The Cheese Thread

[Thirsty Boy]

I use this same recipe to make the cheese for palak paneer (sp?)
You can substitute lemon juice for the vinegar, I think the flavour is a little less tangy but both work. After draining the curd, wrap it tightly with a cheesecloth overnight. This makes a fairly firm cheese which can then be cut into cubes, and bobs your uncle! I can't find my recipe atm or I'd post it too, but from memory you just chop and fry an onion with garlic, cumin and ginger and add cooked blended spinach and tomato puree. Then brown the cheese cubes in oil in another pan, and gently stir the cubes through the spinach mix and serve with rice. Lovely stuff but yeah maybe google for a proper recipe if you are interested

And the same thing again for the Queso Blanco I made, salted lightly & hung overnight in a cheesecloth... I cut mine into slices and fried it haloumi style. Served with fresh ground black pepper, lots of lemon juice and a drizzel of olive oil with a light rocket salad.... oooh er it wasn't arf nice.

Currently eating a nice slow set acid curd cheese I made on the weekend. Supposed to be made with goats milk, but its turned out quite well using cow juice. A little creamier and less sharp.

I'm having trouble getting a nice clean break with my curds... they all end up a little sloppy. I'm usig bog standard supermarket milk and adding a little calcium chloride to overcome the homogenisation... but its not working so well. More Calcium Chloride? Maybe not enough rennet?

I have a birthday request in for selected chunks of the Cam kit from country brewer (not the whole thing, I have a lot of the kit already) plus a selection of assorted bugs... moldy cheese is firmly on the agenda.

TB

 

[Linz]

Yup.....Little Squares did for the 3 MONSTER cams. Still a couple of weeks of maturing before gorging ourselves on them....one at a time of course...

After speaking to the wifey, She informed me that she used straight powdered milk and added extra powder to make it 'creamier'?!?!.. <_<

 

[braufrau]

I'm having trouble getting a nice clean break with my curds... they all end up a little sloppy. I'm usig bog standard supermarket milk and adding a little calcium chloride to overcome the homogenisation... but its not working so well. More Calcium Chloride? Maybe not enough rennet?

I did the course at the Blessed Cheese and we used Parmalat unhomogenised milk. You can get that in Safeways in Melbourne.

 

[AndrewQLD]

Well I finally made some Camembert yesterday using Armstrongs nice kit. the process was simple and well explained.

Temperature spot on ................................................................... Good clean break
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Molded up .......................................................................Salted and ready for maturing
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Day nine and the cheeses have a wonderfull snowy white covering, I'll wrap the tommorrow and post another pic in a few weeks on the tasting day.


Andrew

 

[AndrewQLD]

I plan on doing a bit of cold smoking this weekend and thought that "Smoked Camembert" might be interesting, at least more so than "Chocolate Camembert" , sorry Armstrong :lol: .
This cheese still has a couple of weeks left to mature and I thought if I cold smoke one now and then leave for a couple of weeks to mature it would help to develop the smoky flavor.

My only concern is the smoke might Kill the molds off.

Any Ideas?

Andrew

 

[Thirsty Boy]

I did the course at the Blessed Cheese and we used Parmalat unhomogenised milk. You can get that in Safeways in Melbourne.

Thanks braufrau

I'll try that next batch. If it fixes the problem I'll know its not the rennet dosage. Then I can either stick with the parmalat or muck about with the amount of calcium chloride I am using.

Cheers

TB

 

[Armstrong]

I plan on doing a bit of cold smoking this weekend and thought that "Smoked Camembert" might be interesting, at least more so than "Chocolate Camembert" , sorry Armstrong :lol: .
This cheese still has a couple of weeks left to mature and I thought if I cold smoke one now and then leave for a couple of weeks to mature it would help to develop the smoky flavor.

My only concern is the smoke might Kill the molds off.

Any Ideas?

Andrew

Hmmm ... I have no idea what the smoke will do to the mould. The fact that is the mould that ripens the cheese, it may stop or at least slow down the ripening process.

Great experiment ... will await the results :icon_drool2:

 

[redgums500]

Anyone got any idea how to make a White Castello clone ? Looked on the net to no avail.


cheers

Redgums

 

[AndrewQLD]

Here's a picture of the Camembert from a couple of posts up, matured 1 month.
Really tasty & creamy and the texture is fantastic.

Great kit Armstrong.



I wasn't game to try smoking one until they matured so I might give it a go this weekend.

Cheers
Andrew

 

[bonj]

That looks great, Andrew.

 

[tazman1967]

well here we are, blue vein take 2, i made these 4 days ago and i just popped them out of the molds when they'd shrunk enough for me to get them out. the two large ones came from small pool chlorine baskets from bunnings ($6 ea) and the flatter one is from the small storage buckets that i used for my first effort. i used a knife and fork drawer basket from bunnings ($5) and cut it to size for my fridge to place the cheeses on and provide good airflow underneath the cheese cause the metal cake cooler i used for the first one developed rust spots cause of the moisture.
i didnt compress these ones under weight and i used a mold culture from the roaring 40s blue from king island dairy, apparently a roquefort strain.
i used 3lx parmalat 7lx dairy farmers and 1lx full cream and the yield was a little higher than i expected, but i think i will get over it!
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Hi Capretta
Great cheese I have just started making cheese. King Island is my favourite cheese. Being a Tasmainian Im biased. How or where did you get the mould culture for the Roaring Forties Blue ? My Fave is the King Island Double Brie. Any ideas on a recipe for that ? Sorry..just newbie questions ?

 

[capretta]

hey taz, no help for you on the double brie front, compressing my cheese like that makes the cheese a little more like chedder consistancy. if you find a good recipie be sure to post it cause my mrs is a big fan of that cheese!!

the mould culture was ripped straight from the roaring forties itself, just like culturing up your favourite beer yeast from bottle dregs. i just got a teaspoon of the blue stuff and mixed it into a cup of milk till it was fully mashed up then added it to the milk before the rennet.. easy as you could probably do that with heaps of cheeses though i cant speak from experience..

 

[tazman1967]

Thanks for the info and advice. The Double Brie is on the drawing board. Will have play around with it. Will post results in the future.

 

[brendanos]

we used Parmalat unhomogenised milk. You can get that in Safeways in Melbourne.

Has anyone else run into any unhomogenised, or cream line milk in their travels? I'd love to know where I could find some. The cheeses I've tried made from the garden variety "macro" milks seem a little lacklustre, and don't seem to develop much with age.

 

[capretta]

ive asked around. apparently any milk producer who is contracted to dairy farmers etc are afraid of losing their licence if they hand out unhomog milk.. thats what i was told anyway.. <_<

 

[Fents]

Has anyone else run into any unhomogenised, or cream line milk in their travels? I'd love to know where I could find some. The cheeses I've tried made from the garden variety "macro" milks seem a little lacklustre, and don't seem to develop much with age.

Go to safeway or Coles. There is an organic brand of milk called Paramalt. You can get it in Light or Full cream. Its unhomoginesed and makes the best curd!

 

[capretta]

ahh sorry, late night typing, i meant unpasturised...

 

[Little_Squares]

Well, even though the Linz is waiting eagerly for the camembert to ripen, I don't think it's gonna do so well......once I wrapped them everything went south - they got too humid and turned on me...... any ideas? Can you just turn up the cheese cave (fridge) temp once they're covered in mould and leave them unwrapped? I'll post a picture once I get up the courage....

 

[agraham]

Ok guys you have inspired me to make cheese!

I will be ordering a romano/parmesan kit from cheeselinks tommorow. I will have to work out how to press the cheese to achieve the correct consistency needed for the style.

 

[benno1973]

Has anyone else run into any unhomogenised, or cream line milk in their travels?

I've heard (but haven't seen) that Fresh Provisions in Mt Lawley stocks an organic unhomogenised milk. Otherwise you could try Herdies Fresh, or if all that fails there's an organic store on Beaufort St in Mt Lawley that would probably have it - can't remember the name unfortunately, but it's next door to Tony's pasta house and opposite the Inglewood Library. Finally, there's a dinky little store on the corner of 9th Ave and Beaufort St that carries a whole bunch of middle eastern goods - that'd also be worth a shot, as they have some pretty hard to find stuff...