It might not come close to the cheese made by Gaec des Marronniers, but it is as close to an Epoisses style cheese as I have ever been.

I made this batch on November 9 from raw Ayshire milk. I used 5 gallons of milk with a pH of 6.79. At a temperature of 78F I added the culture: 1/16 tsp MA4001 and 1/16 tsp Aroma B. After 1 hour the pH had dropped to 6.55 and I added 1 ml of microbial coagulant to the milk. I let this sit until the pH had reached 4.51, which was after for about 14 hours, before ladling the curd into the molds. At 9.30 PM the next morning I turned the cheeses in the molds and let them drain for another 12 hours before I salted one side. 12 Hours later I released the cheese from the molds and salted the other side. At this time I put the cheeses under the fan for a drying session of about 10 hours before moving them to the cave. For the first week I washed them with a light salty brine. After that I washed them a few times a week with some Marc de Buorgogne for another two weeks.

The rind shows some contamination from different moulds and yeasts. My place of production as well as aging room is swarming with all kinds of micro organisms and this lactic cheese is very susceptible to contamination. But with a little more focus on the washing process I should be able to make a cleaner looking cheese.

What's in the Cave

2009-11-12T07:01:00.001-08:00

All the cheeses have been back in Brooklyn for a month or so after spending the summer upstate due to the heat in the city. I can attend to them more regularly because I spend most of my time in the city. This also allows me to start with some washed rind cheeses as seen in the third and fourth photograph. The recipes for these cheeses are based on the procedure for Reblochon cheese. Jim Wallace, the technician from New England Cheese Supply was so kind to send me a target sheet for this cheese and when I was in France over the summer I visited a Reblochon maker in the Haute Savoie. I shall post about this visit in a few weeks. I am currently washing three wheels with Marc de Bourgogne and two wheels with lightly salted water. One wheel I have allowed to go wild. This is the green wheel in the third picture.

Gaec des Marronniers

2009-11-06T14:23:00.000-08:00

When I was in France in August, I spent a few days in Epoisses in Burgundy. Epoisses is a little village after which one of France's great cheeses is named. I had developed an interest in this cheese and hoped to visit one or two cheese makers there. As a teenager I had spend some time in Burgundy, so I thought it would be fun to visit it again. I mainly remember it from then as hilly with winding country roads. This time it reminded me of the Midwest. I live in America now as opposed to in the Netherlands before and it has dramatically changed my referential point of view. It seems to me to be the breadbasket of France.

We stayed at a bed and breakfast on a large farm of, if I remember correctly, 1000 acres of arable land. The farm grows rapeseed, wheat and used to grow potatoes. It had at least three humongous John Deere tractors and I was very excited when the farmer showed me those beauties on our last day there. Turned out that the farm we were staying on was the farm where Robert Berthaut and his wife Simone had reinvented Epoisses in the fifties and thus saved this cheese from becoming extinct. Unfortunately we had to catch a train back to London. (The TVG is fantastic, I really recommend it for the US) There was no time for a visit to their current manufacturing facilities.

The photos here are from a visit to another Epoisses producer, Gaec des Marronniers in Origny-sur Seine, about 50 km northeast from the village of Epoisses. I had found this maker on the website of the Syndicat de Defense de l’Epoisses. Being the only farmstead producer and only producer of Epoisses from raw milk, they seemed to me the right one to visit. We showed up unannounced and after mentioning that we had come all the way from America and only had one day, they were so kind as to give us a tour right away. We were asked to put on disposable gowns, hairnets and boots before we could enter the facility. After walking through a sterilizing dip bath, we entered a very sterile environment not like any cheesemaking facility I have seen so far. The walls were white, the floors tiled, everything was spotless. Cheese was present in various stages of its process.

Being a farmstead producer they only make cheese from milk produced on their own farm. They started in 2002 and have 200 cows, Montbeliards and d’Alp Brunes. Sixty of these cows are milkers. The rest are either calves or heifers.

The evening milk is mixed with the morning milk before it is renneted. The coagulation takes place in white rectangular plastic containers of about 15 gallon. They are visible on photo four (to the right) and five (stacked in the back). After coagulation, the curd is scooped in plastic perforated forms of about 5” diameter and left to drain. After sufficient drainage the cheeses are salted and dried for (I think) 24 hours before they move into the aging room (last photo). Here they are first washed with salted water for two weeks before the washing with Marc de Bourgogne begins. Gradually the amount of Marc is increased during this stage which last for about another two weeks. By then the cheeses have developed a deep orange rind but are still very chalky and mild inside. Ready for shipment, they are wrapped in micro perforated film and packed in individual wooden boxes. On our leave we bought some cheeses and after having traveled via England all the way across the Atlantic, it had ripened nicely and developed in one of the most delightfull cheeses I have ever had.

Batch 101

2009-11-05T09:11:00.000-08:00

Just out of curiosity, I counted how many batches of cheese I have made so far. I have kept records of all my batches. Turned out I have made exactly 100 batches of cheese. Time for an improvement.

I have seen several cheesemakers using a number system to keep track of their cheeses. Every batch has a number which is pressed in the wheels from that batch. I have been meaning to implement this system as well. Although I only make cheese in limited quantities, my current system has once in a while lead to some confusion. So I cut some numbers from some plastic milk bottles and put this in the bottom of the mold at the final turning. Et voila, batch number 101. This is obviously hard to do for lactic cheeses so for now I will have to stick to my old tracking system for these batches.

Blue Cheese

2009-10-11T15:30:00.000-07:00

This is a cheese I have been agonizing about. I made this cheese early July after recipe for Devon Blue. I had gathered information from various sources about the make procedure for this cheese and was confident that I had a good recipe.
I made two wheels. A small wheel of three pound and the one in the picture, which weighs about seven pound. The smaller one was wonderful. It was moist, buttery and nutty, full of intense flavors. It was gone in no time. My French friend said that it reminded her of the Blue de Gex we had in France. I was very pleased with this likening and took it as a great complement.
The smaller one had gone into the aging room after the salting procedure. But because I was aging cheeses in a refrigerator, there was not enough room for the larger one. So it sat in my apartment in the sweltering heat for at least two weeks. I was convinced that the cheese would be a dry crumbly disaster. Despite my fear, the cheese turned out alright. Although not as moist and buttery as the smaller wheel and lacking the intensity of flavors, it is still a good blue cheese.

Some Cheeses

2009-10-05T07:08:00.000-07:00

Here are some cheeses I made a while ago. The two on top are tommes I made in June and the one below is an Alpine style cheese made in January. It is striking how different the colors are. The tommes are yellow from the cows being out on pasture while the Alpine is pale because the cows were indoors, fed on hay.

Epoisses style

2009-09-25T10:17:00.000-07:00

Here is a quick update on the Epoisses style cheese I have been trying to make for some weeks. The cheeses in these pictures have been washed with mildly salted water for almost two weeks. On a few cheeses the rind is very fragile. I suspect it might be a little to moist in the environment they are in. The cheeses also show signs of a white mold which I think is Geotrichum candidum. I didn't add this to the milk, it must be present in the refrigerator the cheeses are in. The rind is slightly yellow, no clear real signs yet of the Brevibacterium linens. Maybe when I wash them with Marc de Bourgogne, which I will start in a few days, it will appear.

Ayrshire Blue

2009-09-20T09:28:00.000-07:00

The results of the blue cheeses I made over the summer were of mixed success. Some turned out bad because of poor milk quality, another cheese suffered because I was in France for two weeks and one batch just turned out badly for no apparent reason. I have obviously still a lot to learn so what better to do than to make another batch of blue.

This time I started with 10 gallons of Ayrshire milk at 86 F. As cultures I added MM1oo and a little LM057 which helps with the development of cavities where the blue mold will grow. The spots in the milk is the added Penicillium roqueforti. This will create the blue mold.

After adding adding 7.5 mml of microbial rennet it took 60 minutes to reach the desired consistency and the curd was ready to be cut. I cut it gently for 5 minutes to pea size particles after which I let the curds settle for 5 minutes. Without heating I then stirred the curd for fifty minutes or until the curd had reached the desired texture. After this I let the curds settle for about 10 minutes before I hooped the curd directly from the vat with the cheese forms. I did not drain the whey from the vat before I started the last procedure.

I turned the cheeses after 15 minutes and then every half hour to an hour for the next four hours. The next day I turned them twice. The third day I salted one side and the fourth day I salted the other side before I moved the cheeses to the aging facility. I keep my fingers cross that these will turn into some good blue cheeses

Epoisses style

2009-09-18T07:53:00.000-07:00

As mentioned in the previous post, I had made a new batch of lactic cheeses to try to create something resembling Epoisses again. This is my first batch of lactic cheese from Ayrshire milk. All previous batches of lactic cow cheese I made, had been from Holstein milk.

I used 4.5 gallons of milk at a temperature of 68F, added culture (MM100 and Aroma B) and 2 ml of microbial coagulant. I let this coagulate for about 24 hours before ladling the curd into the molds. After 14 hours of draining I turned the cheeses in the molds and let them drain for another 24 hours before I salted one side. 12 Hours later I released the cheese from the molds and salted the other side. At this time I put the cheeses under the fan for a drying session of about 10 hours.

After the drying session, it was the morning of the fourth day after starting the making process. The cheeses are starting to smell strongly fermentative and I even noticed some signs of a mildly orange rind. I am very excited and am newly encouraged by these signs that this time I am on the right track. It is time to move them to a cooler and more humid environment before they dry out.

Epoisses style

2009-09-17T06:06:00.000-07:00

So far the cheeses I wrote about in the previous post don't show any sign of wanting to turn into a smear rind cheese. I have washed the cheeses for almost two weeks now with mildly salted water. The rind should have starting to turn orange by now as evidence of the presence of the Brevibacterium linens. Nothing of the kind happened but as one can see, the rind has developed some white mold and there is probably where the problem lies. When I made the cheese, I added Geotrichum candidum to the batch. This now has developed a white bloomy rind which might inhibit the growth of the linens bacteria.

For now I will stop washing the cheese and start eating it as the cheeses are starting to get runny already as can be seen in the picture below. I made a new batch of lactic cheeses without the G. candidum and will start a new attempt at making the intended cheese.

Epoisses style

2009-09-11T19:52:00.000-07:00

After visiting Epoisses this summer and eating some excellent Epoisses cheese, I found the time ripe to give it another try myself to make an Epoisses inspired cheese. So far the results seem promising. The cheeses are much smaller than the real ones. I used some crotin molds and some molds I made from old yoghurt containers. I washed the cheeses in the top two containers with some mildly salted water. I will wash the cheeses like this for about two weeks, every other day. After that I will wash the cheeses for two weeks with Marc de Burgundy which I brought back from France.

The cheeses in the in the lower container shall remain unwashed. Consider it the control cheese.

Fromage de France

2009-09-08T12:58:00.001-07:00

Some of the regular readers of this blog might have wondered why it has been so silent recently. Well, I was with my family in France. My wife had persuaded me to take a vacation abroad, cheese being the draw. And of course, I couldn't resist. France is still a heaven of cheese and plenty of other delicious food.
We spent the first week with friends in Ain, the foot hills of the Alps. A perfect place from which to make trips into the Haute Savoie in search of cheese. My friend, who grew up here but also lives in Brooklyn, was so kind to make phone calls. She made contact with several local cheese makers. We visited a Reblochon maker and I spent a morning in the mountains watching the making of Tomme Des Bauges. I will write about this in the next few weeks.

After a week we drove north to Burgundy. Here we stayed for three days on a farm in Epoisses. We visited the only producer of raw milk Epoisses in Origny-sur-Seine, some 50 km north east of Epoisses. They make an excellent cheese, but more later.

The cheeses in the pictures came from the cheese shop of Pierre Gay in Annecy. I had heard of this shop in New York as being a good source for cheese and makers. The owner is very nice and he did give me some leads towards cheesemakers in the area. I will give a brief description of the cheeses.

On top, we find a Saint Felicien in the ramekin, a lactic cow. This one was mild and buttery. The large pink wedge is a Vacherin des Bauges, a bit of a disappointment. Too dry for a vacherin, perhaps not the time of year and according to my friends' father not the right area for good vacherin. Next to that, a trusty Comte, sweet and nutty, flanked by a petit Bornard Chevre and a Seez de Tarentaise. Both nice goat cheeses, the taller tarentaise a harder dryer one, the smaller Bornard soft and lemony. Under this a Romans Fermier, a lactic coagulated raw milk cow cheese. This cheese is made similar as the Saint Felicien but is ripened on rye straw, hence the blue mold on the rind. To the left a Crotin Chavignol, a little dry goat cheese, which to my pleasant surprise was very similar to the cheeses in this post. Moving left we find a Saint Nectaire, soft and earthy, honest without bravoure. And last, a fantastic piece of Blue du Haut Jura, also known as Blue de Gex. According to my friend a real find.

Curd Cutters

2009-08-20T11:16:00.000-07:00

Recently I made some new curd cutters. I have been using a knife to cut the curd but I found it very difficult to cut the curd to small particles. Most cheeses require the curd to be cut into rice grain size to drain out the whey.
To build the cutters, I welded some stainless steel frames and stretches stainless steel fishing wire across. The wire isn't very tautt but the thickness of the wire makes it stiff enough to cut the curd. It works great.

Goat Cheese

2009-08-17T11:13:00.000-07:00

Here are two little goat cheeses I made a while ago. The one above was made one May 25. I am not sure about when I made the one below but I think it was around the same time. These were the last ones of these batches and, having sat around for almost 3 months, they have developed a wonderful and complex flavor.

Architectural Plans for Creamery

2009-08-05T19:53:00.000-07:00

I have been working with an architect for a while on the design of a creamery. Here are the preliminary drawings. The plan is to build the entire structure out of concrete, partly dug into a hill. The aging cave is five feet below ground, which is approximately the frost line. This way a constant cool temperature and stable humidity is achieved. The ceilings of the cave are vaulted to promote airflow. It also prevents water from dripping on the cheese. Aging rooms often accumulate condensation on the ceiling. When the ceiling is flat, this drips on the cheeses. When the ceiling is vaulted, this water runs off along the ceiling and the walls. The vaulted ceiling also adds to the aesthetic appeal or the room. To avoid having to add any load bearing beams in the cave, I added some columns in the center. This allows me to partition the cave in the future if I decide I want two curing rooms with different climates. The ventilation system of the cave has to be worked out still.

The rooms in front of the cave are for drying and brining the cheeses. This part of the building is three quarters below ground. In one of these rooms I hope to install a walk in cooler in the future.

The making room, cleaning room and office in the front are above ground. The cleaning room was added after I read the state regulations for dairy processing plants. State regulations prohibit cleaning milk containers in the making room when the milk is not produced on the premises. I do not intend to start a dairy but plan to make cheese from milk bought from local farmers.

The making room will get a cheese making vat in the center. Around the walls sinks and draining tables are planned.

I haven’t worked out the heating system for the building yet. Although the winters are long and cold in upstate New York, by building the structure in a hill from thick concrete walls insulated from the outside, I hope the building will not require a lot of heating. A small central hydronic system fired by propane might do. I hope I can use the same system to heat the water for the cheese vat as well as other running water.

The plant has two septic systems as required by regulations. I will write about the septic systems in a separate post later. Being located in the New York City watershed adds an enormous amount of restrictions and regulations to these systems and makes building outside municipal systems often cost prohibitive. Whether this will be the case with my plans is to be seen.

Press

2009-08-02T07:52:00.000-07:00

From Diner Journal, No. 12 Summer 2009

Goat Blue

2009-07-31T14:10:00.000-07:00

Here is one of the Goat blue wheels I made on May 13. After more than two months of aging, I was curious to how it would be. Well, it might not be the best blue I have ever had, but it is certainly not the worst. The paste crumbly, perhaps a little dry. It is musty, a little ammoniated, and definitely strong. I will let the second wheel age for another month or so. It might just improve with time.

Cheese in the Dryer

2009-07-28T13:46:00.000-07:00

I have temporary reverted to the dryer as a cave again. Since I made these two wheels, I haven't had a change to bring these upstate. I don't want to put them in a refrigerator, afraid they will dry out. Having nothing else vermin free around and no time to built something, this was the easiest solution. At 70F too warm perhaps for a extended amount of time. But with a humidity of 90%, they'll just age a little faster for the two weeks they will have to spend in here before I have time to move them upstate.

First Alpine Cheese

2009-07-27T13:53:00.000-07:00

On July 4th I cut into my first Alpine style cheese. It had been aging for a little over six months. As expected it suffered from butyric gas produced by the Clostridium tyrobutyricum bacteria due to bad fermentation in the silage which had been fed to the cows. This condition produces a taste which is detected by a mild tingling at the tip of the tongue. I was surprised by the mildness of this condition. I had expected it to be much worse. Apart from this defect, which is also the producer of the multitude of holes, the flavor is typical Alpine; sweet and nutty. The paste is firm and melts in the mouth.

Training & Workshop

2009-07-22T19:41:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I attended a two day cheesemaking workshop at Consider Bardwell Farm, a goat dairy farm in Vermont. The workshop was taught by Peter Dixon, a master cheesemaker and dairy consultant. He is also in charge of the cheesemaking at this farm.

After a brief introduction and history of the farm by farm owner Angela Miller, Peter arrived with the milk which he had picked up at Jersey Girls, a partner farm with Jersey cows. After filling the vat, we made a Pawlet, an Italian style toma cheese. Peter took us through all basics steps of making the cheese. He talked extensively about starter cultures. He explained the flocculation technique he uses to determine when to cut the curd. After that he took us through the cooking stage, the draining stage and finally the hooping of the curds into the molds. All basic steps of cheesemaking were very well explained and there was plenty of time for questions and discussion.

After a wonderful lunch of garden fresh salads prepared by Angela and, of course, cheese, we went into the caves. We washed and brushed rinds and talked about cave design.

After a good night sleep at the farm we were fresh the next morning to put the cheeses we made into the brine. Before proceeding with this, Peter took the Ph of the cheeses. He took this opportunity to explain the use of Ph as a target in various stages of the making process. Finally it was time to brine the cheeses at which time brine and brine recipes were discussed. After this it was time for cleaning the tools and equipment, a major part of cheesemaking.

After another terrific lunch, it was time for some theoretic discussion of affinage. Using overhead projection, Peter explained all stages of affinage and talked extensively about the different rind developments and different bacteria and other micro organisms and their influence on various types of cheeses.

Driving home, I felt filled with a plethora of new information and can't wait to put it into practice.

Chaource style soft cheese

2009-07-20T19:04:00.000-07:00

The mold is starting to grow in nicely on this batch of lactic cow cheese. I have kept the cheeses in a refrigerator set at 50F. The humidity fluctuates a bit and is not ideal. But as long as the cheeses develop a decent rind and don' dry out, I won't complain. For the cheesemakers out there, I used the penicillium strain ABL. A medium to slow growing mold variety.

Lactic Cheese

2009-07-15T07:38:00.001-07:00

After struggling with gassy curds from goats milk that hasn't been too clean, I wanted to make some lactic cheese without any problems. I had planned to do this from Ayshire milk but when I arrived at that farm, the tank was empty. Not wanting to drive back empty handed to the city, I went to the farm with the holstein cows. Plenty of milk to be had here. After the usual pleasantries other chats, I filled up my pails.

Back in Brooklyn I put the milk to coagulate overnight, and there it was, smooth as silk. No bubble to be seen. Even the set milk in the test tube only shows a few air bubbles. This milk was very clean. Too bad this farmer has only Holsteins.

Creamery

2009-07-09T15:12:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted anything recently as I've been occupied with other things. I did make some cheeses and will write about this in the next few weeks. Right now I would like to add another topic to this blog. Soon after I started making cheese I began to consider the idea of starting a small creamery. The cheeses I had made were well received, even cheesemongers spoke encouraging words. I have enough land in upstate New York to build a cheese making facility. The area is full of dairy farms where I can buy milk. I don't plan to produce my own milk as this would involve starting a farm which would need a lot more capital and is an entirely different endeavor. There are still plenty of dairy farms around and they can do with a boost--some of them are suffering badly from the low price of milk. In fact a lot are on the brink of extinction.

I've begun to think of a business plan but haven't decided on a name as yet. These are the names I'm considering (no particular order): Dunk Hill Creamery (this is the name of the hill); using my own name-Vulto Creamery, or I could name it after the stream: Dry Brook Creamery (lots of water at present) or Pricklebush Creamery (the local name for the rosebushes which crowd out untended fields), or Walton Creamery (after the nearest town). I'm still pondering and hope the name will evolve with help from others.

Stainless Steel Lever Cheese Press

2009-06-25T06:03:00.000-07:00

Usually, when I go upstate at this time of year, there are a lot of outside chores which don't allow for making cheese. This year it has been raining a lot. Rain all day was again in the forecast for last Saturday so I decided to make some cheese. An opportunity to test the new cheese press which I had built the previous week.

I got some milk from my Jersey farmer in the morning and decided to make some simple tomme cheese. I didn't take pictures of the process, neither did I photograph the wheels fresh from the press. But I can assure you that the press worked wonderfully. It produced constant pressure and was easily adjusted. As you can see, I can press multiple cheeses in this system. The press is great addition to my supply of equipment.

Stainless Steel Lever Cheese Press

2009-06-21T05:57:00.000-07:00

I made a stainless steel cheese press from some scrap material I had lying around. I got fed up with the pressing system I have been using. It doesn't press evenly and it is hard to adjust. I have a two wooden lever presses but they are both too small to press the cheese I make but to large for my kitchen.

The stainless press is fully adjustable. I can raise or lower the pressing stamp. The pressing force is adjustable by adding or removing weights or by moving the weight to another notch. I can also easily transport the press. I'll report back after its first use.

Lactic Goat Cheese

2009-06-19T05:45:00.001-07:00

Here are some lactic goat cheeses aging in a refrigerator. The cheeses are from different batches made on different dates. The greenish mold on some of the cheeses to the left happened while the temperature in the refrigerator was to high for a few days while I was away. These cheeses weren't sprayed with Penicillium candidum, the white mold which would have protected the cheese from this contamination. It does not affect the cheese too much, the fungus just tastes a little musty.

St. Nectaire

2009-06-15T18:47:00.000-07:00

These are some photographs from the procedure of making St. Nectaire. I based my procedure on the description of the making of this cheese by Patrick Rance. On page 217 in his book " The French Cheese Book" he describes a visit in 1973 to the farm of Madame Fereyrol in Chandeze, just outside Besse.

She started making cheese at 6.30 a.m. with about 25 gallons of milk from the thirty seven Salers cows. The milk was renneted at once at 31C (33C in winter) and coagulated in 45 minutes at which point she started to cut the curd. For the cutting Madame Fereyrol used a menole. After some research, I came across a frenhau. This is the traditional tool of cutting the curd for Cantal cheese. Both cheeses being from the Auvergne, I figured that the curd cutting tools must be fairly similar. I made mine after the images I found online.

Patrick Rance describes how Madame Fereyrol worked her menole slowly up and down through the curd until a uniform cut of mais sized grains was established. The temperature of the curd needs to be kept at least up to renneting temperature. Madame Fereyrol brought hers op to 35C by introducing water at 40-45C. Adding warmer water might seal up the curd and prevent whey expulsion.

She then stirred the curd to firm up the grains. The description doesn't mention a time, but in my experience, this usually takes around 40 minutes. The curds then settled on the bottom of the vat for a few minutes after being brought together with a menadou (also called a musadour or mouisadou). I haven't figured out how to use a tool like this although I have seen some films showing the use of it. The implement is gently taken round the sides of the vat to pile up the curd and encourage it to mass together. This takes usually 10 minutes according to Rance. At this point the pousset or puise-serum, an upside down mushroom, is used to press down the curd and remove most of the whey.

I use a large lid to press down the curd and expel some whey. The whey I remove from the vat with a saucepan. In time I shall make a menadou or mousadour.

The curd is now cut into cubes, 10 centimeters, and distributed between the cheese moulds. She pressed the curd down by hand into the shallow moulds, gently at first, gradually more firmly. Patrick Rance then describes how Madame Fereyrol put the cheeses into deeper moulds under a lever-and -counter-weight press for one minute on each face. She then applied casein marking plaques and salt on each face. She applied 25 grams for each cheese while The Syndicat suggest 30 grams. Here Patrick Rance makes one of his numerous comments about salt in cheese. He says: "...and I am all for moderation".

The cheeses are then pressed for eight to twelve hours before turning and pressed again for the same amount of time.

The two batches of cheese based on this procedure I made recently did deviate from the recipe.

The moulds I used were larger than the traditional ones used and I brine salted the cheeses. In du time, I shall try to stay closer to the recipe and try to make a traditional St. Nectaire.

May Alpine

2009-06-13T17:51:00.000-07:00

A little while ago I wrote how the grass is greener, the herbs and flowers plentiful and the milk much richer in this time of year. The farmers started haying to get the richest and most nutritious hay for the winter. I have taken the opportunity to make some Alpine cheeses and as the pictures below show, the cheeses turn out much richer in color. The milk came from Jersey cows. (Yes I know, the cows in the picture above are not Jerseys, in fact, they are not even dairy cows). The milk is full of fat has plenty protein and is richer in minerals and flavor producing compounds. Even the ricotta I made from the whey was a rich yellow and was fuller of flavor then in winter.

Having made cheese only for a little over a year, this is the first time I experience the full implications of the seasons on the milk quality. After struggling with blowing cheeses from milk contaminated with gas producing bacteria, it is a real joy to make cheese from milk of a different grade.

Ayrshire

2009-06-11T17:19:00.000-07:00

I have found a farm with Ayshire cows around here. Originated in Ayshire, Scotland, Ayshire cattle is known for their hardiness, low somatic cell counts and effectiveness of converting feed into milk. Now considered a heritage breed, they were the most common breed in New England in the 1800s. The Ayshire cow produces milk with a smaller fat globule which breaks down easier during the aging process of the cheese. Needless to say, I am very excited and so far I have made two batches of St. Nectaire with their milk.

St. Paulin

2009-06-09T16:47:00.001-07:00

A few weeks ago I cut into the St. Paulin I made in January. I used the procedure from Frank Kosikowski's book "Cheese and Fermented Milk Foods, Volume II: Procedure and Analysis." Although the cheese does not look so great, it does taste good. Precisely like a St. Paulin should taste like; mild and buttery. It turned out a little too salty to my taste, though others didn't mind the saltiness. I checked my notes and compared them with the recipe. The cheese had been too long in the brine. I do try to be moderate with the use of salt. In "The French Cheese Book", the author Patrick Rance keeps complaining about cheeses being too salty. "I am all for moderation" he said about the amounts of salt being used while salting St. Nectaire cheeses.

Goat Blue

2009-06-07T06:54:00.000-07:00

Here are some picture of the Goat blue cheeses op close. These pictures were taken a few days ago. The cheeses are two and a half week old. I love to take these type of photographs. I find the moulds enormously fascinating.

Goat Blue

2009-06-05T06:20:00.003-07:00

Here is an update of the blue goat cheese I made a few weeks ago. The picture above shows the salting procedure. The recipe asked for a cheese to be salted on top and stacked with another cheese. This should have been done in a cooler environment, but conditions required in the recipes are not always available to the home cheese maker. So a look for the most practical solution and being aware that the conditions are not always optimum.

In the photograph below, the cheeses have just been moved to the aging refrigerator and the last picture shows the bottom cheese after having been in the fridge for a week.

In the last post I wrote about moving the cheeses upstate to a cooler environment. I did not move the blue cheese, nor the lactic cheeses. Because I age these cheese in refrigerators, I can keep them here in Brooklyn. When I first made a blue cheese, I put it in the cave with the other cheeses and after a few days, all the cheese started to grow blue molds. I did some research and asked a experienced cheese maker about this phenomena. He said that once blue mold was introduced in a cave, it will contaminate everything else. His reply was supported by what I read in other sources. But when I on a visit recently at a large new aging facility in Vermont, I saw blue cheeses aging in a cave among many other different types of cheeses. When I asked about cross contamination, they said that it wasn't a problem. Sometime a bloomy rind cheese might shows some spots of blue mold but this could have resulted from contaminated hands according to my guide.

Well, I am thrown again. Perhaps because the circumstances and conditions are so different in many cases, there might not be just one answer. For now though, I will keep my blue cheeses here in the refrigerators in Brooklyn. This gives me at least some cheeses to pamper on a daily bases.

The Great Move

2009-06-03T19:44:00.000-07:00

It is getting too hot in the city to keep my cheeses here. The temperature in my cave under the sidewalk in Brooklyn has gone up to 60F (15C) with peaks of 65F on hotter days. I don't want to spend money and time on artificial climate control in this cave. I don't think it is worth it. So on May 29 I moved the cheeses upstate. The cellar under our house there keeps a relative constant temperature of 55F (12C) and a humidity of 90%.

Sadly, I won't be there to turn, air or pamper the cheeses every day. But at least once a week I will attend to them. It is not a perfect situation but it is better then have the cheeses sweat in the summer and a great chance of being infested with maggots.

Lactic Goat Cheese Drying

2009-06-02T19:04:00.000-07:00

A recent batch of lactic type goat cheese in the "drying room". Up front are the ash covered cheeses from the previous post.

Lactic Goat Cheese With Ash

2009-05-30T19:02:00.000-07:00

While making some lactic goat cheeses from the curd I have been describing recently, I covered a few cheeses with ash. This time I did not use ash, but charcoal. I was wondering what is used traditionally. There is obviously a difference; ash is burnt material while charcoal is partly burnt. After seeing some images from ash (cendre) coated cheeses, it occurred to me that the coating seemed black (the color of charcoal) rather than gray, the color of ash.

So I got some charcoal from our wood stove and ground it in a pestle and mortar. I covered the cheeses with this. We'll see what happens.

Gassy Curd

2009-05-29T18:56:00.000-07:00

I keep struggling with the goat milk I get. The people I get it from have the goats as pets. It started with one 4H project for their son but now they are milking 5 goats. When I collect some milk, I usually get around 15 gallon which is the milk from the previous three days of milking. Any milk older than three days I don't think is good anymore to make cheese from.

But even this fresh milk has not been so good. I had already post an entry about gas developing in lactic goat curd. After rereading mentioned book about farmstead goat cheese in this entry, my suspicion was affirmed. This premature bloating of the curd occurs frequently in warm weather. It is the result of contamination of the milk by coliform bacteria. These bacteria produce gas resulting in a spongy curd. The curd floats on top of the whey and a multitude of holes can be seen in the body. If the bloating is very pronounced, the vat can overflow, which happened to me recently. The author of the book says that the curd can be processed but can never produce a quality cheese. Indeed, the cheese I have produced from such curd tend to be on the dry side.

The author suggests several remedies. First he suggests to check the sanitary conditions of milking. In fact, I suspect that this is where most of the contamination arrives from. As said, the goats are just hobby goats and the milk is not produced for commercial reason. I get the milk for free so I don't want to be too demanding and make drawing the milk more difficult. But I have asked whether they mind washing the udders before they milk. I hope this will help reducing the contamination. Next, I might see whether I can find a filter for their milking system. I do find quite a few hair in the milk.

Another remedy the author suggests is to stimulate the acidification. I did a test and coagulated some of this milk without any starter culture. Because the acidification was not stimulated, the bloating was even more pronounced and the curd developed a nasty smell.

Another suggestion is to lower the curdling temperature. When I did this the curd developed less holes and did not float. I do not know though whether this milk was as badly contaminated as the curd shown here.

Goat Blue

2009-05-27T18:52:00.000-07:00

Here is one of the cheeses I wrote about in the previous post after being released from the mould. The cheese had been in the mould for three days and because the room temperature was quite high (75F) some poil de chat developed on the cheese. Some rubbing with salt took care of it.

Goat Blue

2009-05-25T15:51:00.000-07:00

Last week I made some goat blue. The image above shows the milk. It is clearly much whiter than cows milk, especially this time of year when there is a lot of carotene in cows milk. The spots in the milk is Penicillium roqueforti, the fungus which creates the blue.

I haven't made a blue cheese from goats milk yet, so we will see what happens. I used the same recipe which I use to make this cheese from cows milk. It is based on a recipe I found here. Apart from previous adaptations, I also drained the curds longer because I had to take my son to baseball. After I got back, I milled the curds and put them in the mold. Because longer draining and milling, the cheese will probably have a more open structure.

Milk Test

2009-05-23T15:56:00.000-07:00

I have started to do some milk tests while making cheese as suggested by a master cheese maker. These tests are very simple to do and give a good indication of the quality of the raw milk.

A little milk without starter or rennet is poured into a sterilized test tube. The milk is warmed at 85 to 90 degree F and left at room temperature or near a heat source for 24 hours or more. I don't think it is necessary to keep the milk at the starting temperature for the entire time. In my experience, a curd will form at room temperature as well.

The formed curd will tell a lot about the quality of the milk. Of course, I am not an expert on this test. I just started doing it. I had some problems with some milk and I did not want to send milk to a laboratory for analysis all the time. Needless to say, the better and more homogeneous the formed curd, the better and cleaner the milk. One time, when I removed the rubber stopper from some tubes with milk after the curd had formed, some gas escaped. I clearly noticed a little puff. This was a clear indication of gas forming organisms present in the milk.

"Randen"

2009-05-21T16:00:00.000-07:00

To continue with the Alpine style cheese for another post, this is how the top of the wheel looks like when it comes out of the press. As you can see, the cheese has an edge of curd sticking up. Because the follower on top of the curd is a little smaller than the form, some curd is forced between the follower and the mold while pressing with lots of force. To remove it, I simply cut it with a sharp knife. In Dutch cheese making this is called "randen".

Cheesecloth Stuck

2009-05-19T15:58:00.000-07:00

Since I had not made an Alpine style cheese for a while, I had forgotten about the cheesecloth sticking to the rind. But when I started to remove the cloth from the cheese I wrote about in the previous post, I was quickly reminded of the cloth sticking to the wheel. It is hard to see, but if you look closely at the top picture, you can see the cloth being in bedded in the curd. This is a result of the enormous pressure this type of cheese needs during the pressure stage. The fact that I use a open woven cheesecloth adds to the problem. When I made some Alpine cheeses a few months ago and I experienced this problem, I vowed to get some other cheesecloth. But I guess, other priorities took a lead.

You can see in the pictures below, pieces of curd stuck in the cheesecloth and being pulled out of the rind. The rind will end up with small craters. These are feeding grounds for molds and other rind defects. The "skin" of the cheese has been damaged. I will go on a hunt for some different cheesecloth.

Alpine Cheese

2009-05-17T15:42:00.000-07:00

It is May, the grass an dandelions are growing and the milk is richer. A good time to try to make an Alpine cheese again. The cows eat grass only and some hay at night. The farmer where I get my Jersey milk from, doesn't feel like chasing cows in the morning. He keeps them in the barn overnight.

The milk looks definitely more golden than a month ago, although the picture below is exaggerated.

St. Paulin

2009-05-15T15:45:00.001-07:00

This is the St Paulin I made early January. I took it out of the aging cave a week ago and moved it to the fridge. It has quite a coat of corynebacterium. I suspect that the white part on the rind is a yeast.

Gassy curd Goat cheeses

2009-05-12T07:20:00.000-07:00

The cheese made from the gassy curd on April 30 turned out pretty good after all. There is no sign of gas formation in the cheese and I can't detect any trace of bad taste due to undesirable organisms. In fact, it tastes very good. It is fresh, lemony, a little goaty. It is not too salty and it has a wonderful paste.

Blue Cheese

2009-05-10T19:12:00.000-07:00

I have been making some blue cheeses lately and here is a recent result. I made this cheese on January 20 from five gallon raw jersey cows milk. It is crumbly creamy and has a aromatic mushroomy natural amber colored rind. The taste is pungent and lemony earthy with a hint of butterscotch.

Gassy curd cheeses

2009-05-08T06:56:00.001-07:00

So far the result of the gassy curd I wrote about yesterday doesn't look so bad. The picture above shows the cheeses drying after being drained and molded. The cheeses to the right which look like balls I molded by hand. The other ones were molded by the form they were drained in.

The pictures below show the cheeses in the cave after they have been there for a few days. They are starting to grow some fungi. I had inoculated the milk with some Geotricum candidum.

Gassy Curd

2009-05-03T19:08:00.000-07:00

Here is my first attempt of the season to make some goat cheese. Things didn't turn out as hoped for. I had planned to make some lactic acid cheeses. I haven't made any lactic goat cheeses yet and I was quite excited by the prospect. Over the winter I had experimented with cows milk to make this type of cheese, so I was confident I could make this cheese easily from goats milk as this is more of a tradition.

The other day, I was asked "what is lactic type cheese?" These are cheeses made from a curd that is formed by lactic acid bacteria. Sometimes a small amount of rennet is added, depending on the maker's target. The curd formation takes place over a longer period than rennet coagulated cheeses and at a lower temperature. Depending on the temperature the duration can be longer or shorter. The resulting curd is very fragile due to the high Ph of the curd.

For this batch, I poured five gallon of milk into my vat and warmed it up to about 74F. Perhaps I should have paid more attention, because my target temperature was 70F. I had turned the heat under the vat off at about the target temperature but the thick bottom of the vat always retains enough heat to raise the milk another few degrees. Although I was aware of this, I had not anticipated it this time, so ended up with a higher than desired temperature. I thought it would be alright, the coagulation time would just be shorter.

When I checked the curd the next morning after about 10 hours, I was in for a surprise. The curd had started to bubble up and looked like some kind of dough. My son asked whether I tried to make bread. I knew a high temperature could lead to a gassy curd, but I had not expected this to happen at 74. Perhaps the milk contained some organisms that exacerbated the process. The milk was a mixture from the last few days of milking. I don't know how old the oldest milk in the mixture was. Next time I'll ask the people I get the milk from. I will also reread "The Fabrication of Farmstead Goat Cheese" by Jean-Claude Le Jaouen. This might give me some fresh new insight.

I did let the curd form until my originally planned time and drained it afterwards to still try to make some cheeses out of it. Although I haven't tasted them yet, so far, after a few days, they seem fine. I will post some photographs of them within the next few days. I also retried this procedure with a small amount of milk from the same mix at a lower temperature. Everything seemed to be going fine. Over the next few months, with lots of goat milk expected, I am sure I will get to the bottom of this.

Goat's Milk

2009-05-03T18:57:00.001-07:00

The goats have given birth. Aren't they cute? The supply of goat milk for this season has begun. I picked up the first six gallon this week. I can't wait to make some goat cheese.

Stilton Style Cheese

2009-04-23T17:05:00.000-07:00

This is the Stilton style cheese made on March 30. It is about 7 days old in this picture. The mold is starting to grow as can be seen in the lower shots. Doesn't it look nice and fury?

Stilton Style Cheese

2009-04-21T17:11:00.000-07:00

Here are the Stilton Style cheeses I made three weeks ago at a few days old. Over the next few days, I will post them in the various stages until we reach the current stage.

I ended up making two cheeses from that batch. The post from 4/9 shows the procedure of the lower cheese. Because of too few colanders to drain all the curds at ones, I had to split the curds and ended up with two different cheeses. The cheese at the top is dryer, the curds were cooked slightly and is not really a Stilton. I will go through my notes and describe the differences in another post.

The piece of cloth hanging in a tray of water to the left keeps the humidity at the right level.

Crottin

2009-04-15T18:53:00.000-07:00

Here are the cheeses from the previous post after a week in the cave. On the third and fourth picture you can see some fur development. I presume this is the Geotrichum candidum. In the last picture, a 4x enlargement, there are some grains visible in the top left corner. Perhaps this is some crystalized salt.

Crottin

2009-04-13T18:45:00.000-07:00

Last week, when making a batch of lactic type cheese, I decided to predrain the curd in cheesecloth instead of ladling them directly into the forms as I had been doing. I hope to end up with a slightly dryer curd, leading to a firmer cheese which would age a little slower and therefor keep longer.

I used three gallon of raw Holstein milk which I cultured with Choozit MA4001, Aroma B and some Geo 17. I added 1 ml of animal rennet and let it set for 36 hours at about 67F.

I ladled the curd into a colander lined with cheesecloth and let this drain for 12 hours. While packing the curd in the forms, I noticed a difference in consistency. There were some harder parts it mass as well as some wetter spots. The curd had obviously not drain equally. This might lead to some inconsistencies in the cheeses. We will see.

Because in general the curd was pretty dry and plyable, I formed some cheeses by hand. I had ran out of forms.

Lactic cheese

2009-04-11T16:09:00.000-07:00

Made on March 6 from raw Holstein milk, with Choozit MM100 and Aroma B as cultures. I sprayed thge batch after two days with a mixture of water and Geotricum candidum 17 and Brevibecterium linens and aged them in the cave.

The cheeses turned out wonderful. The paste is firm inside, becoming creamy towards the edge. It's a fresh tasting cheese, almost sweet with hints of mushrooms and a clean barnyard.

Stilton Style Cheese

2009-04-09T14:17:00.000-07:00

A week ago I made another attempt to make a stilton style cheese. I didn't cut the curd but ladled it directly in a colander lined with cheesecloth to drain. I let this drain for almost 24 hours. The curd was pretty dry. I cut the curd into cubes and let them air dry for a while before I milled them with salt and placed them in the mold.

ladling the curd

draining the curd

the drained curd

cut

milled

Bloomy Rind Cheese

2009-04-07T16:39:00.000-07:00

Some bloomy rind cheeses, made on March 3rd from raw Holstein cows milk. I inoculated the milk with Choozit MM 100 and Aroma B. After draining, molding, demolding and drying, I sprayed the cheeses with a mixture of Geotricum candidum 17 and Brevibacterium linens from Albasia.

What kind of mold is this?

2009-04-05T13:33:00.000-07:00

Although I am fascinated by all aspects of the cheesemaking process, there are times I find myself drawn to certain aspects of it. In this case I find the mold, isn't it intriguing? It is like velvet. From up close it looks like an alien landscape.

Alpine Cheese Rind

2009-04-03T13:38:00.000-07:00

Here are some images of the rind from the Alpine cheeses. I have washed the wheels regularly to prevent mold growth. In some of the pictures you can see the impression from the cheese cloth. Even after washing and thus removing tiny layers of the surface, this impression remains. It seems as if it is layered in, or rather, the image of the cheesecloth is transfered into the cheese.

Alpine Cheese

2009-04-01T13:36:00.000-07:00

Last December I tried an attempt to make some Alpine style cheeses. Although the cows were in the barn they were fed on dry hay only, so I thought the milk should be clear of the gas forming bacteria Clostridium tyrobutyricum. The first cheese I made on December 14 and it started to swell after about ten days. I found this really discouraging because the gas produced in the cheese I attributed to the bacteria just mentioned. Around that time I read somewhere that bacteria responsible for the creation of holes in Alpine cheeses are naturally present in raw milk. These are the good bacteria, called proprionic bacteria. They are added to the milk when making Swiss style cheese from pasteurized milk. They are also responsible for the sweet nutty taste of this type of cheese.

Anyway, I have four Alpine wheels aging in the cave. All made around the same time. Two of them are pretty swollen, one shows less signs of swelling and the fourth one is hardly swollen. This wheel was the last one I made. After seeing the other wheels swelling so soon at an amazing pace, I added a product called "holdbac". This supposedly prevents the swelling. How, I don't know. So far it seems to work. I am not looking for swelling at all, neither from good nor bad bacteria.

Recently I cut into a Gouda I had made around the same time. This type of cheese can suffer from the same defects caused by the same organisms. The cheese had a lot of holes in it, it tasted sharp and sweet, clearly not what a Gouda should taste like. I fear the worst for the Alpines but keep my fingers cross.

Washed Rind Cheeses

2009-03-30T13:30:00.000-07:00

I have posted quite a few pictures of this cheese but I find it such a beautiful and interesting looking cheese, that I think it deserves another one. I can't wait to cut it, but I will hold out for a little longer. I just hope that I don't wait to long and, when cutting it, the cheese will have been over its peak.

Ash Coated Cheese

2009-03-29T14:16:00.000-07:00

I cut one of the lightly ash coated cheeses and it was pretty good. The paste is firm with the first signs of cream just under the rind. It is not too salty, perfectly acidic with musty tones off wet leaves. There is just a slight bitterness lingering at the end.

Poil de Chat

2009-03-28T13:31:00.000-07:00

Here is another batch of cheeses which is attacked by the Mucor "poil de chat" (cat's hair). These are also moist cheeses but if they are lightly salted, I don't know. This was the first batch of cheeses I brined in a bath not made from whey. I used tap water and salt to make the mixture. I made these cheeses upstate where I did the brining as well. Our tap water there is spring fed and the pH of the water showed 5.7. This is pretty low for tap water but knowing our soil is very acidic, I was not surprised. Because the pH of the water was so low, I figured it would be all right for the brine bath. The brine bath should have the same pH as the cheese. That's why I like to use whey for my baths, but I had contaminated the whey and it was unuseable.

In retrospect, I suspect the pH of the brine bath was higher than the pH of the cheeses. This would have left the rind greasy. I had noticed some discoloration varying from straw to bright orange. This surface is prone to the growth of black or grey mucor.

I have cleaned the cheeses as I cleaned the ash coated ones, washed with a mixture of water and vinegar after dry brushing. I hope this will take care of it and that the wrong pH equilibrium between the cheeses and the brine bath doesn't lead to any other defects.

Ash Coated Cheese

2009-03-26T13:27:00.000-07:00

I am afraid the ash coated cheeses have attracted a Mucor contamination defect called "poil de chat" (cat's hair). This mold is attracted to cheeses that are moist and lightly salted. I also suspect that the deacidification of the rind as a result of the ash covering might have exacerbated the contamination. This Mucor is harmless but can give the cheese a bitter taste because of rapid protein breakdown.

To control the growth I brushed the cheeses and washed them with a solution of water and vinegar hoping this will prevent them from reappearing.

Frenhau

2009-03-24T16:44:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I made this implement based on images I found online. Called a Frenhau, it is traditionally used in the Auvergne to cut the curds for St. Nectaire cheese.

Ash Coated Cheese

2009-03-22T14:56:00.000-07:00

As promised some pictures and an update of the heavy coated ash cheeses. As a result of the ash the rind is very thin. My guess is this due to the high alkalinity of the ash. Only after a few days in the cave the paste broke through the rind and started to ooze out of the cheeses. I was amazed, even more so by the taste of the paste which was sweet, most likely also due to the high alkaline property of the ash. One drawback of the ash is the grittiness. I just took some ash from our wood stove. Some bites are like eating cheese with sand.

Ash Coated Cheese

2009-03-19T20:14:00.000-07:00

Here is one of the ash coated cheeses I made about a week ago. This is one of the lightly coated ones. I took some pictures of the heavy coated cheeses too, but they were out of focus. I will take new ones and post them soon as their maturation is particularly interesting.

Lactic Cheese

2009-03-18T17:58:00.000-07:00

Some lactic cheeses, aging in the cave. They are covered with which I presume is Geotrichum candidum, as I had inoculated them with this fungus. On the third photo are a few black hairs visible. I assume is a strain of Mucor.

Tomme Cheese

2009-03-17T17:59:00.000-07:00

Here is a three and a half month old tomme made of Jersey cows milk. It has a golden rind with a thin growth of yeast. It is mild with a slight earthy and delightful citric flavor. A hint of cool autumn nights and damp grass linger on the tongue.

Washed Rind Cheeses

2009-03-15T17:56:00.000-07:00

Here is an update on the washed rind cheeses I made early January. The yeasts are starting to grow in and are drying the rind out nicely.

Cheese Cave

2009-03-14T17:55:00.000-07:00

A view in the cheese cave in Brooklyn.

Ash Coated Cheese

2009-03-12T17:49:00.000-07:00

Many lactic cheeses, especially goat cheeses, are coated with ash. Originally, the ash often came from oak charcoal used to heat the cheese vat or from clippings of grapevines. Food grade charcoal ash made from vegetables is used today. It is sometimes salted and generally tasteless. The ash is alkaline and helps to neutralize the acidity on the surface, therefore promoting the growth of molds that add to the complexity of the overall flavor.

I thought I try an experiment with some ash on a few lactic cheeses. As I don't have goats milk yet (the goats are due to freshen in a month) I used cows milk. The ashes I took from our wood stove upstate in which we mainly burn sugar maple and cherry wood. I added some salt and, starting out with full enthusiasms, I rolled some cheeses in the mixture resulting in a heavy coat of ash. Thinking this was too much of a good thing, I reverted to sprinkling which left a lighter coat. We will see what happens in the next few weeks.