Hi,
Vanessa asked if I could make some Brie, so we could give some to a friend in trade for some homemade beer. Well, that sounds good to me. I've made camembert before, and brie is essentially the same make, just bigger molds. So, I followed the 200 easy homemade cheese book, though I added 30 minutes ripening time as I find my ice cubes seem to need time to propegate for best results. Anyway, I've filled two 1/2 brie molds (20 cm diameter internal, about 10 cm high). These have bottoms, unlike open hoop cam moulds, so I'm assuming they will drain quite a bit more slowly.
Anyway, each of these cheeses will require a ripening box to themselves (they sort of fill my boxes), so I had to vac bag a few of my current hard cheeses. That's fine, except they all have various mould/linens for rinds. A big wash of the boxes, followed by a sterilization wash, another rinse, and finally, I decided to drain the cheeses into the boxes (shown in the photo). This way, spores from the PC that are in the whey will, hopefully, dominate the local flora over any left over from my cleaning attempts. It will be interesting when it comes time to flip these. I've got some cross stitch mats to use, as long as I don't clutz out, I should be fine. No guarentees there will be further photos though!
Brie (from 200 homemade cheese) Sunday, Nov 18, 2012: Barm 996, 67% humidity
8 Litres Homebrand Standard
4 ice cubes meso (4 fd)
¼ tsp CalCl (50%)
5.54 ml Renco Rennet (65 IMCU)
Section of rind from existing brie or cam (mashed about in boiled/cooled water – remove chunks)
1) add culture and warm to 31 C (8:20 ; 31.2 C)
2) add mold solution
3) Ripen 30 minutes (8:20 - 8:50; 30.1 C) – I added a ripening time
4) add CaCl and then add rennet (8:54:30 C; 30.1)
5) floc time = 9:06:30 = 12 m 00 s 6x mulitiplier = 72 m 00 sec = cut time of 10:06:30
6) cut into 2.5 cm cubes
7) let heal (5 minutes in book; go for 15 10:13 - 10:28)
8) stir very gently 10 minutes (10:33 - 10:43) or until curd starts to shrink a bit
9) let settle
10) remove whey (to level of curd – didn’t settle much, no whey removed)
11) ladel curds into to two ½ brie molds (10:49-11:16) Filled both moulds
12) settle 2 hours, then flip
13) settle 2 hours, flip
14) flip every couple hours, then leave to drain overnight
15) sprinkle the top of each cheese with 1 tsp salt flip salt other side (1 tsp as well)
16) put in the ripening box (on chopsticks and mat) and flip daily (remove whey)
17) should see mould in a week, on about day 12-14, wrap and leave in cheese fridge another week
18) after 1 more week (week 3 from make) move to cold fridge for 4-6 weeks