The recipe is a mashup of several found on the internet and in “Mastering Artisan Cheesemaking”, tailored to materials and equipment on hand. My goal was not so much to make a specific cheese, but to get a first run through the process, exposing areas I didn’t understand.
I will need to learn more about “different washed rinds”. I was envisioning something like Limburger/Brick/Port Salut/Munster/Various Normandys. Orange-brown rinds with a dusting of geo, aroma from B. linens, and an interior somewhere between runny and springy.
I think what I am specifically looking for in this post is to understand how the actual physical washing technique influences the different washed rind styles.
The “coating” I am talking about is whatever biofilm grew on the cheese. I assume it is mostly Geotrichum candidum, with Brevibacterium linens and Arthrobacter nicotianae, since that is what is in ARN. I am working with pasteurized milk, and my cave is a well sanitized celery crisper, so there shouldn’t be much else growing there. The coating (I do not know the correct word for it) was about as thick as one or two index cards, and appears to be growing back now.
Pictures may follow as time permits.
My recipe/notes from the make:
Small Washed Rind Cheese (11/15/2014)
1 gallon pasteurized whole milk from supermarket
1/8 teaspoon of MM100
1/32 teaspoon ARN
1/8 teaspoon Calcium Chloride in 1/8 cup cool non-chlorinated water
Scant 1/8 tsp single strength rennet in 1/8 cup cool non-chlorinated water
13g Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt (2% of 640g weight of drained cheese)
3 Saint Marcellin molds
Heat milk to 90°F.
Sprinkle cultures on milk. Let set 3 – 5 minutes, then stir in.
Ripen 60 minutes.
Stir in diluted Calcium Chloride.
Stir in diluted Rennet. (all that measuring, diluting and stirring added 15 minutes)
Rest 45 minutes and check for clean break.
Cut curds 3/4 inch. Rest 5 minutes. Stir intermittently 20 minutes. Settle 5 minutes. Maintaining 90°F.
Remove whey to curd level (did not do). Ladle curds into (lined) molds.
Turn after 5 min, 30 min and 6 hours. Drain total 12 hours. (turned as schedule permitted, total draining about 16 hours)
Unmold onto draining mat. Salt and let sit at room temp 2-4 hours, flip and finish salting. (lost some salt, so added a bit more the next day)
The cheese is being kept in a Tupperware celery crisper at about 63F and enough humidity to keep the cheese damp but not wet. Flip every day.
Hold cheese 3 days before initial wash by simply flipping it and returning to its covered box.
On day 3 following salting, wash the cheese surface with a cloth dipped in light brine. (1 tblsp salt in 1 cup water)
Repeat washing every three days for two or three weeks then wash all surface mold away and move Tupperware box to top shelf of refrigerator.
Monitor and continue flipping for 3-6 weeks.
