Tomme in Press

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.