Stilton Style Cheese

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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.