Author Topic: 4 Goudas - My first 4 Days of Cheesery  (Read 10502 times)

Baby Chee

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Re: 4 Goudas - My first 4 Days of Cheesery
« Reply #30 on: September 24, 2009, 11:02:40 PM »
I'll have to figure this out... it's a strategy.

I just tried the cheese again (20 days) and it tastes exactly like the store bought gouda, but it is white.  The salt vs. curd flavor is really good.  Can't wait to see how it mellows in the next months.  Luckily my other 3 gouda wheels are safely sealed and my first one plays as test sacrifice.

Offline DeejayDebi

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Re: 4 Goudas - My first 4 Days of Cheesery
« Reply #31 on: September 24, 2009, 11:48:49 PM »
Well you can tint it with amatto. My family won't eat white cheese for some reason.

Baby Chee

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Re: 4 Goudas - My first 4 Days of Cheesery
« Reply #32 on: September 25, 2009, 12:06:51 AM »
They won't eat WHITE cheese?!?  haha That's awful.  It seems like an extremely picky way to approach cheese.  I admit being used to the yellow goudas and cheddars and such, but now that I know an additive makes them yellow, I am loving the white stuff more.

Offline DeejayDebi

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Re: 4 Goudas - My first 4 Days of Cheesery
« Reply #33 on: September 25, 2009, 12:22:43 AM »
Nope they won't eat white cheese except mozzarella and riccotta. Fortunately I have always made hard Italian cheese and they turn yellow/tan with aging. NOw I cheat and use a few drops of amatto.

Baby Chee

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Re: 4 Goudas - My first 4 Days of Cheesery
« Reply #34 on: September 27, 2009, 04:25:02 PM »
My neighbors ran over with a huge bunch of home grown tomatoes (they are such nice people).  I think they did it because the cold hit this morning and they were plucking it all off the vine...

Anyway. I tried them this morning with a chunk of my 23 day old Gouda... º_____º!  AMAZING!!  It is the most incredible combination I've ever tasted in the past few years.  Absolutely perfect together: just Gouda and raw Tomato, nothing else.

Never thought of having them together before, but now I will always needs tomatoes.

Offline DeejayDebi

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Re: 4 Goudas - My first 4 Days of Cheesery
« Reply #35 on: September 27, 2009, 05:02:13 PM »
Nothing better than a fresh homegrown tomatoe! We had a blight up here this year and nobody got a good batch of tomatoes. Usually everyones giving them away at work this year - nothing.  :'(

Sailor Con Queso

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Re: 4 Goudas - My first 4 Days of Cheesery
« Reply #36 on: September 27, 2009, 05:13:38 PM »
My wife's family lives in upstate New York. The blight hit there early because the weather was so wet and cool. Many farmers plowed under huge fields of tomatos, and other crops,  to help stop the blight from spreading.

Offline DeejayDebi

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Re: 4 Goudas - My first 4 Days of Cheesery
« Reply #37 on: September 27, 2009, 05:25:19 PM »
I guess the blight covered areas from PA to MA. I've been buying canned tomatoes in #10 cans now to make it through the winter. I expect they will go sky high. By now I usually have about 300 quarts this year nada! I use tomatoes in almost everything - must be an Italian thing.  :D

Sailor Con Queso

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Re: 4 Goudas - My first 4 Days of Cheesery
« Reply #38 on: September 27, 2009, 05:53:27 PM »
300 quarts - WOW.

I do all heritage tomatos and had tons this year. BUT, only because we have a "hoop house" - PVC frame covered in plastic. Have had ripe tomatos since the second week of June. There are LOTS of people in our area that did not have ripe tomatos until a couple of weeks ago. Weather was just too cool, wet, and cloudy. Tomatos HATE that kind of weather.

We had blight too, but kept it under control by spraying with whey.

Just started winter crops in the hoop house. Will have fresh broccoli, etc in the middle of January.

Baby Chee

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Re: 4 Goudas - My first 4 Days of Cheesery
« Reply #39 on: September 27, 2009, 05:56:04 PM »
Amazing!  I had no idea it was such a blight.  My mother lives in north Delaware and she has. as usual, loads and loads of tomatoes in her raised garden.  Out here the weather was dry and cool until the past month when it got hot and wet.

I was never crazy for tomatoes until this year when the neighbors threw me the overflow, and now with the gouda-I'm hooked!

Offline DeejayDebi

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Re: 4 Goudas - My first 4 Days of Cheesery
« Reply #40 on: September 27, 2009, 07:32:23 PM »
I LOVE tomatoes! I wil eat tomatoes sandwiches in the summer every day even for snacks until I get a rash around my mouth from all the acid. Strawberries do the same thing to me.  :-[

Baby Chee

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Re: 4 Goudas - My first 4 Days of Cheesery
« Reply #41 on: October 24, 2009, 08:58:45 PM »
Oh, yeah.  The neighbors keep throwing me bags of tomatoes!  They don't stop producing, despite frost having come around several times!
They worked incredibly well with my younger gouda and havarti I opened around 2 weeks old... mistake indeed, but the tomatoes with them made it all worthwhile.

As to update my 4 days of cheesery, I have now eaten 3 of those wheels!  It's been over 7 weeks for a couple of those gouda.  The first I opened within 2 weeks of making, and it was truly awful compared to the one opened at 4 weeks.  The one opened recently at week 6 was really good, but I gave half to the tomato neighbor.  My last one opens on Monday at exactly 7 weeks of manufacture.

They all pressed around 1.13 psi, according to Sailor's chart.  Yet, they are all well pressed and had no air bubbles or imperfections.  The older they got, the better they have been!  I'll now press around 5psi and see how it goes as I enter into 25+ lb. cheeses.

What a trip!  In 7 weeks I have gone from a simple press and 4 lb. cheeses to a fulcrum press and 9" ss mold doing 25 gallon batches (starting next month).  I also picked up color and smoke, so my next gouda will have them both.  This has ben one of the best culinary trips in my life.  Now to master the mold grown cheeses....

FarmerJd

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Re: 4 Goudas - My first 4 Days of Cheesery
« Reply #42 on: October 24, 2009, 11:21:20 PM »
Congrads on your success. Keep it up.

Offline DeejayDebi

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Re: 4 Goudas - My first 4 Days of Cheesery
« Reply #43 on: October 25, 2009, 03:41:35 AM »
Way to go Chee!

vogironface

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Re: 4 Goudas - My first 4 Days of Cheesery
« Reply #44 on: October 26, 2009, 09:08:39 PM »
Chee,

In your initial post in this thread you discussed adding salt to improve the clean break.  Could you expound on that please.  I have really had a hard time getting a clean break.  More like a slightly dusty break really.  :)  I have eliminated adding any salt until after the curds are formed and cut.  I do use calcium chloride at about 1/2 tsp per gallon.  So what exactly are you adding and in what amount and at what time.

Thanks.