I shouldn't be making cheese right now because it looks like I'll be on a plane tomorrow for work, but I came across some fresh goat milk on Friday afternoon and simply couldn't resist. Searching for inspiration for what to do, I enacted a plan that's been churning in the back of my head: an ashed, goat-milk Caerphilly. I used a touch of geo and P. Candidum because I can't get my hands on mycodore or other yeast cultures in Australia. At least, not that I've found: does anyone have a source they'd care to share, or do one of the UK/US vendors ship to Australia? The yoghurt was added because it needs to be used before I travel. The make is basically Caldwell's Caerphilly make.
Ashed goat milk caerphilly (Cheese #31)
Make 16/02/14
4.5 litres pasteurised, non-hom goat's milk (2.6% fat, 3.1% protein)
300 ml goat milk yoghurt
1/8 tsp MM101
1 grain Flora Danica
1 grain S. thermophilus
1 skewer geo
1 skewer ABL white mould
1/32 tsp lipase
1 ml CaCl, dissolved in 20 ml water
1 ml rennet, dissolved in 20 ml water
8 g salt
target floc = 3.5
Warm milk to 27C, add cultures. Rest 5 mins (temp overshot to 28C)
Stir 5 mins, raise temp to 30C
Culture 45 mins
Add CaCl, stir, rest 5 mins
Add rennet, stir, set 45 mins to clean break (45 mins precisely from floc)
Cut to 1 cm. T= 28.5
Rest 15 mins, raising temp back to 30C
Increase T to 32 over 15 mins, then to 34C over 10 mins (a bit slower than normal)
Hold roughly 30 mins, stirring every 2 mins or so, until goal pH of 6.4 reached and curds pass texture test.
Drain, stack, turning every 20 mins, for 1 hours until desired texture reached.
Mill and salt with 4 g salt, rest 10 mins to mellow, add other 4 ml salt (1.8% by weight)
Mould half the curds in a 5" mould, press 15 mins with 2.5 kg weight, then lighty sprinkle a little salt-and-ash blend on top of the curds. Top with the rest of the curds and press with 7.5 kg (or weight required to just see clear but not white whey) for 30 mins
Flip cheese, press overnight with weight increasing to 12.5 kg
Unmould, press a few more hours without cloth and 15 kg weight to even out sides.
Caldwell's recipe calls for brining the cheese for 3 hours, but I'll be brining this one for 9 because it had to go in before I went to work and won't come out until I get home. It's destined to go in the cave slightly wet and be completely neglected for a couple of weeks.
I'm pleased with this one so far. I think the swirling of the ash is pretty. It's also a great demonstration of how the curds move against each other in the press: the ash was sprinkled onto a flat surface, with loose curds added on top. The proof, however, will as always be in the eating.
As an aside, I'm really having trouble with cloth marks with any cheese I'm making in the 5" diameter moulds. My method of tugging on the cloth works fine with any mould with a diameter great than 6", but the increased curvature on the smaller moulds is proving problematic. Can anyone with more experience on smaller moulds advise of ways to reduce cloth marking?