Right.... I've had a bit of break from cheese making, but now I've got a fridge I can use as a cheese cave I thought it would be time to give blue cheese another shot.
I think I might have ruined it though.
My recipe and process as follows:
I made a starter culture using
A PACKET OF THIS, in a litre of Jersey gold top milk, at room temperature for 24 hours. The starter smelt nice and ripe.
I used about 30ml of this starter.
5 litres of unhomologonised whole jersey gold top milk
Slowly heated to 31C, added 1/4 tsp of lipase in 30ml of water, stired for a few mins & then added the 30ml of starter, along with some PR culture.
Stirred for a few minutes and then left for 30mins.
Added 1/4 tsp of renet in 30ml water, stired this for a few minutes and left to sit.
* At this point I noticed the temp had crept up to 35C. I got this cooled down to 32C again after about 20 mins.
After about an hour (lost track of time), I had a good clean break.
Cut into 2cm cubes, & let to sit of 10mins.
Laddled curds into cheesecloth, tied a "stilton knot" and put back in curds.
Tightened the knot a couple of times over 2 hours - but I never felt like it was squeezeing the curds too much
Then I preshed the curds between two chopping boards witha 5kg weight on top, overnight.
This morning I broke into 2cm sized lumps and mixed in 25g of salt.
I then put the curds into two moulds.
At this stage I feel that the curds don't feel right. They seem a lot drier and more compact than the photos I've seen online & the previous blues I've made.
The curds are now supposed to be settling in the moulds and draining some more, right?
It seemed like they were slightly rubbery and therefore probably wouldnt settle much without any pressure. Therefore at the moment there are a lot of large (massive!) gaps between the curds. I'm at work, but will add a photo later.
I'm hoping that it will have settled a bit by the time I get home, but I'm not convinced. I therefore think I will need to add a bit of pressure to compact it and make it knit together, but then I think I'd be moving away from a stilton? I'd then have to use a skewer to get some air holes back in there.
Any thoughts?
I'm thinking I might have pressed too much overnight & have ruined it....
Photos to follow later...