My 6th Brie

[JeffHamm]

I thought it would be nice to try a bloomy rind again.  This make is one I've adapted from 200 Easy Home Cheesemaking, where it's the munster procedure but using rind from a cam rather than b.linens (and I've increased the floc from 4x to 6x).  It's looking pretty good after a few flips, but we'll see how things go.

Jeff’s Brie (based on 200 Easy Homemade Cheese Recipes for Munster)

Sunday, Feb 22, 2015

5 Litres Silver Top (creamline 4% fat, 3.1% protein)
2 ice cubes MW3 (out of buttermilk starter)
2 ice cube crème fraiche (not sure how active this is)
Some rind from Bri or Cam (Puhoi Valley; Single cream brie) in sterile water
¼ tsp CaCl2 in egg cup water
Rennet (0.8 mls 280 IMCU Calf rennet)
Salt
6 ½ inch tomme mould with follower

1)   Add CaCl2 while setting up
2)   Add culture and rind water to milk and warm to 32 C (8:22 32.2 C)
3)   Ripen 15 minutes (8:22 - 8:3?7 31.4 C raised back to 32.0 C)
4)   Add rennet (8:39:30 floc time 8:53:00 = 13 m 30s 6x floc = 81m 00s cut time 10:00:30)
5)   Cut to 1.25 cm cubes (10:01:30 – 10:06:  30.3C)
6)   Ensure temp is 32.0 C (30.3 C raised back to 33.0 C)
7)   stir gently for 15 minutes (10:07 - 10:22 )
8)   Let curds settle, cover and rest 30 minutes (10:22 - 10:52)
9)   Drain whey to level of curds, then gentle transfer curds to cloth lined colander
10)   Drain 30 minutes (11:00 - 11:32)
11)   Ladle soft curds into mould (but press them lightly to ensure they are spread evenly – used coffee cup full of water; put mould in pot with lid, and fill cup with boiling water to keep pressing environment warm and moist) and drain 24 hours (flip several times over this period and remove any whey – keep cheese above the whey (11:40– flipped 11:55, fusing nicely but very soft– again 1:30 - 2:30 – 6:55 - ?:?? pm - ??:?? am – ??:?? pm – ???g ??.? x ?.? = ??? = ?.?? g/cm3)
12)   If cheese still too soft to handle, continue to drain/flip for 6-7 hours more (??:?? - ??:??)
13)   Sprinkle each face with ¼ tsp salt up to 1 tsp for larger cheese (6.25” tomme mould, used ½ tsp each face )
14)   Place cheese in ripening container and ripen at 13 C, 85% humidity
15)   Flip cheese daily, remove any whey until no more released (about 3 days; was dry first day)
16)   White mould should show up in 7 to 10 days usually.  When fully covered, wrap and move to regular fridge.

[Andrew Marshallsay]

I'm intrigued by the notion of using cheese rind. I'm familiar with it as a source of blue mould but not white.
It sounds good in theory and I will be interested to hear how it goes in practice. Good luck.
I'm also interested to note that you are basing the cheese on a Munster recipe.

[Stinky]

I'ma be watching this carefully. Planning on starting bloomy rinds at some point, and I'd like to get familiar with the process first.

Also, here's a cheese.

[JeffHamm]

Transferring the mould from a rind works quite well, provided you sterilize everything really well.  I often get a contamination from wild blue mould on all my cheeses, and so my white mould cheeses often end up with blue on them (and it's not a nice blue).  I have, however, had one avoid blue contamination and it turned out to be the best brie I've ever had, and I'm hoping to recreate that.  So I've cleaned and sterilized the ripening box, and it's going to have it's own home in the cave, and, fingers crossed, all will go well. 

[Al Lewis]

You may want to try something I've been doing to test.  I put my blue on the bottom shelf with a single layer of butter muslin over it and it seems to keep the mold spores from spreading.  My cambozolas are on the next shelf up with nothing covering them and the fur is pure white without a hint of blue intrusion from the outside.  Just one other thing, do you think that's how they invented cambozola?  Some poor bugger in Germany got cross contamination in his cave and decided to eat his contaminated bries rather than throw them out?  LOL

[JeffHamm]

Hi Al,

That's a nice set up.  My cave is a bit smaller, though.  I keep my ripening cheeses in ripening boxes, and that keeps them separate.  The issue with the blue is that I've sometimes not sterilized the box well enough, and left over wild mould from my natural rinds gets onto the brie/cam.  Also, there's just some pretty aggressive wild mould around here.  If my boxes get a bit humid, which is fairly easy to do since the normal humidity in Auckland is around 70% (although it's 65 right now).  So, when I take the cheeses out to flip them, the moist air condenses on the cooler box, and then there's water in the box, etc.  Oh well, all in the life of a cheese.

-Jeff

Anyway, here's the cheese just before salting.  Weighs in at 692g, and measures 15.5 x 3.2, which works out to a density of 1.15g/cm3.  Now, hopefully we'll see white mould and it will do it's trick without any volunteers. 

Hmmm, just realised I put this in the wrong board!  This is the white lactic board and not the white mould rennet cheese.  Sigh.

[qdog1955]

Jeff----good to see you back in action.
  Have had a question---as you are the guy that got me interested in the floc method-----I was wondering if you had seen any of the posts concerning the failure of this method----quite a few members, myself included, have been having problems and I thought you would be the guy that might have some answers.
Qdog

[JeffHamm]

Hi Qdog,

I'm a big fan of the floc method so it could have been me.  What do you mean by "failure" though?  I know some people who are used to looking for a "clean break" have become concerned because after 3x floc, let's say, they figure "that's not a clean break", and think it's failed.  That's not the case; the curd gets stiffer the longer you leave it, and so a cheese like a parm, that you might cut at 2x to get a dry curd and a cam, at 6x, should not have the same "break characteristics".  With the floc method you just cut when the time says to cut and ignore the quality of the break.  It is, I admit, a bit disconcerting at first if you have tended to go by the clean break test.

If you do go ahead and cut, then be prepared for the curd to be softer, and more prone to breaking up, than if you would normally wait for a good solid clean break (at which point your curd has more moisture than you probably wanted - if you leave  your curds for  your parms and your cams to the same clean break level, either your parms are too moist or your cams are too dry, and most likely neither is quite where it should be).

I did see some posts where some were saying they weren't getting solid curds at the bottom of the pot.  Don't know what that's about as I've never had that problem and I've been using store bought P&H milk for years.  I do get a firmer curd with cream line milk, and, like I say, the P&H stuff will break up when stirred, but not quite to the complete shatter and poof stage (I had one brand of milk do that, the others I have used tend to fracture into "chips" and won't retain decent cubes).  It could be the brand of milk, or it could be the rennet, I suppose?

- Jeff

[Danbo]

I always use the floc method, and I thonk that it works OK. I use organic paseurized non-homogenized milk, and I always add calcium chloride before adding the rennet (paste).

[qdog1955]

Jeff ----1st my apologies for hijacking your post on a wonderful Brie.
  I have had no problems when using raw milk. But the last three makes (Alpine) have all floced in 6 to 8 minutes---shooting for 15 min., I cut back on the rennet slightly and still got 6 min.---this is with the same P/H milk, same kind of rennet , I have been using for months----and I was the one getting the cream cheese like curds at the bottom of the vat. It is just so frustrating when you do something that has worked fine in the past and then isn't doing what's expected, and no idea why.
 Sorry, don't remember exactly what the other members problems were---but maybe they'll chime in. Was a big fan of the floc, too, it seemed to eliminate some of the guess work, until these problems started---and for all I know, there may be something going on that I'm missing.
  Knowing how well read you are----was just hoping you might have read something about it.
Thanks for responding and if you happen to run into some info, let us know---we all appreciate it.
Qdog

[JeffHamm]

Hi qdog,

Hmm, interesting.  I know when I make thermo cheeses, which Alpines would be, I have to cut back on the rennet compared to my meso makes - the higher temperatures, and different acidity levels influence how the rennet works.  Raw milk can be a different beast, so if you're noticing a change in how things work going from raw to P/H milk, my first guess is that it has to do with the change in milk.  Second, with the P/H milk, the alpine starters and higher temperatures may be resulting in the faster floc, and, given the possibility of heat rising, coupled with faster action, that could result in the gradient of the set?  I would suggest cutting your rennet way back to get your floc in the right time zone.  If waiting for a clean break results in a fully set curd, then my guess is that the fast set is the problem.

- Jeff/

[awakephd]

Jeff, I'm one of those who has had problems with the flocc method. The problem I have is that there is not a clear-cut flocc moment with the milk I have available. No matter how little rennet I use, there is some noticeable thickening at 2-4 minutes ... but it is nowhere near ready by 4x that amount of time! For a while I tried waiting until I got, not just some gelling, but to where the bowl would spring back to place after giving it a shove ... but when exactly to call it "flocced" was hugely subjective ... and still didn't really seem to relate to the time needed to reach the right type of curds for a given cheese -- meaning not just a clean break, but how it breaks. (And though I am far from an expert, I have made enough cheese by now that I have at least some feel for the differences in how the curd should look/break for an alpine, a cheddar, or a camembert. )

All of that changed dramatically when I got hold of some raw milk (even after I low-temp pasteurized it). There was no thickening at all for 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 minutes ... I thought my rennet must have failed, since I ALWAYS got some thickening long before that. And then, suddenly, there it was -- a clear moment of flocculation. And using the flocc multiplier gave me what seemed to be perfect results. For the first time, the flocc method actually made sense.

Unfortunately, also for the last time, thus far -- raw milk is not easy to come by where I live. My conclusion is that, with the milk normally available to me, the flocc method is unfortunately not a reliable guide. If I ever get a steady supply of LTP and/or unhomogenized milk, I will gladly go back to the flocc method ... but for now I seem to do better going by time + how the curd breaks.

[Stinky]

When I tried, it took almost 20 minutes to stick and then had a "clean break" at 40 minutes.

Might try it again next time I make cheese.

[JeffHamm]

Hi awakephd and Stinky,

Interesting.  What I do is float a small lightweight plastic container (i.e. something you might use for a snack like dried fruit for a child's lunch box) just after adding the rennet.  Nudge it with your finger and it sails around the milk.  As you time it, it will not sail as far, you can tell the milk is thickening, but it's not set.  Eventually, the bowl will snap back into place, like a cartoon character with their feet stuck in glue.  That's the floc point.  If you lift the bowl, it should leave a faint impression in the surface of the milk (cause it is set; if not, it's not floc).  Anyway, in the end, it's really just another method and if it isn't working for you and something else is - go with something else!  I like it, but it works for me, so not surprising.  A shame Pav isn't around, he's the real expert and might have some more technical explanation for what's going on and why it's not working for you.  I know there are complex interactions between 1) the milk 2) acidity 3) temperature and 4) the rennet, which all will influence how quickly things floc.

- Jeff

[awakephd]

Jeff, have you ever tried with raw or LTP milk? What you describe sounds like what I experience with the P&H milk, but the problem I have is that it is hard to be very consistent about the actual point in question. If I nudge it this much, it snaps back; if I nudge it a bit more, it doesn't ... But as I said, when I tried with raw milk, it was astonishingly different. No thickening at all for 10+ minutes, and then suddenly, there it was, very distinctly.

Of course, this is all predicated on one and only one raw milk experience. I guess I need to cough up the money to purchase some more (or take a road trip to SC) and see if I can duplicate this experience ...