A Beer Accompaniment

[tangent]

a cheese maker said to me "sure, we could make blue cheeses, but everything in the whole building would be blue cheese!"

 

[Duff]

Isn't blue produced by piercing the cheese allowing air in subsequently producing the fungus which all blue cheese lovers love? :wub:

If I can produce something like King Island Roaring 40's, I will die a very happy man.

Cheers.

 

[chillamacgilla73]

a cheese maker said to me "sure, we could make blue cheeses, but everything in the whole building would be blue cheese!"

Similarly, IIRC The Margaret River Cheese Company has two seperate buildings about 1km apart - one I think is for making the cheeses and the other building is for innoculating and ripening their soft fungus cheeses(brie n camembert).

A bit like lambics really.

 

[kirem]

I don't do the cheese piercing thing, I just add the blue mould to the milk, works just fine.
I use seperate foam boxes for my different cheeses. The common equipment gets a good wash, clean and sanitise. I have no contamination problems.

 

[MVZOOM]

I don't do the cheese piercing thing, I just add the blue mould to the milk, works just fine.
I use seperate foam boxes for my different cheeses. The common equipment gets a good wash, clean and sanitise. I have no contamination problems.

I was told once that they ran copper through the cheese, to get the blue mould growth?!

 

[AndrewQLD]

I made a basic hard cheese in November 06 and will definately make more in the future. The process was a lot easier than I anticipated and the cheese was delicious. I used full cream milk and fortified the protein/fat content with a bit of cream, for the starter culture I used cultured buttermilk and for rennet I used a flavourless Junket tablet.

I will have a bash at a blue cheese next and I'm thinking a culture of blue mould spores could easily be propogated from a piece of purchased blue cheese or would the cell count be too low?

Give it a go but be super hygienic and as with salami making, add salt as per the recipe or you're asking for trouble.

Cheers
Chilla

Hi Chilla, I use a blue cheese of choice from the supermarket for my cultures, works very well, the photo I posted uses a Roquforte cheese disolved in milk and added to the main milk before the rennet and at the same time as the basic culture or buttermilk. Here is the site I got my instructions from Cheese. English Stilton cheese makes a good mold starter too.
I have yet to try my hand at a hard cheese, but I am looking forward to it.

Cheers
Andrew

 

[kirem]

I was told once that they ran copper through the cheese, to get the blue mould growth?!

I think that is old school/traditional. I used to do it with a knitting neddle, but found no change in not doing it, so now I don't.

 

[AndrewQLD]

I think that is old school/traditional. I used to do it with a knitting neddle, but found no change in not doing it, so now I don't.

In the old days it could possibly have been Copper wire, but now it is stainless steel thin rods. The idea is to create air pockets within the cheese for the mold to form in. The more air holes the denser the mold growth.
I find if I press the cheese, then the air holes help greatly, But if the cheese is unpressed, and has more cavities the mold will form by itself.

Cheers
Andrew

 

[Kai]

I will have a bash at a blue cheese next and I'm thinking a culture of blue mould spores could easily be propogated from a piece of purchased blue cheese or would the cell count be too low?

Yes, it can easily be reused. You don't need a lot of mould spores to effectively inoculate a batch, it's the lactic starter that's important.

 

[Screwtop]

Do it the French way, throw in a bit of bread with blue mould on for your blues

Cheese and Beer - Roquefort and Rochfort yum!

 

[jupiter]

Jupiter, sounds great, let us know how the jerky tastes.

yeah tastes good, pretty good for a first effort. the pepper and curry powder give it a twang, then every strip there is a piece or 2 of chilly that gets you by surprise. one piece will have nothing, the next you drowning yourself in beer to put the flames out... and lovin it

i think maybe for the next lot i'll put the chilli in the garlic crusher to get it more fine and evenly distributed through the marinade. choppin it with the knife just doesn't get it fine enough.

what is it with jerky? you can't just eat one or 2 pieces, you have to eat it all until it's all gone.

 

[browndog]

what is it with jerky? you can't just eat one or 2 pieces, you have to eat it all until it's all gone.

Mate, if I had a dollar for every dollar I've spent on jerky at my local butchers in the last 5yrs I could have bought a bloody good brew sculpture from the states I reckon. I''l buy 20 bucks worth and eat it in a night or two. Very addictive stuff.

cheers

Browndog

 

[InCider]

Do it the French way, throw in a bit of bread with blue mould on for your blues

Cheese and Beer - Roquefort and Rochfort yum!

I knew you'd come around to the Blues! Even without Andrew Johns!

Sean

 

[tangent]

"what is it with jerky? you can't just eat one or 2 pieces, you have to eat it all until it's all gone."

i stayed on a station up north, while the blokes would be having their evening beers, they'd slice off pieces of roo and dunk them in a chilli marinade. Then before bed they'd load the electric dryer.
Those blokes would polish off the majority before lunch and stink the landcruiser AND the whole sheep yards out with one fart.
A diet of 303 roo jerky is dangerous stuff.

 

[chillamacgilla73]

Hi Chilla, I use a blue cheese of choice from the supermarket for my cultures, works very well, the photo I posted uses a Roquforte cheese disolved in milk and added to the main milk before the rennet and at the same time as the basic culture or buttermilk. Here is the site I got my instructions from Cheese. English Stilton cheese makes a good mold starter too.
I have yet to try my hand at a hard cheese, but I am looking forward to it.

Cheers
Andrew

Yes, it can easily be reused. You don't need a lot of mould spores to effectively inoculate a batch, it's the lactic starter that's important.

Thanks very much for the info guys - I will definately try making a blue cheese very soon. I can't wait!

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

I made some rather nice jerky yesterday

Basically all I did was bought some corned silver side from the butcher. I sliced it into 1cm slices then marinated it in soy, honey, balsamic, chiili salt and some black been over night.

I then sprinkled it in chilli flakes and ground pepper, put it on a rack in the oven, set the oven to 90*ish and let it go for about 5 hrs .


Turned out fantastic and as good as any bought stuff.

With he next lot I shall be changing the marinade to make a honey,soy chilli. But you can use whatever marinade you like.

Corned silverside is ideal because it is already partly cured and nice and tender

 

[MVZOOM]

On Thursday I marinaded some Holumi (?) cheese - chilli, garlic, olive oil, sundried tomato and olives. Wacked it on the bbq hotplate with some olive oil, last night and cooked it - bloody beautiful.

Talk about calories!

Cheers - Mike :beerbang:

 

[Screwtop]

On Thursday I marinaded some Holumi (?) cheese - chilli, garlic, olive oil, sundried tomato and olives. Wacked it on the bbq hotplate with some olive oil, last night and cooked it - bloody beautiful.

Talk about calories!

Cheers - Mike :beerbang:

Haloumi is great for breakfast, you can fry it without it melting, dip it in egg and fry off, poli kala.

 

[bindi]

On Thursday I marinaded some Holumi (?) cheese - chilli, garlic, olive oil, sundried tomato and olives. Wacked it on the bbq hotplate with some olive oil, last night and cooked it - bloody beautiful.

Talk about calories!

Cheers - Mike :beerbang:

I have done the same with Bacio cheese [it's like Haloumi] but have not used sundried tomatoes and olives <_< so after reading this post I now have some marinating in the fridge with all the above.
can't wait.

Edit spelling of Haloumi

 

[warrenlw63]

Yasou to fried Saganaki also. :beerbang:

Another one I'm slowly getting addicted to are those nice marinated fetta-stuffed bell peppers that a lot of good delis carry these days.

Good stuff with a nice hoppy pale ale.

Warren -