What's in the Cave

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.