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Post by shellymay on Dec 31, 2016 12:31:59 GMT
I love you to death @redfish, but seeing that just makes me want to give up eating cheese I couldn't make my own I guess is what I am saying, NO problems with slaughtering animals and blood and guts, but MOLD does me in
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Post by mzgarden on Dec 31, 2016 13:32:02 GMT
@redfish, very cool. This year I hope to learn more cheese making to use more of our goat milk. I have an enormous amount to learn. For this cheese, since it's strong and a little soft, could you mix it with cream cheese to make a spread? Keep the learnings coming!
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Post by feather on Dec 31, 2016 16:18:21 GMT
@redfish, Thanks for sharing the pictures. That is quite an accomplishment. I didn't know the mold would make a blanket on the cheese. Very fun stuff!
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Post by feather on Dec 31, 2016 17:40:47 GMT
@redfish, I peeked at your blog, very nice. You mention making parmesan in one of your posts. We are big fans of parmesan, for popcorn, for artichoke spread (making that tonight), for buttered noodles, spaghetti, lasagna, we use a LOT of it.
Have you any pointers on it? You mentioned it getting rock hard. Any way to avoid that in the future? After brining, letting it age for 6-8 months would dry it out. I guess I need to read more about the parmesan process. One site said that if the cheese was getting too dry, to coat it in wax, but it would be hard to know if the cheese was getting dry without cutting into it.
I love your can do it attitude and your curiosity for learning.
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Post by feather on Dec 31, 2016 20:20:24 GMT
<abbr class="o-timestamp time" title="Dec 31, 2016 11:54:06 GMT -6" data-timestamp="1483206846000">Dec 31, 2016 11:54:06 GMT -6</abbr> Redfish said: feather , the best thing you can do for Parmesan is to make the biggest batch you can. Oiling the rind helps a bit but the rind is supposed to dry and be hard. If you have a small batch, the whole thing becomes rind, which is what happens to me. I don't have the ability to do more than 4 gallons at a time. I've waxed it and it works to help with getting hard but, to me, the flavor was most definitely lacking. I really would like to make my own as well since we also use a lot of it but it just may not be practical for us. I plan to keep experimenting, but more carefully. I completely ruined a food processor and a blender trying to grate that thing. If you really want to learn about cheese, especially if you're more scientific than me, check out the forum on cheeseforum.org. There's some amazingly smart and experienced people on there! Good to hear how the wax affected the flavor. I do want to learn more about cheese and I have wandered over to the cheeseforum.org on occasion. I've done this with other ingredients. I'm a firm believer that we push our appliances to their limit. If I get a year out of any appliance, it's a keeper. I don't think I could be 'more scientific' than you, as I'm stuck as most people are, without huge bank account to finance some perfect quality assurance types of equipment, stainless steel vats, ph meters, a cheese cave, warmers, temperature gauges, sterilizable environment (is that a word?). I have a 4 gallon limit on warming my milk and cultures and no cheese cave yet. Unless I want to work in a cheese factory, and I don't, I can't see becoming more scientific about it. It's no wonder that cheese making is not just a science, but also an art. There are websites on all kinds of parmesan, from the famous to the household cheeses. Some are saying they brine the parmesan, instead of 24 hours, to 24 days. Can you imagine a cheese that big? I expect that the duration of the brine will change depending on the size of the cheese. (just like you said, about the batch size and proportion of rind to cheese, this affects the texture and flavor) Ugh, now to book keeping. The bookkeeping aspect while important is so incredibly boring and isolating. I worked in quality assurance, auditing, and that is just as dry as can be. In order to capture the ingredients, cultures, timing, temperatures for a fresh made cheese with 'instant results'. I need to capture the important information on an aged cheeses because in a year, when the cheese is aged my results won't mean much if I don't get that information documented now. I have some documented here and more notes there, but it needs to be in a cheese diary or it will be of no use. There is no way in heck I'm going to remember the information in a year, when the cheese is aged. I have 'work' to do. Happy New Year's!!! Keep doing what you do.
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