The other part of my Dirty Secret - "Buying Cheese - Instead of making it". Looked into trying to get some marc de Bourgogne to make an Australian version of Époisses de Bourgogne. But ran into a few road blocks 1. Couldn't find the Marc anywhere - and it's insanely expensive to import it. 2. I couldn't access raw milk and also - cultures and other bit aside it was not looking promising. So, instead of giving up all together I went back and re-read the Jos Vulto cheese make 'Ouleout' in Gianaclis Caldwell's book. BTW check his site out
http://www.vultocreamery.com/.
Reading the recipe I thought I could meld what I know what add cream does to the ripening of soft cheese, what I has experienced of Époisses - It's Smell and Taste and Jos's recipe and this is what I came up with.
8 Liters of beautiful Maleny 4.4% fat milk + 700 mls same species 45% pure cream.
1/4 tsp Calcium Chloride
2 mls of 200 IMCU rennet.
At this part is a bit of a departure from the recipe.
1/16 tsp of MM100
1/32 tsp MA4001
1/32 tsp MOTo92(Thermo culture)
1/32 tsp B.Linens
scant 1/64 of Geotrichum Candidum
Method to follow:
Heat the milk to 32 Deg C
Add the Calcium Chloride diluted in 1/4 Cup of UnChlorinated water.
add the cultures at 32 DegC.
Ripen for two hours. The recipe looks for a pH drop of .13 from the starting pH but at 2 hours I did quite get there - probably need a little more Meso (MM100) but I got down to 6.56 from Starting point of 6.7.
Add 2 mls of 200 IMCU rennet diluted in 1/4 Cup of UnChlorinated water. Looking for a floc time of 10 minutes with a multiplication facture of 4. If you don't use the flocculation point as a guide for cutting the curd then 45 minutes will be sufficient.
Check for a clean break just to be sure.
Jos calls for a long process of cutting the curd. Cut the curd vertically 2 cms (about 3/4 inch) first and let sit for 10 minutes. Then cut the horizontal cuts as close to the first size 2 cms and let sit for 5 minutes.
Maintaining 32 DegC through out.
Stir gently for 30 minutes.
Now, the first one I made of this type the form was too high and when I cut into it there was still a very firm Center. This time however I used the same forms 2 of dia 200 mm (8inches) and made a separator so that I could effectively create two cheeses from the same batch at the same time.
Ladle 1/2 the curds - bit of a guess here, but be gentle as the curds are still very soft, put the separator in and ladle the remainder into the form and place the other on top. This will be the flipping position for the next few hours. The cheese is not pressed, just let settle under its own weigh like brie or Camemberts are let settle.
