# Cheese making 2018



## blissful (Oct 9, 2018)

Since the Camembert I made in May, I haven't made anymore camembert but I hope to make a few batches before Christmas, since it doesn't take too long and it is so delicious.


Then I made some cream cheese but over cooked it. It became grainy and wouldn't melt. I'll have to try again.



White and Orange cheddar curds.


A batch of meso and thermo cultures, 4 quarts of each for cheese making.


Then I made provolone that was gorgeous.


A rat trap like cheese, like a colby. Then my best provolone batch that stretched beautifully.


I started using skim or 1% P&H milk with heavy whipping cream P& no H, instead of whole milk, as it makes a better curd, no fracturing. The only bad thing is the mixed gallon of milk makes just less than a pound of cheese instead of a little over a pound of cheese when using whole milk. A couple ounce difference but the cheese is smoother and more bendable and meltier.



Colby again.
Colby again, but that one got contaminated (and was pictured on the food safety roulette thread).
Cheddar Curds, white and then orange.
Gorgonzola which ought to be ready by Christmas.
Another double batch of white and orange cheddar curds for a birthday present for a friend.


As of the last batch listed here, that was my 100th batch of cheese! Woo hoo. I've been learning about it for 2 years and I still find it to be fun and meditative.


This is camembert sliced.







The is the colby like rat trap cheese.






This is the spectacular failure of contaminated early blowing colby. Which I had to throw out because I didn't want to take a chance on anyone getting sick.







So, that's my update for now. I'm really impressed with all my long aging parmesans, cheddars, swisses, that I take out of the cheese cave in 1 lb packages for us to eat after they are a year or more old.


I made minestrone soup the other day with separate macaroni and hamburger for the guys, and DH melted some shredded parmesan over it and it melted like a dream, just beautiful. He had to show me his bowl!  He is so spoiled! 


Now you know.


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## Rocklobster (Oct 9, 2018)

That Camembert looks great! Wish I had the time..good for you!


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## blissful (Oct 9, 2018)

Rocklobster said:


> That Camembert looks great! Wish I had the time..good for you!




I hear you, it does take a lot lot lot of time. I'm unexpectedly retired as long as I can still get health insurance w/gov't subsidies. Then if that changes I'll work for a few more years. Health insurance is really the only thing we need and we live frugally on a lower income level. The cheese is a good investment for us because whatever I'm making now, if it can be aged, can be used for a few years to keep food costs down. No one here complains of a very long aged cheddar or parmesan! 



I liked the camembert too. We'd never had it before but it is good and creamy and melts beautifully. We tried it spread on toast and then once wrapped it in pastry and baked it, ate it with dates. Yum.


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## Dawgluver (Oct 9, 2018)

Wow, bliss, true craftsmanship!


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## blissful (Oct 10, 2018)

thanks Dawg and Rock.


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## taxlady (Oct 10, 2018)

Yay Bliss!


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## blissful (Oct 10, 2018)

Thanks Taxy. 

My list for Oct-Nov.
Camembert that will be ready in 8 weeks, spaced out a month, so one batch in Oct and another the beginning of Nov.
Cream Cheese-because we use this in cheese cake, cheese balls for the holidays, and cheese spread for whatever.
Provolone for pizza making.
Cheddar curds we give away to relatives when traveling.
Probably a try at Buttercase and Havarti again, to see if I can improve on methods.


Cheddar, parm, romano, swisses, in the next year.


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## blissful (Oct 16, 2018)

I started some cream cheese, a 2.5 gallon batch, a mix of whole milk and heavy whipping cream, yesterday.
It needed to sit and grow culture and coagulate for 18 hours. This morning I put it into a tea cloth in a colander to drain.


2 gallons of whole P&H milk
1 quarts of heavy whipping cream
1/2 + tsp of Calcium Chloride solution
1/8th tsp of mesophilic culture (dry)
4 drops of triple rennet in distilled water



I just checked it, it is beautiful stuff. I'm going to let it continue draining until tomorrow morning, so 24 hours, then salt it lightly, refrigerate it, and package it to store it. It is thick and creamy, no hint of graininess, tangy, beautiful.


We love this stuff in icing on carrot cake, cheese cake, cheese balls and spreads. I'm sure it will get us through the holidays and into January.


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## taxlady (Oct 16, 2018)

Cream cheese reminded me of making fake Boursin. I have made "Boursinoid" using quark. It's not quite the same texture as real Boursin, but it sure is tasty. Cream also wouldn't give quite the same texture as real Boursin. I'm wondering if you have ever played with that. Do you know how one would make the cheese part of Boursin? I have googled, but all the recipes call for cream cheese, quark, yogourt cheese, or skyr.


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## blissful (Oct 17, 2018)

Taxy, I haven't played around with all those different cheeses. I can tell you what they are by definition, in cheese making.


These are all cow's milk soft cheeses. If you use goat's milk they have different names. I don't use goat's milk so I don't know much about them.


Cream cheese, a mixture of milk/cream, inoculated with a meso type culture (low temp culture), small amount of rennet (optional), 12-24 hours to form curd, drained, salted (optional), refrigerated.


Quark, whole milk, inoculated with buttermilk (also a low temp meso type culture), left to form curd, drained, refrigerated. If you add cream in the beginning then it is called Sahnequark, and if you use low fat milk instead then it is called Magerquark (german).


Yogurt cheese, whole milk, inoculated with yogurt (a higher temperature thermo type culture), left to form curd, drained, salted (optional), refrigerated.


Boursin, is a rich cream cheese with added herbs/spices/salt/butter. So they might add dill, italian parsley, parmesan cheese, chives, black pepper, basil, garlic, and even salmon.


If you want something smooth for boursin, you'd use more cream/fat. A cream cheese base without added cream (only using milk) may be more grainy.



Flavored, herbed, creamy fresh cheese like boursin can be made with all of these fresh cheeses. Some will have a more or less tart flavor. Some will be richer and some lower fat.


I'm pretty sure I'd really like a boursin type of cheese with dill and chives, for say, on a bagel. You can also sweeten cream cheese with sugar/honey and fresh fruit. None of these have a long shelf life.


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## taxlady (Oct 17, 2018)

I find the Boursin that I buy to be creamy, but slightly crumbly. That doesn't happen when I make it with my homemade quark.


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## blissful (Oct 17, 2018)

taxlady said:


> I find the Boursin that I buy to be creamy, but slightly crumbly. That doesn't happen when I make it with my homemade quark.




Ways to get it more crumbly (usually we don't want most cheeses to be crumbly).
1. let it ferment for longer, this increases the acid and higher acid cheeses are crumblier=tang.
2. use less cream/fat, or a lower fat milk when making quark. Cream/fat will make a creamier product=richness.
3 drain it longer to get it drier, less moisture but it won't in general lower the fat content.


If the quark you make could use more 'tang', then try #1. #3 will also add time for the culture to make more acid, making it tangier too. Also, you can ferment it and hang it at a higher temperature and it will produce more acid. (my room temp is now 67 deg F, so it acidifies slowly. On a hot day, say 90 deg F, it would acidify more quickly.)


You can go by your taste buds and texture to figure it out. Do you want it tangier? Do you want it richer or less rich? Does it need to dry more? 



Cream Cheese--this last batch.
I fermented it for 18 hours starting at 87 deg F and then it cooled to room temp 67 deg F for the rest of the time. Then I drained it for a full 24 hours. It was thick, held its own shape, creamy, tangy. (remember there was a lot of cream in that recipe--so it will be rich and creamy) It made a little over 7 lbs of cream cheese. I'm really impressed with it.


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## blissful (Oct 20, 2018)

> Correction:
> That should have said 2 quarts of cream, not one quart. In the original recipe.




Well,  since it is 7 lbs of cheese, I decided to make about 3 lbs into a  cheese spread like the boursin you mentioned. We have some friends that  would like that.


Since it is really rich I'm not adding butter.
3 lbs of cream cheese
6 cloves of garlic minced
9 T. parmesan
1 T. dried dill weed
1 and 1/2 t. dried basil
1 and 1/2 t. chives
1 and 1/2 t. ground black pepper
3/4 t. dried ground thyme
3 T. dried parsley


I purposely under-salted the original cheese so I'll salt it to taste (2 teaspoons). Mix it all up in the food processor and then put in air tight containers leaving no air space. That will help it last longer.


The taste is good. The garlic is a little hot right now but it will tame in 24 hours. I'll be sharing it with DH's metal detecting friends that he will be hunting with tomorrow and the next day.


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## taxlady (Oct 20, 2018)

Sounds yummy. I have never added Parm to my boursinoid. I will give that a try.


I hope your garlic mellows. When we make green goddess salad dressing, it tends to get stronger with age. Or maybe it's the anchovies that do. It's potent, but oh my goodness yummy.


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## blissful (Oct 20, 2018)

taxlady said:


> Sounds yummy. I have never added Parm to my boursinoid. I will give that a try.
> 
> 
> I hope your garlic mellows. When we make green goddess salad dressing, it tends to get stronger with age. Or maybe it's the anchovies that do. It's potent, but oh my goodness yummy.




Garlic tends to get cooler from hot, it is hot when it is minced. I love green goddess dressing too! 

You know this is ALL YOUR FAULT!  Thank you.


Tomorrow I'll start a batch of camemberts. A two gallon batch will make 4 of the 4 and 1/2 inch camemberts. DH built me a shelf for inside my ripening box, so after I make the first batch, I can make another and get 8 of them going at one time. That saves me room in the cheese refrigerator. YAY, thanks DH.


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## taxlady (Oct 20, 2018)

blissful said:


> Garlic tends to get cooler from hot, it is hot when it is minced. I love green goddess dressing too!
> 
> You know this is ALL YOUR FAULT!  Thank you.
> 
> ...


  
I hope you enjoy it.


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## blissful (Oct 23, 2018)

DH's friends loved the cream cheese spread, boursin like.


Two days ago I started the first Camemberts 4 - 4+ inch molds, then today I made another batch of 4 more small molds. It was an easy recipe, a complilation of a few different ones that I read. Both sets will be making white mold in the cheese cave tomorrow or the next day. Fun!


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## taxlady (Oct 23, 2018)

I love Camembert. I love Brie too. Is Brie a different mould?


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## blissful (Oct 23, 2018)

Yes, from what I understand, they are essentially the same recipe, the brie is put in larger rounds, maybe 6-10 inches across,  the camemberts are little 4-6 inches, both types are less than 2 inches thick, more like 1 inch thick.


The larger types take longer to age. The age when they start to soften and get runny is after the first month and they should be stored in the regular refrigerator during that time. So you when you buy it you just age it in your reg. fridge.


 You can often find brie available in wedges cut from the large rounds. You can find camemberts often in little wooden boxes that you can bake them in. But recently I saw both brie and camemberts in small rounds in boxes, so they are kind of interchangable. I compared the ingredient lists on the sides of the packaging for both kinds and they were the same too.


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## taxlady (Oct 23, 2018)

We usually buy Brie, because my husband doesn't like mushrooms and he thinks the Camembert has a bit of mushroomy flavour.


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## blissful (Oct 23, 2018)

Well, both use the same geotrichum (sp?) and penicillium candidum (again spelling!), and it grows a white mold that is a fungus, hence the mushroomy flavor.


> _Penicillium camemberti_ was first described by Thom and is thought to be a domesticated form of _Penicillium commune_. A number of synonyms exist for the species including _Penicillium rogeri_, _Penicillium candidum_, _Penicillium album_, and _Penicillium caseicolum_.  The fungus is mainly (almost exclusively) found either on cheese or in  the cheese factory environment and is rarely found away from this  environment.


From: https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/agricultural-and-biological-sciences/penicillium-camemberti


Don't tell him, let him enjoy what food he likes for whatever reason he has. My husband hates anchovies and I only use them in about 3 of his favorite dishes. Should I tell him? I don't think so.


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## blissful (Nov 13, 2018)

The cream cheese after 24 hours of draining. See how nicely it is peeling off the tea towel. 








The camembert with its mostly geotrichum mold, some penicillium.
Out of focus. I was in the process of wrapping them in parchment paper, then put in little containers to keep the humidity high, and then in the regular refrigerator for final aging, another 2-6 weeks.


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