Or at least I hope it will come out as such. Up to now, my blues have always been Gorgonzola Picantes, and I have been quite pleased with them. But I wanted to try something new, and thought I'd try my hand at a Stilton. Major problem was the timing - I was wanting to make it yesterday after a half-day at work, and I had another obligation that night, so I needed something that required little in the way of fiddling. Also, with Thanksgiving preparations beginning, I needed it to take up as little sink and/or kitchen counter space as possible. In particular, using the colander was going to be problematic.
Then I stumbled across this recipe, and it seemed perfect (see the second post in the thread:
http://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,15721.msg120179.html#msg120179Rather than draining into cheesecloth and gradually tightening a Stilton knot, this recipe just lets the curd sit in the whey for 4 hours, then pours off the whey and lets the curd sit overnight. Perfect!
Or maybe not. I confess I didn't watch the video; I just read the written recipe ... so it may be that there are some really significant things that I missed. In any case, here is the way I put the recipe together:
4 gallons P&H whole milk
1/4 tsp FD
1/8 tsp PR-PS
1/4 CaCl crystals dissolved in filtered, boiled water
1/2 tsp rennet
3.5-4 Tbs kosher salt (65 grams, equaling 3% of the curd weight)
Ripen for 30 minutes at 90°; add rennet and let coagulate for 60 minutes; cut into 1/2" cubes, starting with the horizontal cut, and waiting 3 minutes between each direction of cutting. (Not sure why, but that's what the recipe said ....) Rested 5 minutes; stirred gently for 5 minutes; then rested for 4 hours.
Again, this seemed ideal, because this let me get to the 4-hour resting point before my evening obligation, and I got back from that obligation in plenty of time to pick up with the recipe after the 4 hours of resting. According to the recipe in the link above, I would drain off the whey (or at least most of it), cut the curd mass into chunks, and let it sit overnight. But this is where things took a turn away from the recipe.
Problem # 1: When I got ready to start ladling out the whey after the 4 hours of resting, I was alarmed to smell a distinct alcoholic-fermentation smell -- as if the milk had yeast in it. I don't know if the PR, sitting in the whey all that time, could perhaps have produced that effect -- ?? I sterilized as usual, and it's been at least a couple of weeks since I've made anything using yeast in the kitchen.
Problem # 2: When I got the whey ladled down, and then drained off as much additional whey as I could, the curd was ultra-wet and soft. And when I tasted it, it seemed to have a bit of a alcoholic-fermented tasted to it. This was not looking good, not at all. I had grave doubts about just letting this very wet curd just sit for even longer, so I decided to dump it into a cheese cloth (actually butter muslin, but I digress) and hang it over the pot so that it would actually drain and consolidate. I left it overnight, sure that I was going to have to dump the whole thing in the morning ...
... but this morning, the curd both smelled and tasted just right - nicely acidified, no hint of the alcoholic fermentation of the night before. The curd had consolidated into a mass that was easy to handle; I cut it into large chunks, then milled it into smaller pieces. It was quickly evident that the curd was still plenty moist - draining it in the bag had not made it too dry, not at all. I salted it (used 3% salt, rather than the 2.5% called for in the recipe - for no good reason other than "just because") and put it into a tall 6" mold with open ends - made by cutting the top and bottom out of a cheap plastic 1-gallon pitcher. I have flipped it every hour, and went ahead to add a 4 lb. weight to help it along, since it didn't seem like its own weight was quite enough. After several hours, it seems to be coming together appropriately - lots of crags and nooks and crannies, but starting to be more of a single cheese rather than a loose collection of independent curds.
My plan is to treat it like a Stilton from here on out - continue turning it for a few more days, then see if it is ready to "stand" on its own. If so, I'll rub it up, and put it in the cave in a ripening box to start aging. And then we shall see ...
I have no idea what I have actually created, or whether it will turn out to be the least bit edible. We'll see in 12 weeks or so ... either I will have a brand new type of cheese to share with the world, or a new entry for the "mistakes" thread!
