Author Topic: Caerphilly #1 is ripe and we tried it!  (Read 8051 times)

JeffHamm

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Re: Caerphilly #1 is ripe and we tried it!
« Reply #15 on: August 27, 2012, 03:20:23 AM »
Hi Tiarella,

Not sure why Gavin waxes his.  The one benefit to waxing is that you don't need to store ripening boxes or worry about humidity in your aging cave.  So, once the cheese can be waxed, you save room in your cave.  But, you sacrifice the ability to develop a natural rind, and the molds add flavour by causing some biological reactions in the paste which don't occur with a waxed cheese.  Experiment, try both, and if you don't like it the first time, try again as it can take a few tries to work a natural rind to be the way you like (or to figure waxing out so that you don't end up with too much moisture under the wax, etc). 

- Jeff

Offline Tiarella

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Re: Caerphilly #1 is ripe and we tried it!
« Reply #16 on: August 27, 2012, 08:43:13 PM »
@ Bob,  cute response!  And about the make.....with fresh milk I wonder whether less culture might be a good idea.  I didn't do that and I don't yet know enough all of this to make a good guess.....but it's a thought. Also, Suzanne's recipe does have the temp go up to 95 degrees so mine wasn't super far off..... cheddaring might help if your flocc time is better than mine. 

@ Jeff  how do people keep enough room in their caves with boxes.  My 1/2 size wine fridge is almost full already and I don't even have them in boxes.......there'd be no room if I did.  I'm not doing any blue cheese to limit my contamination.  Wild b. linens showed up and a bit of white mold..... probably pc.   And also, is it only me or does making cheese make your kitchen look like a disaster area?  I do more dishes while making cheese than 2 days of eating!  Oh, to have a cheese kitchen with stainless steel counters, floor drain, etc.  Ooh, and don't forget the clean up person too as long as I'm fantasizing!  I suppose it will help when I've got a real press rather than a balancing act of buckets and bowls.

JeffHamm

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Re: Caerphilly #1 is ripe and we tried it!
« Reply #17 on: August 27, 2012, 08:56:06 PM »
Hi Tiarella,

Boxes do take up room.  I can keep 2 cheeses in a box, and generally keep 3 boxes in the fridge.  That leaves 2 shelves to stack waxed cheeses, and I can get 8 waxed cheeses on a shelf if they are not too tall.  The 3 boxes allow me to develop natural rinds on some cheeses, so I'm quite pleased with my current set up.  But then, another fridge would allow me to expand, and a stainless floor, and drain, and .... :)

- Jeff

boothrf

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Re: Caerphilly #1 is ripe and we tried it!
« Reply #18 on: August 27, 2012, 10:03:56 PM »
Hi Tiarella,

I make my own mother cultures so will use my normal amount of culture. I'll raise the temp to 35C (95F) too, and plan to do the cheddaring step. I'll post photos on Saturday as I make, when I get time between all the stirring and stacking and cutting!  :)

I have just bought a new cheese fridge (ie wine fridge), and only have one small cheddar in it at the moment. I'm planning to make plenty of Caerphilly's, cheddars and maybe even a butterkasse to fill it up. Up until now i have only made soft ripened cheeses, cams, blues, blue bries, as well as the mandatory Fetta and cream cheese/quarg types. Jeff in NZ and Ozzie in Brisbane have inspired me to get into pressed cheeses, their cheeses look so good!

Cheese making can get messy, especially in a home kitchen. For that reason I usually make on the Saturdays that my wife is working, that way we wont get in each others way and everyone will stay happy  ;)  Of course I dream of having my own cheese workshop, but until we move, that's not likely.  Clean up person..............how can I find one of those........ :D

Offline Tiarella

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Re: Caerphilly #1 is ripe and we tried it!
« Reply #19 on: August 28, 2012, 02:04:04 AM »
Well.......thought I'd see who drools on their keyboard.  Here's what I did with Caerphilly tonight.  After barn chores I got stuck in the veggie garden before I could even get back to the house.  There was just too much amazing food and it made me feel creative.  I even was going to use red amaranth seeds as a garnish but decided I would wait for another time for that. 
Soooo, first I made a beet green (only red leaves) salad with fennel flower clusters (they are so fragrant) and these yellow tomatoes that almost look like apricots.  IN fact they feel like apricots when you handle and cut them.  Okay, so I didn't put any cheese on this version.....but it was the first course of a meal that had cheese in the other two courses so the photo is coming along!

Then there was the tomato salad with Caerphilly cheese.  I think I'll call it the Caerphilly Carefully Salad.  It has more of those wonderful tomatoes joined by 2 more varieties, ribbons of basil, more fennel flowers  (they are wonderfully sweet!) and the Caerphilly cheese.  It was scrumptious and we ate it sitting at opposite ends of the kitchen daybed, where all important things happen.  I think the salad looked better visually without the cheese but the taste of the cheese was a perfect addition.  I'll put a pre-cheese photo up for eye candy.

Then we had a salad that I invented that uses a lot of garlic, some scallions, and cherry or grape tomatoes halved, cook those together just a bit and then put over a bed of greens or whatever.....in this case grated raw zuchini, then layered with toasted pecans and cheese.  it's a festival of flavors although best with feta cheese which I am out of.  There's the sweetness of the barely started to cook tomatoes, the bite of all the garlic  (1/2 head per person served), the tingle of the scallions, the deep oiliness of the pecans and the bite of the feta cheese.  It's not as pretty as the others salads though.  sorry about that.    : (   In tonight's version I created Caerphilly confetti.  (don't recommend saying that three times fast)  Oh yes, I garnished with dill.  A little bit of wine to go along with that and we were well stuffed by the end of it all.  Hope you enjoy the photos.

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Re: Caerphilly #1 is ripe and we tried it!
« Reply #20 on: August 28, 2012, 02:19:43 PM »
how do people keep enough room in their caves with boxes.
It's a challenge. I have two 4.x cu ft fridges stacked. In the photo, the upper cave holds 3 minicaves (ripening boxes) while the lower one holds 2. They don't remain in there forever. They have a certain time to be at cave temp & humidity and then they're wrapped in cheese paper or vacuum-sealed and moved to the big colder fridge. That frees up shelf space for more new cheeses.  :)

I currently have a Beaufort with a natural rind that stays in its minicave and stays...and stays. It's a rare exception to the move to the bigger fridge. It needs to stay at cave temp & humidity for a year or so.

Yeah, I was drooling over your pics. Nice.  :D

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Offline Tiarella

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Re: Caerphilly #1 is ripe and we tried it!
« Reply #21 on: August 28, 2012, 04:44:30 PM »
Thanks for the photo of your fridges!  A photo is always worth a thousand words and when there's cheese involved it's even better.  Mine is a wine fridge and I need to find some flat racks that fit it because the wavy bottle ones waste head room.  I'd do it out of wood except it's impact air circulation. 

Do you think your cheese boxes are really airtight?  Which brand(s) do you use?  I'll definitely need another cave.....sigh.  I can't just let the daily milk go to waste.  Soooo, how do you decide how long a cheese stays in the ripening cave?  Is it by the recipe? Or by a taste and reseal episode?
Glad the photos made you drool.  Hope you weren't leaning over your keyboard.  : >

Susie

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Re: Caerphilly #1 is ripe and we tried it!
« Reply #22 on: August 28, 2012, 10:38:04 PM »
I have a wine cooler with wavy shelves. I bought some of these "shelf helpers" in the right size, cut off the legs and laid them on the wavy shelves. Voila!


Offline Tiarella

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Re: Caerphilly #1 is ripe and we tried it!
« Reply #23 on: August 29, 2012, 12:59:41 AM »
HI Susie,
I want to find racks that fit so I can regain the lost head room of the wavy racks.  I just haven't had much time for these kind of projects.  I bet though that I could get any kind of rack and cut it down with my sawsall to make it fit.  Hmmmmm.....

Offline Boofer

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Re: Caerphilly #1 is ripe and we tried it!
« Reply #24 on: August 29, 2012, 03:00:00 AM »
Do you think your cheese boxes are really airtight?  Which brand(s) do you use? Soooo, how do you decide how long a cheese stays in the ripening cave?  Is it by the recipe?
The minicaves don't need to be airtight. In fact, there are times early in the ripening process that you want to be able to adjust the amount of humidity, which you can do by cracking the lid slightly. See the one minicave with a chip clip?

I've been using primarily some Rubbermaid and Sterilite boxes. I needed a tall one for my Fourme d'Ambert and then Creamy Blueberry Delight and I was lucky to find a Rubbermaid gallon-sized tall container. That allowed them to fit nicely in the cave door, just like a gallon of milk.

Reblochons are ready in 2-3 weeks, wrapped in cheese paper, and moved to the big fridge. Some other semi-soft cheeses like Leiden, Maasdam, Tomme, Tilsit, and Esrom may require 3-4 months in the cave, then get waxed, vacuum-sealed, or paper-wrapped, and moved to the big fridge. Some semi-hard and hard cheeses like Cheddar, Gouda, some Tommes, Beaufort, Gruyere, and Parmigiano may spend a year or more in the cave. Some cheeses just get shoved to the back, forgotten, and don't see the light of day for years...right, Debi?  ;)

The recipe may give you a rough clue as to how long a cheese should be cave-aged. I get ideas from reading what some of the cheese retailers say how long a cheese ages and also what kind of care it may receive during that time (brine-washed, wine-injected, washed under running water to remove linens growth, brushed, etc.). Also, personal experience helps provide steerage after a time.

-Boofer-
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Bread, beer, wine, cheese...it's all good.