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Post by feather on May 16, 2017 18:56:55 GMT
@redfish,I'd offer to help you on pasting links but I don't know much about kindles at all. Let's see, 20 weeks, hypothetically you'll have 546 gallons of milk, and therefore 546 lbs of cheese. I hope you sell your milk too, if that is allowed where you are. -------------------------- I just counted up my cheeses, and I have used 158 gallons of milk, and probably have close to that many lbs of cheese, and the cheese cave is full, as well as some in the refrigerator and freezer. I had been stacking cheese (which is not ideal) in the cheese cave and today I got my needed shelf and we removed the drawers to make more room. So now things are more organized and not stacked. I'm planning on one batch of cheddar curds for us and to share with someone at work that shared some plants for our garden (celery). And one batch the day before Dh's family reunion in June. The only cheese currently in process is the blue cheese. It should go for 30-40 days, and 30 days is 5/20 (next Saturday), I'll give it as squeeze and see if it is softening up a little. Then I scrape off the blue coating of mold, cut it into wedges, and foodvac it in smaller sizes to go back to the cheese cave and to go from sharp to mellow. I make a dynamite blue cheese dressing and I'm crazy about it with big chunks of blue cheese. The first batch of colby1 made back in March will be at it's minimum aging of 10 weeks on 5/28 (in two sundays) and we are SO excited to see how this one turns out. I really need this cheese to be very pliable, a good eating cheese, slice-able without falling apart, and I hope there is no mold under the wax but it looks perfect right now, and I hope there is no whey seepage under the wax either, as that could sour. I'm nervous about that cheese. shellymay, thanks for sending the money. My son laughed at that.
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Post by shellymay on May 17, 2017 14:35:40 GMT
546ish lbs of cheese and running out of room...........................I am always willing to help out another homesteader, I have purchased a brand new fridge without the wasted space of freezer and it is still empty, but since a really really good friend needs some extra space for her cheese storage (so she can continue with her talents) I could be persuaded very easily to let her store her cheese at my place, hint hint. Of course I need to EDUCATE you and let you know that I live in a berm home, storing items in the fridge inside a berm home causes some loss, it will shrink by at least half of its delivery weight in no time, but will level out in lets say 7-10 days. Which means you could drop off more as the shrinkage will allow more room..... Please give me some notice if you decide you need my extra space ( I would need to rid/hide the bathroom scale) so that there was no evidence as to why my berm home causes shrinkage to your cheese.
As I said it is a new fridge so in fine print is says something about no mold in fridge, so you might ought to bring the ready to eat blocks
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Post by shellymay on May 17, 2017 17:26:32 GMT
@redfish , Can I get that weight in fried cheese from you? We just might be able to work something out gotta go wipe the drool off my face now which was caused by just thinking about fried cheese.
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Post by shellymay on May 19, 2017 15:13:40 GMT
So jealous here!
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Post by feather on May 20, 2017 17:01:21 GMT
Cool press. How much weight do you have on it there?
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Post by feather on May 20, 2017 19:24:12 GMT
27.2 lbs. It's very basic but it works. It drains onto my double drainboard sink and then into the sink itself. That is great. If it can drain into the sink, it sure saves time and mess. My press sits on a breadboard that is 15-16 inches across (standard walmart junk), and the sink is 14 inches, so it's just right for draining too. I don't have a drain board on my sink, though I think that is what I would want if I ever redo the kitchen. I peeled and cut open the blue cheese today, I was so excited as I have waited all month for this. It smelled like a brie, I was surprised but there must have been some brie like mold on the outside, it was white with the blue and and the white was totally by accident. I'll show pictures later today. I sure wish you were closer so I could ask you over and you could help me investigate and taste this stuff. It would help to have more than just one opinion on it.
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Post by feather on May 20, 2017 20:32:45 GMT
Blue Cheese at 30 days. This is ready to eat though it will go from a sharper flavor to a more mellow flavor as it ages further. Ripening Boxes. I'm not sure if a ripening box is always appropriate because of the fiasco with my havarti, which probably could have been avoided if I had a clue what I was doing. It is appropriate with blue cheese. It holds the moisture and if you look carefully you can see the humidity on the sides of the box. The moisture of the ripening box can be adjusted by firmly putting on the lid to hold moisture or moving the lid half off, so more moisture evaporates. On the top of the view of this cheese, you might see not only blue but a some amount of red but mostly white and blue mold. When I turned it over, you can see that on the other side, it had more JUST white and blue and no red. The white mold smells like brie, which is pleasant. The red didn't have a smell. As it turns out when I peeled it off, the cheese had gone from crumbling paste type texture to a creamy soft texture which is really nice. This happened only under the white mold and not the reddish areas and under the white mold it was about 1/2 inch thick of the creamier type of cheese. I don't know what it is called, a candida type or geotrium type, but it affects the cheese to make it creamy from the outside working inwards. I believe that is how brie works and I think camembert is similar. After peeling off the mold (which if I was braver I'd eaten it and probably should have), you can see the blue mold, and the places where I stuck a sanitized skewer in, to make air holes so the oxygen could get in and the blue mold flourish. I had skewered the top, the bottom and one side all the way to the other side. If you look you can see at the bottom of the cheese, it is more crumbling (you've probably seen crumbled blue cheese before) while the top is more creamy where the white mold was working it's magic. I put 1/2 in one vacpac and 1/4 in another to put back in the cheese cave for more aging, and put the current blue quarter, in an old cottage cheese like container for making blue cheese dressing or spreading on crackers in the refrigerator. This is the quarter I kept out to eat. You can see the blue cheese that grew on the inside. It tasted good to me, not particularly sharp, had a little brie smell and taste. DS tasted it and he liked it though found it a little bitter but pleasant enough to ask for more and that is the flavor that will mellow in time aging. I love it, I'm very happy with it.
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Post by feather on May 20, 2017 21:14:40 GMT
Blue cheese culture is in bought blue cheese. I'm not recommending anyone do this, but this is what I did. Buy a domestic blue. Cut out the blue cheese veins. Sanitize the blender with boiling water. Add the blue cheese veins and distilled water and process. Save it and freeze it in a sanitized container. I used only a teaspoon. I could have used less and I believe it would have been just as successful.
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Post by shellymay on May 21, 2017 3:04:21 GMT
PUKE I am not eating blue cheese MOLD icky icky icky......you ladies will have to let me sit this one out, but go ahead have your party and enjoy.....
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Post by feather on May 21, 2017 16:18:26 GMT
You can see the blue cheese areas that are blue, and most of the cheese is white. When you taste just the white area, it still tastes like blue cheese. Weird right? There doesn't seem to be a difference at all in tasting the blue areas or the white areas. Oh and by the way, all three of us are still alive today after eating it yesterday. Surprised? Different people find different words to describe the flavor. I've heard it called 'harsh' and then the harshness gets milder with age. DS called it 'a little bitter' because there is a small bite to it. DH called it, 'mouth drying the way blue cheese makes your mouth feel'. I find it medium bitey, creamy, pleasant brie smelling, with a little salt which balances the biteyness. It's definitely not the strongest blue cheese I've ever had. It's also not a smelly cheese, not like socks. The recipe called it 'petite bleu' because it was originally made into three small rounds, but this was just a 2 gallon batch in my regular 6 and 1/2 inch across mold and it held it's shape just fine. I think I'll call it my brie blue.
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Post by feather on May 27, 2017 17:52:03 GMT
I heard a rumor from Redfish that she is making cheese!!!!! I'm so happy for her. Oh goodness, tomorrow is colby1 day, it will be 10 weeks old and there is so much hope on this cheese for DH. Please be a good colby!!! I am counting on this. DH has been very supportive of the cheese making and I really want it to be delicious with a good texture. Then on Sunday, it is Jarlsberg1 day, it will be matured, and I can't imagine that I'll actually have a swiss cheese we can eat. Can you tell I'm ridiculously excited about this. Patience is NOT a talent or gift of mine. shellymay, you can skip the blue cheese and celebrate all the other kinds. Downstairs in the cheese cave, everything is waxed or vacpac. There is/are one or two of the waxed cheddars or colbys leaking a tiny bit of whey through the wax. That means there must be a tiny hole in the wax. I'm going to have to wash all of the involved leaking or leaked on cheeses, then spread paper towels out, to figure which one or two is leaking, and probably break that one open to see what is going on inside the wax. So tomorrow I might be breaking open more than just my colby1. I'm planting tomatoes and peppers today, oh, and onions, so it is good I'm busy with other things, to get my mind off my maturing cheeses.
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Post by feather on May 27, 2017 18:51:28 GMT
DH came home and I brought the cheese journal to him, opened to the page showing the cheese and maturity dates, and pointed to "colby1 5/28". He says, "I'm scared aren't you?", we both started laughing, YES I'M SCARED.
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Post by feather on May 27, 2017 21:32:47 GMT
We got most of the garden in, in 2 hours, 48 tomatoes, 3 new types, 30 peppers of 3 types, 16 brussel sprouts, 200 onions, and we have space for another 200 onions, tomorrow. UGH, we are all sweaty and gross and dirty.
@redfish, you might be amazed that your parmesan turns out. I've run across recipes for the same type of cheese that vary the ingredients and have been pressed from 100 lbs to 30 lbs for the same cheese, and you'd think it might make a big difference, but it might not. It might even be a preference in how to make it. My 7th batch of parmesan I cooked too long and hot, it was as dry as the desert. The curds were like small pebbles. It looked grainy. I pressed it and it barely even wanted to hold together, so I vac pac ed it for aging. It probably will work out anyway. If it doesn't, then I'll call it mutant cheese. "here, have some mutant cheese, it's good for you" ha ha.
I imagine I'll be posting tomorrow about the success or unsuccessful colby1 and I think I'll be tearing apart my cheddar2 because I think that is the one that is leaking. If I tear apart the cheddar2 it will be only 2 months old, so, I'll clean it up, if it needs that, and then vac pac it and age it further to at least 3 months.
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Post by feather on May 28, 2017 22:34:19 GMT
The colby1. This was a cheese I waxed in clear wax. From the outside, it looked good. As I was cutting into the wax, whey leaked out, probably 2 tablespoons from this 4 gallon batch of colby. I checked my records and it was waxed 5 days after I made it, so it had ample time to dry before waxing.
The whey smelled fresh, not sour, and it was clear. No mold had formed on the cheese or the wax. That's good!
I cut it and we tasted it. It tasted like a sharp cheddar, which is my favorite but not DH's. He prefers a more bland taste. The texture was crumbling and not plasticy or rubbery slices. That was the disappointing part. After that, we microwaved a slice and it melted nice and tasted OH SO GOOD!! You know how cheddar loses a little flavor when it is melted, you get a good melt but miss the sharpness, well this cheese still tasted fabulous when melted. Mac and Cheese with THIS cheese, well, it will be incredible.
I vac pac-ed it and then did some research into why it was crumbly and not as plasticy as I wanted the texture to be. The taste gives me the clue, it was a bit over-acidified and the ph dropped too low for a bland cheese. The low ph is balanced with the salt, so it is good. I will adjust my recipe for colby to reflect this issue until I get it right. He just wants the slices to hold together in a smooth slice that doesn't crumble.
I heard back from the DH's family reunion committee and they are all in on me sending cheddar cheese curds as our contribution to the reunion.
No pictures tonight. We might chop open one of the cheddars tonight, we'll see if we have time.
Poor DH, no cheese for him, yet.
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Post by feather on May 30, 2017 19:11:32 GMT
Sometimes taking pictures, then downloading them, then making them web ready, then uploading them to the server space and then getting them on here, becomes a little tedious. I finally have a few pictures for this post. The colby1, I waxed in clear/white wax with a low temperature, with a brush, and it is drippy, messy, not too pretty. It's a bad picture and the wax is lumpy and bumpy. You can see that here. Most of the cheeses that come after this one are dipped in wax at a higher temperature and they look a lot more smooth and even. The next pictures is cheddar2, it was leaking a little, so we cut off the red wax and the surface was wet, smelled good, mold free, hooray! When we cut it in half, we could see it was a little crumbly but not overly, for cheddar, and wet, and so we repackaged the halves in vac pacs because it was only aged 2 months and it needed to be aged 3 months minimum, to some years maximum. It tasted like a mild cheddar, not even as cheddary as the colby had tasted, which was surprising. Next the Jarlsberg1, by far the most surprising, excellent mild swiss flavor at 2 months, excellent and even hole formation, a plastic smooth sliceable cheese!!!! Awesome! Just look at how pretty that cheese is!!!! I haven't seen any cheese better! So we sliced it, pretty eh? All three of us tasted it, we all liked it a lot. Decided to put 1/4 into the fridge to eat with smoked ham, and 3/4's vac pac-ed to continue aging. Since it is rather mild, but has a lovely swiss smell and taste, the aging may make it a little stronger and more nutty. The vac pacs were labeled. The waxes were washed and left to dry, to be reused at a future date. Now that I've successfully made a cheese with a texture (and taste) we like, more smooth plasticy in texture, I'm hoping I can impart that quality into my next colby. If I can figure out how to do that.
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Post by shellymay on Jun 1, 2017 18:15:45 GMT
feather, Now those last cheese's I could help you eat, but my mind is made up.......you keep the Blue and Mold ones to yourself
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Post by feather on Jun 8, 2017 1:18:21 GMT
Hi Guinness fans. I turned all my cheeses in the cave and the guinness was 2 months old, SO, I brought it upstairs to take out of the wax and have a look. First there was some gas built up, and a few cracks on the sharp edges of the wax, the gas made it feel a little like a balloon.
I cut off the wax and found a little mold along the cracked areas, not much, so I trimmed it back, so no mold now. The color was uniform and it was supposed to be more mottled. I would definitely boil down twice as much guinness into more of a strong syrup before soaking the curds in it next time, to make it darker and even stronger flavored.
The texture was not too dry not too wet, the slices held together perfectly without worrying if it would crumble. There were little holes throughout it and it was a beige color. A GREAT picking up and eating cheese. It had a slight bitter beer taste with salt to balance it. I really liked it. It would be good on a cheese board for snacking and crackers, or shredded and melted on top of a brat.
I put most of it in a vac pac to go back for more aging and 4 oz in the refrigerator so the guys can taste it tomorrow.
[As an aside, the merlot infused cheese felt solid in its wax and no bulging or gas, or cracks. That one can be cracked open any day now to another couple months. The sage derby w/spinach one feels solid too, and I hope that means, no mold. That one will be done after 3 months.]
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Post by feather on Jun 8, 2017 15:56:15 GMT
I've been hearing that the manchego cheese can be used like a parmesan or romano. Since I've never tasted any manchego, I could never envision how to use it. It is going to be on my to-do list now.
That blue cheese looks excellent and blue! Good picture, thank you for taking time to share. You go girl!
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Post by feather on Jun 10, 2017 17:11:27 GMT
This is the picture of the cut side of the previously mentioned guinness infused cheese. It has small mechanical holes and a nice solid texture. This is the gouda1 we opened last night. See the small holes and some cracking which is horizontal (imperfect) gas producing holes, not that pretty really. Once the cheese was refrigerated, the cracking didn't affect the cheese and it held together beautifully. It tasted mildly tangy and creamy. DH liked the area towards the outer rind. The texture (the slightly more beige color on the edge) was more rigid than the middle which was creamier. We were all very happy with the gouda and plan to make it again and often. It only took 2 months to age so that is definitely a plus! I can tell from the reaction of Dh and Ds--this cheese won't last long at all in the fridge. It is a good snacking cheese. Originally I had planned to use the gouda as a middle ground, extra cheese to add to the swiss types cheese for fondue this winter. I will do that but I'll be out by then, so onward, to making more cheese.
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Post by Skandi on Jun 10, 2017 18:26:16 GMT
I've been hearing that the manchego cheese can be used like a parmesan or romano. Since I've never tasted any manchego, I could never envision how to use it. It is going to be on my to-do list now. That blue cheese looks excellent and blue! Good picture, thank you for taking time to share. You go girl! Manchego is fairly common here, I'm not sure what goats milk would make it taste like, (it is goats you're using?) but I've never had one strong enough to be used in place of parmesan, I guess you could keep it long enough! There is a local producer near my home town who makes a cheese close to chedder they keep some back for three years, and that's very close to parmasan.
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Post by feather on Jun 10, 2017 19:32:00 GMT
Manchego is fairly common here, I'm not sure what goats milk would make it taste like, (it is goats you're using?) but I've never had one strong enough to be used in place of parmesan, I guess you could keep it long enough! There is a local producer near my home town who makes a cheese close to chedder they keep some back for three years, and that's very close to parmasan. Manchego is usually sheeps milk but I make it with cow's milk store bought pasteurized and Redfish makes it with goat's milk. What do a long aged cheddar, some or most parmesan, some or most romano, and manchego have in common? Lipase. Some cheddars if you want very sharp cheddar you add lipase culture. Goat's milk that Redfish has is raw and it has a natural lipase in the milk, from my understanding. Redfish jump in anytime! I've seen manchego cheese that can be sliced, so that must be young cheese, still moist enough to hold together. If cheeses are aged in the cheese cave without a covering of wax or vac packed, it will keep losing moisture, the rind getting thicker and harder, more for grating than for slicing. Sometimes the rind will be very thick, and rock hard, and at least with parmesan, it can be used as flavoring for italian stews and soups as a last resort. I'd love to cut open a parmesan to see what it is doing, and to see how it tastes.
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Post by feather on Jun 17, 2017 18:08:57 GMT
I haven't made cheese in one month and 3 days!!!! I was having serious withdrawal symptoms, and envy and all kinds of terrible feelings because I wasn't having fun making cheese.
I'm happy today, making gouda, the weather is cooling, gardens are in, so I'm sterilizing equipment. I found a different gouda recipe I wanted to try. It uses lower temperatures. Instead of 85, 92, and 110, it uses 84, 90, and 95. Instead of pressing at 30lbs pressure for 12 hours, it presses at 15 lbs for 2-30 minute presses. I found the recipe on marblemounthomestead.blogspot.com .
I have the go-ahead from DH, he wants 2 more goudas, he says we really like them and we will eat the ones we have too fast. He also said I could try the manchego, so on the third day (monday) I'll make that.
Here's what my recipe looks like for Gouda3: 4 gallons bought milk whole 1 t. CaCl2 + water 8 oz mother culture mesophilic 1/3 t. triple rennet + water Sterilize equipment in boiling roaster Heat milk to 84 degrees F and add the CaCl2 and mesophilic culture let sit 15 minutes Add rennet and let sit for 40 minutes Cut into 1/3 inch (pea sized)cubes, taking 10 minutes to do that horizontally, lengthwise and width wise. Remove 25% whey (1 gallon), add water 140 degree F to a target temperature of 90 degrees F.Stir for 12 minutes. Remove 50% whey (2 gallons), add water 140 degree F to a target temperature of 95 degrees F. Stir for 10 minutes. Pour into cheese cloth lined mold. Press at 15 lbs for 30 minutes. Unwrap and turn over and rewrap. Press at 15 lbs for 30 minutes. Let rest until brine is ready. Begin brining 12 hours after initial innoculation of culture to milk. So that the culture can flavor and grow, let it sit at room temperature until it is 12 hours since beginning. Brine in an 18% salt brine for 12 hours. Let dry and wax. Age at least 2 months.
My son and roommate out in north dakota showed some interest in making cheese. I thought maybe I'd assemble some of my extra ingredients and supplies and equipment and send it out to them. Then I started looking at buying a few things to round it out. It turns out, that buying the supplies to start making cheese is more expensive piece by piece than buying a kit for the basics. I found the Ricki's cheese kit on amazon for about $25 and there is no way I could assemble all those things at that price, so I sent them it. They'll still need to get a press or at least fake one, like for this gouda, it would only take 15 lbs and that's do-able with weights or bags of pennies, or something you could find around the house. If you could find a way to balance 2 one gallon milk cartons full of water, that's 16 lbs. I might have told the tales of balancing 20 lbs of pennies in zip lock bags, having them fall off and hit the floor and picking up pennies for a week. There's probably pennies under the stove still to this day.
I've been watching Gavin Webber out of Australia do his 'cheese talk' on youtube, which I so enjoy, and he said he tried to make mother cultures and it didn't work for him. I've found the opposite to be true for us here. Maybe I was just lucky. Making a mother culture, is taking the expensive dried culture you buy, and letting it sit in a warmed skim milk in sterilized jars, and once the milk has thickened and become shiny and solid, with the cultures growing in it, then portion it and freeze it, and use it instead of the dried direct culture. It takes about 12 hours. My first and second gouda were made with mother culture instead of the dried culture and they have been the best of cheeses for us so far. My jarlsberg1 and 2 were also made with the mother cultures and the first one we opened was a wild success. There's nothing wrong with using the dried direct set cultures at all but if you are doing any volume, it sure is more cost effective (and in our case taste effective) to try the mother cultures method.
Can you tell I'm happy today, cheese happy!
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Post by feather on Jun 18, 2017 16:21:35 GMT
Yesterday's Gouda3, after cooking the curd at the lower temperatures, I put it in a cheese cloth lined mold. The mold holds about 8 lbs when full. It was full. Now, the average cheese from a 4 gallon batch of milk, will give about 4 to 5 lbs of cheese. This mold was full, about 8 lbs, so there is too much whey left in it, and it is jiggly and will not hold up well. So I began the 2 30 minute pressings. They ended up being more like 5 hour pressings with 3 rewraps at 15-20 lbs until the cheese was just under 5 lbs and not jiggily like jello. Then it was brined last night for 12 hours, and now sits in room temperature air on top of a sushi mat, to dry before waxing. I weighed it out of the press at 4 lbs 15 ounces.
So even though I want to follow the recipe exactly, experience tells me, the cheese can't be left that wet. I had a colby do that to me previously, it was about 6 lbs out of the press. As it dried, it sunk down, bulged out, and the sides cracked in the middle as it was losing whey during drying. Lots of whey collected under the sushi mat and it didn't get dry on the outside within 2-3 days. That's not acceptable or easy to wax over so I won't let that happen again.
I'm making Gouda4 today and planning to press it longer as well.
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Post by feather on Jun 19, 2017 15:04:43 GMT
My gouda4 is drying now. Today I'm making manchego. @redfish, how to you age your manchego? The tutorial I watched, he air dried it, he oiled it, and then aged it for a month or 2. I feel like a fish out of water because I've never tasted manchego and I don't know how to finish it.
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Post by feather on Jun 19, 2017 20:54:07 GMT
@redfish, Thank you for your experience on the manchego. I'll do just that too. I'm at the end of my manchego day, and it lost so much moisture I will assume it will be dry. I'm pressing it now. My two goudas have shrunk down, slowly but surely, approaching 4.25 lbs which is a good healthy weight for a 4 gallon batch.
Oh I'm very excited for you to make muenster with raw milk. I've never made it even with store bought milk. My basement seems to have quite the cornucopia of bacteria/cultures in the air. I don't really know enough about them but providing the right ph environment and temperature environment, almost anything will grow and I've seen at least 4 types of ambient bacteria/cultures grow in my basement cheese cave, almost on their own. (geo, linens, bri bloom (which might be geo), and blue) It's amazing. I bet you'll get some b. linens to grow for your muenster.
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Post by feather on Jun 20, 2017 1:43:40 GMT
Where do you sneak off to and store these sneaky cheeses? I learned that my wasted whey, is good for my fruit trees, my strawberry bed, my black berry vines, my medicine plant beds. So now that I know better, I drain my cheese into a cheese cloth lined mold over a colander over a 5 gallon bucket. The guys take it out and water those plants with it. I could instead buy a soil acidifier but this now makes more sense. My brine I use over and over again. Once I make new brine, I take the old brine out to the cracks in the driveway, and use it to kill off all the weeds. Salt will kill off most of them.
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Post by feather on Jun 20, 2017 2:15:05 GMT
My tomatoes like whey,too. I just have to be careful not to dump it anywhere the dogs can get to it. They'll dig the spot up and destroy anything planted there. Once a cheese is waxed and (mis)labeled, it is of no further interest. I liked your post but it only let's me like it just once. I especially liked the mislabled part of your post. I didn't know tomatoes like it too. I have 50 tomato plants, so I guess I better make more cheese.
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Post by feather on Jun 21, 2017 3:46:40 GMT
@redfish, Yeah, if you create a different environment on the cheese you get different molds. Beer washed cheese, that might be good. I overheat things all the time, make a note of it, most times it doesn't ruin my cheese, well, just one time it did. I'll get over it.
I made a second manchego cheese today. Our weather is heating up now, so less cheese making.
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Post by feather on Jun 23, 2017 19:24:01 GMT
Today is the second day of making curds. 5 lbs of yellow curds yesterday, and 5 lbs of white cheddar curds today.
I previously used a recipe where the highest cooking temperature was 116 degrees F and they turned out fine. Now I have a recipe where the highest temperature was 102 degrees F, and those have turned out fine too. I'm amazed that the curds turn out fine with such a wide difference in highest cooking temperature. I have another half hour to cook the curds then about 2 and 1/2 hours to cheddar them, cut them and salt them. Then, a nap.
We decided for the reunion potluck to put the 5 lbs of cheese curds in two 9x13 casseroles with baskets, one with washed green grapes on the side, and one with washed strawberries on the side.
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Post by feather on Jun 30, 2017 21:26:29 GMT
Finally spent the money to buy the b. linens bacteria, to make things like tilsit, muenster, brick, and to not make limburger... $16 for a teaspoon, enough to make more than 500 gallons of milk. So expensive!
I'm thinking muenster tomorrow, it's not supposed to reach 80 degrees F here. Then a day without cheese since it is supposed to get hot. Then tilsit, then brick.
I changed my mind after watching the videos and writing the recipes. Decided to make tilsit instead. Tilsit uses a thermo culture in addition to the b.linens, while muenster uses a meso culture in addition to the b. linens. In the videos the muenster appears to have more of a chance for multiple unwanted molds on it, and maybe that is true or maybe just happenstance. I just feel a little more secure with the tilsit recipe.
I went downstairs to flip all the cheeses. The gruyere which isn't mature until 3 more months, 6 in total, had a piece of wax break off, some mold under the wax. So I brought it up to take a look at. Took the wax off, scraped off the mold, tasted the cheese. YUM, very gruyere tasting. It's a very strong taste and I like it. I'm impressed. I vac packed it and put it back in the cheese cave.
The parmesan1 was leaking a honey like syrup, thick syrupy, clear, so I brought that up. Took the wax off. No mold. Now this was one that I had washed for more than a month, it had developed a thick rind, rock hard, oiled, and I weighed it and it was losing moisture rapidly more than 20% since pressing, so I had waxed it. When I opened it, it was moist and homogeneous. The rind was rehydrated and the center was moist too, but the whole thing was solid like a hard soap in texture. We cut it in half, nice, then cut some off to taste. It wasn't going to be matured until January next year. It tasted like PARMESAN. ha ha. Son liked it, I liked it, Dh liked it. I vac packed the halves and labeled them to go back in the cheese cave. Once we run out of our stockpile of green labeled cheese in canisters, this is our new parmesan, even if it is not fully aged. We like it.
It's a cheesey adventure!
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