The Cheese Thread

[Truman42]

Yep, you need to buy an ultrasonic humidifier and a dehumidifier. Then you wire it with extension cord ends and plug them in, and it will switch them on via the relay.

geez Just when I had thoguht ive finally got all the gadgets I need for brewing an dont have to spend anymore money on brew gear..now I have to divert those funds to cheese making.

 

[benno1973]

Wait till you start making salami! (although the humidity controlled fridge will work there as well)

 

[capretta]

geez Just when I had thoguht ive finally got all the gadgets I need for brewing an dont have to spend anymore money on brew gear..now I have to divert those funds to cheese making.

dont stress too much truman, i dont use a humidifier or anything, if it gets too dry i seal up the big tupperware container i keep them in a little more securely with glad wrap, or add some old cloth in trays of water etc.. frankly the fridge takes care of the dehumidifying.

 

[Truman42]

Well at the moment my hygro says the container with my blues in is at 90% and 10C. I have a wet cloth in the bottom to help get the humidty up.

I checked calibration of my hygo with the salt in water test and it was spot on 75% humidty so I know its calibrated and working correctly. Its a wireless weather station from Bunnings and only cost $19.95.

My cams are on the wamer side of the fridge and I have the lid cracked on their container so they stay a bit wamer and a bit drier. Probably around 80% in their world.

 

[capretta]

sounds perfect then!

 

[benno1973]

That's ideal for both cheeses. Sounds like you got it covered.

 

[Truman42]

Well after my disaster with the stc1000 failing and my cheese getting down to -7C it seems to have recovered well. i re did the holes in the blue today with a skewer instead of a pin and I sampled the cheese that came off the skewer....Man who would of thought that mould could taste so bloody good.. fantastic is all I can say.

Not holding up much hope for the cams with the over dose of CACL, the waiting too long to rennet because I forgot to add the PC spores, and then the over heating of the curds when I turned my double bolier up instead of down, but who knows they may just make it. Ive sprayed them with a PC slurry every two days twice now so can only hope that the PC starts to cover the surface and they soften in the middle.

 

[Truman42]

A bit of cheese porn for you cheese heads.

Here are my cams only 10 days old but they have some slight blue mould on them. Possibly some cross contamination from the blues but I think the PC is starting to grow well and should outgrow the blue.



Nice white PC growth on the sides



And here are my blues looking bloody marvellous after Ive just given them a wipe to get rid of some white mould spots on them.

 

[Truman42]

Not many cheese heads among us. No updates to this thread since Feb.

Anyway my blues and my cams were both failures. The blues ended up like hockey pucks which Im guessing was due to not a humid enough environment. Also my recipe said to scrape all the blue mould off after 1 month and then every month for 3 months. Ive since been told I shouldn't have done this.

The cams were a disaster from the start when I added 20mls of CaCl instead of 2mls by mistake. (Poured out some from the container so I could syringe off 2mls to add to water and accidentally poured in the wrong container)

So back to the drawing board for another attempt at some cams.

Here they are after removing them from the moulds.

 

[bradsbrew]

I had a failure as well Truman, I have not tried again either. May just grab some milk this arv and make some cheese, whilst getting the Jerky ready.

 

[markjd]

I'm tempted to try making my own camembert and blue cheese. But to be worth it financially, I'd have to make a lot of cheese. But I guess as a new hobby, it could work out.

 

[Dave70]

How can you tell if it's (blue, moldy cheese) safe to eat? I'm sure I read recently there was a recall from a cheese mob after a few customers became violently ill after eating their product.
Didn't say weather or not it had been cross contaminated however.

 

[niftinev]

i'm a bit of a cheese head and I find this site very useful (link below), sorry mate can't help you with cams as I can't stand the stuff so I don't make it.

Lots of great info on this site

http://www.cheesemaking.com/recipes/recipedetails.html


edit only thing I don't like about this site is they use DVI cultures, but horses for courses

 

[benno1973]

I'm tempted to try making my own camembert and blue cheese. But to be worth it financially, I'd have to make a lot of cheese. But I guess as a new hobby, it could work out.

Cams definitely work out financially viable for me. I make 4 camembert from 6L of milk, so that's around $1.50 each. And the taste is just way better that cheap cam.

 

[Truman42]

Kaiser...how moist do you keep your cams when ageing? Mine are at 12C and 92% humidity. They've been in the maturation box since Tuesday after drying out a bit for a few days on the kitchen bench. But as I turn them everyday they are wet on the bottom side.

Is this normal as more moisture comes out of them? I'm concerned they may be too wet and I should be lowering the humidity in the box for the time being?

 

[benno1973]

Hey Truman, I'm less than scientific about it. I have a curing fridge for salami/prosciutto which I keep at 12C and ~76% humidity, and I just put my cams in a tuppaware container in there with the lid cracked and held ajar. They are sitting on a sushi mat, so the water drains freely and for the first few days I drain the container as the whey seeps out. No idea of the actual humidity in the box.

I definitely don't dry them at room temp - maybe that's an issue? After they've drained for around 5 hours, I rub them with salt and put them straight in the maturation box on the sushi mat. I leave them for the first few days (just draining the free whey) until I see some wispy p.can growth, and then I start flipping daily. I certainly see moisture on the surface, but you don't want droplets. It helps if the container lid is on an angle so condensation doesn't drop down on them. You don't want them to sit in water, but you also don't want them to be dry and crack.

Hope that helps? Happy to answer any questions. I have a blog post about the process I use. The hardest part for me was battling the black 'cat hair' mould before the white mould took hold. Spreading the white mould around with fingers helps, and lowering the humidity also helps.

 

[Truman42]

I follow the country brewer recipe and leave them on the bench in the kitchen covered for 24 hours to drain once I have removed the moulds. I then salt them and put them in my maturation box which has a shelf to allow them to drain and get air around them.

I turn them over everyday and although the top is moist the bottom is usually wet where the whey has drained.

From what you said do you not bother to flip them until you start to see some white mould? I'm wondering if flipping them everyday means the whey doesn't drain out of the cheese properly and I should leave them for a few days.

Mine have been in the box since Tuesday and I have flipped them everyday and they are still wet on the bottom after flipping.

Today I salted them again just to draw out some more moisture and have wiped out my box and kept the lid off completely. The humidity has dropped from 92% down to 82% so far.

After my first lot stuffing up I really want to get these right but I'm paranoid about them being too wet or then ending up too dry.

Must admit its easier to make beer.

 

[Truman42]

P.S. Love the blog and enjoying reading it.

 

[TimT]

How can you tell if it's (blue, moldy cheese) safe to eat? I'm sure I read recently there was a recall from a cheese mob after a few customers became violently ill after eating their product.

Dave70 - you're probably thinking of the JIndi cheese company who had listeria get into some of their cheeses. That doesn't come from the blue mould (which is penicillin), and you wouldn't find it many cheeses anyway, as after a month or so of ageing the cheese will have become so acidic that the listeria can't survive. That said some folks have penicillin allergies, though I'm not sure whether the penicillin is present in large enough quantities on cheeses with blue mould, or concentrated enough, to cause a reaction.

That same reason, listeria, is basically why milk is usually pasteurised and why usually, commercial cheeses in Australia have to be made from pasteurised milk, as a health precaution. An annoying and in many ways redundant health precaution because (as you see, above) it doesn't always stop the listeria, and it results in poorer quality of cheese. Bloody government grumble grumble grrrr....

 

[TimT]

Going into the colder months now means it's - CHEESE SEASON* AGAIN! I've got three long-term cheeses on the go at the moment, in various states of maturity:

- A Caerphilly, which I'm probably going to eat fairly soon - it can be aged for months but it's the sort of cheese that will be ready after a few weeks.
- A traditional Cheddar, which I kind of mucked up during the press - it's always hard getting the curds to knit together so it has a lumpy texture, which is going to make it difficult to wax, when I get around to it.
- A Double Gloucester cheese, still in the press, which apparently I've got to age one to three months. By the looks of it, it'll be a moister, sweeter cheese than cheddar (made in a similar way, but with a much shorter period of ageing/treating the curds).

And more to come.... oh, MUCH MUCH MORE TO COME.

Love to hear what other cheeses folks are making!

*Cheese + Season = Cheason?