Belper Knolle: Video Recipe

[Kern]

I have been attempting to develop a method to make a Belper Knolle in the fashion supported by this video.  You can find the results and discussion of my early efforts here and here.  Although it likely needs some tweaking (see below) I believe I have come up with a method consistent with the referenced video above.  Interestingly, this takes the making of my cheese out of the "lactic cheese whey most drained category" and puts it somewhere else.  However, based upon my results the video BK as well as mine have the characteristics of a lactic cheese but not the tedious process of making it in the lactic style.  My results support my contention that while the early BK's were made via a lactic process increased demand for the product required a different process to support the higher production.  Following is my recipe along with the results I achieved and photos showing the critical part of the process.

1.  Ingredients: 1 gallon vat pasteurized, non-homogenized whole milk (Twin Brooks dairy),  1/4 tsp calcium chloride, scant 1/8 tsp Flora Danica, 8 drops SS liquid rennet, 4 cloves of garlic, 1.5 tsp Himalayan pink salt.
2.  Warm milk to 86F (30C) add Calcium Chloride, and Flora Danica.
3.  Wrap pot with towels, etc. and allow milk to ripen to pH 6.0 (about 6 hours).
4.  Add rennet diluted in water.  Floc time was 4.5 minutes at this pH.
5.  Cut curds at 25 minutes into 1-inch cubes.  Rest in pot for 30 minutes, lift at 15 minutes (Photo 1)
6.  Remove whey to curd level, pour into draining vat (Photo 2)
7.  Stack curds in vat corner (ala cheddaring) for 30 minutes (Photo 3).
8.  Remove curds to ripening bowl (no drain) until pH = 4.75 (overnight) (Photo 4).  See Photo 5 for drained whey.
9.  Pour free liquid off ripening bowl.
10.  Mash garlic and salt into paste and add to drained curds in Cuisinart,  Process to paste.  (Photo 6).
11.  Mold into balls, place on drain board and refrigerate until firm (Photo 7 - current state of make.)
12.  Remold and roll in toasted cracked black peppercorns.
13.  Fan until firm.  About 24-36 hours at 60F, 60% RH
14.  Place in cave at 55F, 85% RH for 3-8 weeks.  Remove and fan again if pepper feels damp. 

Key points in this make were that while the curds were ripened into the lactic-make range they were never processed like a lactic make.  The paste made in the Cuisinart handled like a cloth drained lactic cheese but with a lot less moisture.  I thought that the curds might end up being too dry and so saved some whey just in case.  The moisture content of the paste was "perfect" in that the balls formed easily, held together, didn't sag and didn't leak moisture and yet will be sticky enough to hold the pepper.

I think that I've caught the elements of the process shown in the video.  What is not certain is when to add the rennet.  I arbitrarily picked a pH goal of 6.0 for the rennet.  I think I could have waited until a pH of 5.5 and still have had time to accomplish the critical draining steps, which make this method fast and easy compared to the traditional lactic method.  The total time from adding the rennet to completed draining was about 1.5 hours.

In my opinion this method works to produce a Belper Knolle identical to a lactic version ripened to the same pH.  This is because renneted curds change into a more lactic curd character (yet hold their shape until cut up) once the pH drops below about 4.8/4.9.  So, adding rennet in the middle of the make process accomplishes in about 90 minutes what a pure lactic make takes 12 to 24 hours to do:  that is gets rid of the liquid. 

[AnnDee]

Texture looks better that your last make, I think. Kudos on your perseverance on perfecting this cheese make.

[Al Lewis]

Great thread! Interesting make.  Were you able to pipe the mixture or was it too dry for that?

[Kern]

I did not try to pipe the paste.  I've worked with a lot of epoxy putties and filling machines over the years and can tell you that the material I made would have been easy to pipe (pump).  The video around the 2:42 mark shows what the "flow" would be like using this filling machine.  We have several of these in my business and they are very fast and accurate.  The dosage is set by the piston diameter and stroke.  It is a simple matter of loading the hopper and stepping on the foot switch for each plop.  It could be set up for continuous operation also as there is a delay when the piston draws back to recharge the cylinder.  The speed is adjustable.

I'm sure that the BK guys in the video use something like this.

[Al Lewis]

The reason I ask is that I believe mine was too wet.  It basically had the texture of a whipped mascarpone and took quite a bit to dry it out even after fanning it.  I was afraid of letting it drain too much as a dry curd wouldn't form.  I guess my next batch will be quite a bit drier.   AC4U for your excellent research and exposition of this cheeses creation.

[Kern]

Thanks for the cheese.  I doubt that you could dry it out enough using the lactic process.  Every time I've made BK I've saved some of the whey in case I got it too dry.  You can always add a little back when you mix in the salt/garlic.  When I made the cheese using the rennet process above I was certain that the curds would be too dry.  Once cut up with the garlic paste in the mixer (I used a Cuisinart) the consistency was perfect.  The key using the rennet process is to allow the drained curd to ripen to a pH of 4.8? (mine was 4.75) or below.  Caldwell states in Mastering Artisan Cheesemaking that below a pH of about 5.0 renneted protein looses its ability to bond together and the curd becomes more lactic like.  (Maybe this is why pressed cheeses with too low a pH are crumbly.)  The moisture level in the seemingly dry curds is just right for the balls to form and hang together without draining or clumping.

Try making some BK via the rennet process and you'll see what I mean.  I'd give Peter Clausen and the rest of the BK guys a yuge cheese for figuring this out.  They are the true geniuses here.  IMHO, had they not done so they never would have been able to make enough product at a cost acceptable enough for it to become the huge seller it is in Europe.  Kudos to them.  All I did is reverse engineer the process from the clues in the video. 

[wattlebloke]

Just a quick question Kern: can you please give me your SS rennet strength in IMCUs? Or tell me the supplier/product and I'll look it up. Going to try your recipe this weekend.  A long search online tells me you are probably using 200 IMCU, but I'ld like to be sure...many things are different Down Under. At least a drop is still a drop!

[Kern]

I used this single strength rennet.  Eight drops are 1/8 teaspoon or 0.63ml.  Have fun with your make.  I found that adding the rennet at a pH of 6.0 is a kick in the pants.   

[wattlebloke]

Thanks for that Kern. 280 IMCUs. And it comes from? Down Under...
Yes, 4.5 mins is a very short floc time! x factor 5.5...I guess you hadn't decided on a multiplier, but went on feel? Looking for extra strong curds?
Going by the pictures, not a lot of difference between draining curds and stacking them...having drained them could I pile them loosely in a 6" mould? How important is room temp at this point? The two farmhouse cheddars I've made, being worried about final curd bonding, I drained in cloth in a closed pot, suspended over their whey, to keep the temp up. It seemed to work fine...
Thanks in advance, and AC4U for all your work/ in developing this recipe! My sister-in-law lives in Switzerland, but doesn't speak German, or I'd ask her to show your recipe to Herr Clausen for feedback!

[Kern]

Thanks for the cheese.

Herr Clausen might be mortified to learn that some engineer in Washington State, USA had spent a month figuring out how he made a "lactic cheese" without the lactic fuss using his publicity video as a guide.  LOL

And that is the point of the work I did.  The draining part really goes very quickly.  It took no more than 90 minutes from adding the rennet to putting the curd in the little stainless steel pan.  Very little whey (clear water really) was expelled after this point.  I kept the pan at about 22C so that the pH drop did not stall.  The pH was about 5.2 going into the pan and sat overnight to drop to 4.75.  The drop gets really slow once you get down to about 4.9.  I suppose it could be sped up by elevating the temperature but the BK process shown in the video does not cook the curds or otherwise add any heat.  I fudged this a little using the justification that a one gallon make will drop in temperature considerably faster that the 30 odd gallons in the tank in the video.

What I was really looking for when the pH dropped to 4.75 was a mixed curd behavior that approximated that in the video at the same point in the process.  The curds at 4.75 were very different than the curds at 5.2 even though they looked the same.   They were rubbery at 5.2 and crumbly at 4.75

As long as the pH gets to the 4.75 range it likely shouldn't make much difference whether or not you mold them or simply put them in a pan as I did.  You'll note in the video that Herr Clausen essentially molded them in the vat and then dumped the contents in the mixer to be cut up by the mixing blades.

Finally, I'll state that I don't have all the parameters nailed down.  The curd behavior in the video tells me that the milk had developed a quite a lot of acid before the rennet was added.  Is 6.0 the right pH for adding rennet?  I don't know.  Maybe if I added it at 5.5 I could get the same rapid firm curd drainage but a lower final pH - say something like 4.6.  I have no idea what the final pH should be.  A washed curd cheese recipe suggests that the acid content will be higher the longer the curds stay in the whey.  Maybe a very late renneting is the way you accomplish this with this process.  Lot's of interesting things left to try!    

[Stinky]

Perhaps the longer floc factor made the gel stronger, which helped it not dissolve when killed later on.

[Kern]

Yesterday I made Belper Knolle #6 using cheap, rot-gut, $2.59/gallon P&H milk.  My inspiration for doing this was to see if following the recipe posted above could produce firm enough curd to drain in my perforated vat (see photos 2 & 3 at top of page).  I changed the ingredients slightly - scant 3/8 tsp of calcium chloride and fat 1/8 tsp of rennet.  Otherwise the recipe is the same.

The rennet was added at a pH of 5.89 (six hours after culture add) and produced a floc time of 3.5 minutes.  I cut the curd 21 minutes after adding the rennet.  The curd was soft but did not shatter.  I left it to rest for 30 minutes, jiggling the pan several times to separate the curds from each other.  The whey was yellow-green and drained to curd level.  At this point the curd was carefully ladled into the aforementioned vat.  Following this the curd was consolidated enough to transfer to the lined colander (see photo below) and allowed to drain for about nine hours to a pH of 4.6.  It was then finished in the way described above.

The Cuisinart cut the crumbly curds to make a sticky paste.  The 5 balls did not slump overnight in the cheese cave and were peppered this morning.  The flavor was tangy lactic and quite pleasing with the salt and garlic in the cheese.  We shall see how it ages.

[AnnDee]

Aha! So the recipe works with PH milk too! It's a keeper definitely. A cheese for you for ALL the investigative and thorough analysing work.
You must have a lot of BK by now, mine is running low....
How's the old batches coming along?

[Kern]

See comments here.  I tossed the first three batches because of rampant blue mold.  I think I have this under control now.  Taste tests so far indicate high potential but the oldest tasted were at three weeks.

The new P&H balls are drying nicely and will probably go into the cave today as the weather here is starting to warm up and my garage workbench is no longer a viable substitute.

[Kern]

Shaved some 4 week old Belper on some garlic shrimp linguini tonight.  Yum!