Author Topic: Aged cheese from only grocery bought ingredients  (Read 3170 times)

gravity84

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Aged cheese from only grocery bought ingredients
« on: October 24, 2015, 05:24:00 PM »
Hi everyone, new around these parts.  I had a stint making cheese a few years ago with some camembert and blue, stopped making for a bit because life got busy, been interested in getting back into it again.  I've been reading a lot more this time around and came across lactic set cheeses and this got me thinking if it was possible to make an aged  cheese from only store bought ingredients.  The hardest thing for me would be the no rennet available at my local stores, so this is where the lactic coagulated comes in. So I was thinking of using cultured buttermilk as mesophilic culture.  After more reading on lactic set cheeses I came across the method they make epoisses needing 16-20 hours to set the curds.  I have an anova immersion circulator so I was thinking of setting it up in my big beer cooler with my pot of inoculated milk in it and letting it go for 16 hours.  from there I could inoculate with some rind from a store bought camembert or a vein from a blue or even give washed rind a try.

So what do you guys think?  Is aged cheese without specialty cultures and rennet possible?

Offline scasnerkay

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Re: Aged cheese from only grocery bought ingredients
« Reply #1 on: October 24, 2015, 07:05:49 PM »
I don't know if it is possible or not, but why would you not just order what you need from online? Is it the desire to experiment more "rustic" style?
Susan

gravity84

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Re: Aged cheese from only grocery bought ingredients
« Reply #2 on: October 24, 2015, 08:50:59 PM »
yeah, mostly curiosity.  I brew beer too and I love messing with spontaneous ferments.

Offline Gregore

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Re: Aged cheese from only grocery bought ingredients
« Reply #3 on: October 25, 2015, 05:30:48 AM »
Yes it is possible but ..... Venturing out into the wild like this without the knowledge to know when you are on the path to a cheese that is worth eating or not is the main problem .

I assume that when you make wild ferment beer you have some idea of if it is going well and how to stear it back on course if it is not going the way you want.

Making cheese is easy , making good cheese is harder , making  the same good cheese over again  is much harder