Author Topic: OMG - what have I done ??  (Read 19350 times)

Offline OzzieCheese

  • Old Cheese
  • *****
  • Location: Australia
  • Posts: 1,507
  • Cheeses: 171
  • Sun-Grass-Cow-Milk-Cheese-Happiness
OMG - what have I done ??
« on: December 13, 2014, 01:02:35 AM »
My First Blue

This has been a thing of terror and sleepless nights for a while and I am hoping that the Blue experts within these hallowed pages can provide a soft fall.  Well . ... that's probably a little dramatic, but there is a little trepidation in this .. :o

Recipe:
8 litres (7 Melany milk and 1 litre of cream)
Flora Danica for 8/10 litres
P Roqueforti
1/4 tsp CaCl2
2 mls ¼ tsp rennet (200 ICMU)

This is the first blue I’ve tried and the first question I had was the amount of PR I was using.  A quick call to the Supplier – Green Living Australia – where Valerie said that the amount to use was very very small as it a very aggressive mould and therefore the amount used was the tip of steak knife – not a lot at all.
9:30 Heated the Milk to 27 Deg C.
Added the 1 Dash of Flora Danica and the PR.  Continued to Heat the milk to the target Temperature 32 Deg C.
9:45 32 Deg C reached. Added CaCl2 diluted in ¼ cup of non-chlorinated water
Ripen for 30 minutes.
10:22 Added 2 mls of Rennet diluted in ¼ cup of non-chlorinated water. 
Floc of 15:30  In the book I’m using they say a Floc factor of 2  but I believe that the Floc factor should be 5.0 to 6  Therefore from 77 minutes to 92 minutes.
Cut time then 11:40… Keeping @ 32 Deg C.

Keeping my fingers crossed..
Back soon :)
Usually if one person asks a question then 10 are waiting for the answer - Please ask !

Offline OzzieCheese

  • Old Cheese
  • *****
  • Location: Australia
  • Posts: 1,507
  • Cheeses: 171
  • Sun-Grass-Cow-Milk-Cheese-Happiness
Re: OMG - what have I done ??
« Reply #1 on: December 13, 2014, 02:29:26 AM »
11:40 Curds Cut
Let rest for 10 minutes – time to rinse off the cheese cloths and get the colander and boards ready.

This is where the fun starts.  Getting the bundle of curds all sorted and back into the pot.
12:00 My lovely wife helped with the curd bundle and it looks like I’m really getting there.
Tighten the knot again in 1 hour and then let sit for another hour  and let the bundle sit in the whey.  The pH after this stage is 6.2 – 6.4

Looks like it is going to be a long night. 
Usually if one person asks a question then 10 are waiting for the answer - Please ask !

Offline OzzieCheese

  • Old Cheese
  • *****
  • Location: Australia
  • Posts: 1,507
  • Cheeses: 171
  • Sun-Grass-Cow-Milk-Cheese-Happiness
Re: OMG - what have I done ??
« Reply #2 on: December 13, 2014, 02:41:12 AM »
My first stilton knot in a pot !!  They is a lot of whey coming out so I suppose it's working.

-- Mal
Usually if one person asks a question then 10 are waiting for the answer - Please ask !

shaneb

  • Guest
Re: OMG - what have I done ??
« Reply #3 on: December 13, 2014, 02:44:13 AM »
Good luck! I did a small blue and was surprised at how little drying time the recipe called for. The skin as quite sticky for weeks. It'd be interested to know how dry you take yours, as it seemed a tad odd to me putting it in so wet.

Shane

Offline Schnecken Slayer

  • Old Cheese
  • *****
  • Location: Newcastle, Australia
  • Posts: 636
  • Cheeses: 22
  • Making cheese since October 2012
Re: OMG - what have I done ??
« Reply #4 on: December 13, 2014, 03:30:34 AM »
Who's recipe are you following? I used the WACheesemaking one and it went pretty good.  http://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,10476.0.html
-Bill
One day I will add something here...

shaneb

  • Guest
Re: OMG - what have I done ??
« Reply #5 on: December 13, 2014, 03:37:11 AM »
I used the blue vein cheese recipe out of Mad Millie's Specialty Cheeses recipe book (http://www.madmillie.com/MORE/Downloads.html). It was only a 2L batch. I'll take a look at the recipe you've used.

Shane

Offline OzzieCheese

  • Old Cheese
  • *****
  • Location: Australia
  • Posts: 1,507
  • Cheeses: 171
  • Sun-Grass-Cow-Milk-Cheese-Happiness
Re: OMG - what have I done ??
« Reply #6 on: December 13, 2014, 04:05:52 AM »
@Slayer.. I'm using the recipe from the 'Mastering artisan Cheese' but I have made a few adjustments. Seeing as I have no idea what she calls 'Single Strength' Rennet I went back through my notes and to get a coagulation time of about an hour using my 200 IMCU rennet, when 1/4 tsp of questionable rennet wasn't going to cut it.  I also increased the cream as I had calculated to get anywhere near 6% fat I would need about 1 litre(1 QT) of the local 35% fat cream. In the end 2 mls gave me a the Floc time of 15 min 30 secs so not too bad.
Although I got a clean break with my cut time, when I cut the curds, the whey was whiter than I normally would have liked - will use the 6 Multiplication factor next time.  As I have no access to the culture she uses I used the ever steady Flora Danica.  It acidifies well and has a great combination of cultures to generate some nice flavour notes as they do their thing.
The only way to test the pH is using the 'Duo Test' strips but there is no way to get 6.36 !! I get 6.2 or 6.5 so somewhere in between is just a guess.

This is going to be an interesting journey..

--Mal   
Usually if one person asks a question then 10 are waiting for the answer - Please ask !

Offline OzzieCheese

  • Old Cheese
  • *****
  • Location: Australia
  • Posts: 1,507
  • Cheeses: 171
  • Sun-Grass-Cow-Milk-Cheese-Happiness
Re: OMG - what have I done ??
« Reply #7 on: December 13, 2014, 04:24:09 AM »
is now 2:15 pm and I have pH of about 5.9 so may be this going work.  I didn't want to over press the curd bundle with weigh on the top as some people do.  So I unwrapped the bundle and checked the curd was knitting well, which it was, and that there was no big puddle of whey in the centre, and there wasn't.  All good so far.  Retied the bundle refreshed the water in the outer pot in order to keep the inner pot @ 32.  Re-tied the bundle and actually turned it upside down so the pressure of the knot applies a bit of pressure to the bundle.

Photos to follow..

-- Mal
Usually if one person asks a question then 10 are waiting for the answer - Please ask !

Offline OzzieCheese

  • Old Cheese
  • *****
  • Location: Australia
  • Posts: 1,507
  • Cheeses: 171
  • Sun-Grass-Cow-Milk-Cheese-Happiness
Re: OMG - what have I done ??
« Reply #8 on: December 13, 2014, 04:28:46 AM »
My little bundle of joy !!
First one is the second hour tied up and the other is re-tied and turned upside down - the knot it on the bottom.

Lets check in a couple of hours ...

Till Then.

--Mal
Usually if one person asks a question then 10 are waiting for the answer - Please ask !

qdog1955

  • Guest
Re: OMG - what have I done ??
« Reply #9 on: December 13, 2014, 10:02:24 AM »
Ozzie,
Maybe you can answer a question about Flora Danica that I have asked before on the forum. Hansen says to crush before using---which would almost certainly change the volume if dry measuring rather then weight. How much and how did you measure it?
http://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,13243.msg102064.html#msg102064
« Last Edit: December 13, 2014, 10:12:41 AM by qdog1955 »

Offline OzzieCheese

  • Old Cheese
  • *****
  • Location: Australia
  • Posts: 1,507
  • Cheeses: 171
  • Sun-Grass-Cow-Milk-Cheese-Happiness
Re: OMG - what have I done ??
« Reply #10 on: December 13, 2014, 10:43:39 AM »
Yo.  Q !  I suppose this is a 'It Depends' answer.  The FD I get is very granulated and yes they do say to crush the larger granules.  Here is what I do.  I get the package and make sure it is dead cold frozen.  My wife has a 3 foot rolling pin she uses for rolling out fondant for cakes. I place the package on the bread board and roll the crap out of it.  by then it has defrosted. I then transfer the entire contents of the packet into a sterile jar (like the ones you pee into at the doctors). I then get another jar and count the number of dashes (from the mini spoon measures) I get when transferring it into the other jar. The packs I get are good for 500 litres and from there its a simple ratio. FD is always going to be clumped so I wouldn't get too hung up on the exact amount.  In my last lot it came out that 4/5ths of a dash measure for 10 litres.  But who can measure that so 1 dash does it for me..  Again I wouldn't get to fussy .... It's cheese !!

Hope that helps..

--Mal
Usually if one person asks a question then 10 are waiting for the answer - Please ask !

Offline OzzieCheese

  • Old Cheese
  • *****
  • Location: Australia
  • Posts: 1,507
  • Cheeses: 171
  • Sun-Grass-Cow-Milk-Cheese-Happiness
Re: OMG - what have I done ??
« Reply #11 on: December 13, 2014, 10:38:40 PM »
Well, the pH only got to around 5.3 by 9:00pm last night so I made the decision to leave it overnight in the pot.  In the morning the pH was approx. 4.7 - if the Duo Test Strips can be believed.  But pH is not the whole story.  I broke the curd ball into about 1 inch bits and added 2.5% (36 grams) by weight of salt and packed it into the cheese form on the last photo.   But the smell was what surprised me the most.  It was a wonderful cheesy sweet milk aroma and the curds had a wonderful creamy texture.  The little one is an experiment !! I'm going to use the little one to gauge the mould development and overall performance of the ripening.
Going to turn these two 4-6 times today and then 4 times over the next 4 days before smoothing them over and putting them in their little 'Cave'.  I'll try and keep the photos up to date.

--Mal  8) 
Usually if one person asks a question then 10 are waiting for the answer - Please ask !

Offline Schnecken Slayer

  • Old Cheese
  • *****
  • Location: Newcastle, Australia
  • Posts: 636
  • Cheeses: 22
  • Making cheese since October 2012
Re: OMG - what have I done ??
« Reply #12 on: December 14, 2014, 04:17:24 AM »
That  sounds good Mal... I look forward to seeing this progress.
Now that we are coming up to the school break I must get in and make some more cheese.   ;D
-Bill
One day I will add something here...

Offline H-K-J

  • Old Cheese
  • *****
  • Location: Southern Oregon
  • Posts: 1,776
  • Cheeses: 145
  • Act as if it were impossible to fail.
    • Cookin with uh dash dogs hair
Re: OMG - what have I done ??
« Reply #13 on: December 14, 2014, 03:58:33 PM »
Looks good Mal
which strain of PR are you using?
I used PR/PV, I have bought this twice and have had two totally different tasting and outcomes
the wife and I love the taste of our last Stilton, I must get another one going in the near future ;D

Quote
PV strain:  Very fast growing blue culture with strong tolerance to salt. Used to make Blue cheese including Danablu, Roquefort and strong Gorgonzola. Characteristic properties are the very piquant aroma and a very good creamy consistency. The 2.5 dose packet will make approximately 300 4 in.(11cm) Blue cheeses. Use 1/32nd-1/16th tsp.(.14g-.07g) for 1-5 gal.(3.75liters-19 liters) of milk. You will also need to use Mesophilic Starter and Rennet.
 
PA Strain: Medium-fast growing blue culture used to make a milder Blue cheese including Roquefort. Characteristic properties are the very piquant aroma and a slightly tough consistency, longer shelf life; excellent for hard blue cheese. The 2.5 packet will make approximately 300 4 in.(11cm) Blue cheeses. Use 1/32nd-1/16th tsp.(.14g-.07g) for 1-5 gal.(3.75liters-19 liters) of milk. You will also need to use either Mesophilic or Thermophilic Starter and Rennet.
 
PS Strain: Medium-fast growth rate, a mild blue taste. Use this strain to make mild blues with that blue-green color. Can be used along with Penicillium Candidum(HP6 recommended).
Never hit a man with glasses, use a baseball bat!
http://cocker-spanial-hair-in-my-food.blogspot.com/

Offline OzzieCheese

  • Old Cheese
  • *****
  • Location: Australia
  • Posts: 1,507
  • Cheeses: 171
  • Sun-Grass-Cow-Milk-Cheese-Happiness
Re: OMG - what have I done ??
« Reply #14 on: December 17, 2014, 05:03:34 AM »
I'm not sure of the strain of PR - Blue... I hope  :o  So, it's 3 days since I placed it in the hoop and been dutifully flipping it 4 times a day.  I removed it from the hoop last night and smoothed it up and it has been placed in it's ripening box.  The texture was still spreadable but firm, the smell was undeniably Cheesy and creamy.  I sampled a bit that fell off during the smoothing and the salt level was wonderful.  When the outside blues ups I'll pierce it.  I'll post pictures of the cheese so far when I get time...

--Mal
   
Usually if one person asks a question then 10 are waiting for the answer - Please ask !