Giving Brie another go. The cheese was very wet, and quite a bit softer when I finally did salt it. It may have retained more moisture than any of my previous makes despite letting it drain for an extra 1/2 day. I thought I had stirred more this time, but perhaps not. I'll have to keep an eye on it, and hopefully it will ripen properly. Fingers crossed.
- Jeff
Brie (from 200 homemade cheese) Sunday, June 30, 2013: Barm 1009, 20C, 70% humidity
5 Litres Silver top (4.0% fat, 3.3g protein/100 ml; pasteurized creamline)
3 ice cubes meso (2 MM MW3 + 1 buttermilk)
¼ tsp CalCl (50%)
0.3 ml 750 IMCU Rennet
Section of rind from existing brie or cam (mashed about in boiled/cooled water; Whitestone Brie, 2013 “champion”)
1) add mould solution (wasn’t ready with this) and culture and warm to 31 C (7:28-7:32 ; 31.0 C)
3) Ripen 30 minutes (7:32 - 8:02; 29.5 C) – I added a ripening time (added mould during ripening)
4) add CaCl (7:51, during ripening) and then add rennet (8:02:00; 29.5 c)
5) floc time = 8:18:00 = 16 m 00 s 6x multiplier = 96 m 00 sec = cut time of 9:38:00
6) cut into 2.5 cm cubes
7) let heal (5 minutes in book; go for 15 9:41 - 10:02)
8) stir very gently 15 minutes (10:02 - 10:17) or until curd starts to shrink a bit
9) let settle
10) remove whey (to level of curd – I just used a slotted spoon to shift curds, no whey removed as the curds don’t sink far anyway)
11) ladle curds into to one ½ brie molds (10:25 ish - 10:40) Filled one mould
12) settle 2 hours (3 this time), then flip (flipped at 1:25 – put other mould on top, easy peasy)
13) settle 2 hours, flip (flipped at 3:25.)
14) flip every couple hours, then leave to drain overnight (flipped , 5:15, 7:00 pm)
- flipped again at 6:00 am. Still quite thick. Will continue to drain until evening. Feels quite soft at 5:30 when salting
15) 5:30 pm sprinkle the top of cheese with 1.5 tsp salt flip salt other side (1 tsp)
16) air dry for the day or 2? (until ?:?? pm); moved to cave after salting.
16) put in the ripening box (on chopsticks and mat) and flip daily (removing any whey) was very wet and soft on day 1 flip, dried with paper towel and resalted the previous down side that was wet as salt probably washed off.
17) should see mould in 7 to 10 days, 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
At salting was 1604g (but that includes box cover, mat, and chopsticks; which weighed 280, so 1324g of cheese).
First mould spotted on :
Good coverage. Wrapped in foil:
moved to regular fridge (wrapped in foil, in box; flip daily):
Tasting: ???day, ??? ??, 201?: cut day. ???g. .