Well... this is going to be a rant and a rave....
First off.... the good. Here is my first blue ever, which I have affectionately dubbed "The Cranky Old Man."
I got so many compliments on this one that I should "enter it in a contest", "oh my, I'll buy some if you start selling," all the good things! So I'll make it again! BUT WHY WOULD I BOTHER MAKING IT AGAIN WHEN THIS THING CAUSED ME SO MUCH MISERY!? Which brings me to the name and where my rant begins....
First off, the recipe: I used Mary Karlin's recipe for the buttermilk blue, as follows:
• 2 quarts pasteurized whole cow’s milk
• 1 quart buttermilk
• 2 cups heavy cream
• ¼ tsp MM100
• PR powder
• ¼ tsp CaCl2 in ¼ cup nonchlorinated water
• ½ tsp liquid rennet in ¼ cup nonchlorinated water – I used 1 tablet of rennet in water by the given conversions for single strength
• Kosher salt
Followed it to the T in my version of the book, which later had some corrections about the amount of rennet. More on that later..... Here's where my frustration first started.
Doing my thing... ripening some milk... adding the rennet and stirring.... when all the sudden,
the whole pot of milk curdles. Great. So I says to myself, "
Self, what do I do? That WAS some perfectly good milk. Let's keep going and just let it coagulate into that nice block of curd I'm imagining." So I let it sit and curd. No good. Too soft. Whatever, I'm going to keep on anyway. I manage to get the "curd" into the mold, do the flipping and dancing and all the things, and finally I have a mass of what was to be a blue which is ready to ripen.
This cheese was all drama in my cheese cave. It innoculated everything, and I got so upset at that and the earlier frustrations of cooking the cheese, so I had a few choice words and decided I'd just age it in my kitchen refrigerator.
Now back to the sort of goodish. It all worked out, strangely enough. Here's what I imagined happened: The cooler temperature and drier environment of a normal fridge created a milder flavor and firmer texture overall. The bloom developed beautifully and quickly, but the kitchen fridge ultimately created a rind that is firm and dry, pungent of delicious blue flavor. Slightly salty, and a little tangy, just fantastic. It's not as veined as a blue should be, I didn't aerate enough during the initial aging, but the flavor is still great and well balanced to eat alone or in a salad. Very happy with this disaster.
So anyway... given all that, I decided to give it another shot with the modified recipe according to Karlin's corrections page, which calls for 1/2 the previous amount of required rennet. Again I had the same problem, but I think worse this time around. I'll post on that one when I think it's ready
So now my questions:
1. What the heck happened when I added the rennet? Did the pH drop too low?
2. Again, what the heck happened the second time? I reduced the amount of rennet!
3. What exactly should a good blue curd look like when it's first cut? I see pictures of soft pillowy curds all the time for blues, and I just can't imagine what kind of "clean break" to look for with those curds.
