Several days ago I posted a photo of a cheese board I had prepared for some dinner guests. The
center piece on the board was my first washed rind cheese, a Reblochon. This topic is the story of the making of that Reblochon. The recipe and make notes appear in the attached Excel file (both as .xls and .xlsx) as "Reblochon #1" so I won't list here the details, only some comments.
1. I was inspired to make a Reblochon by many of Boofer's comments about this cheese along with the yummy looking picture of one in Caldwell's
Mastering Artisan Cheesemaking and the easy to follow recipe in both her book and Amrein-Boyes
200 easy Homemade Cheese Recipies. Although the cheese turned out to be quite tasty there are a lot of things about Reblochons I did not know when I made this cheese - more below on this.
2. I used 2 gallons of vat pasteurized whole milk and a half-gallon of P&H milk for 2.5 gallons total because I calculated that this amount would create in my
8-inch polycarbonate mold a cheese 2 inches high for a "perfect" 4:1 diameter to height ratio.
3. The make instructions, goal pH, ingredients, etc. came from a combination of the two sources listed above and are available in the attached Excel file(s).
4. Once removed from the mold the cheese "squatted" over the next several days to end up being about 8 inches in diameter and 1.5 inches thick - hardly a 4:1 ratio. My initial horror was to pitch the cheese (Why not? It already looked like a discus.
). But I decided to persevere and see what it would turn into.
5. The photos below show the results of the rather beautiful colored rind and a wedge section of the paste. The cheese had not fully ripened when I cut it as can be seen in the oozing portion of the wedge. Nevertheless, the taste was delicious especially the more ripened portion. I've re-wrapped the two halves and put them back into the cold fridge in the hopes the cheese ripens further.
Several weeks after making this I decided to do what I should have done before I made it: Search the CheeseForum archives to see what I could find on Reblochon cheese making. I did so and came up with lots of posts but probably the best was this one by Iratherfly:
Find it here. Reblochon #2 in the attached Excel file is based upon this with a couple of additions and a change or two.
After studying Iratherfly's treatise on Reblochon cheesemaking I telephoned him. He is Yoav, owner of
Artisan Geek. A supplier to cheesemakers and long time participant of the CheeseForum. I asked Yoav about what he would change or add to his comments of several years ago. He said that he'd replace the B. Linens and Geo with PLA and add Sacco's SRC-1 and SE-2 as ripening and flavoring agents. And, of course, use real
Reblochon molds. I have included all these suggestions in my next attempt, Reblochon #2.
I look forward with great anticipation to making this modified recipe.
Kern