Author Topic: Blue #1 (I'm such a mess)  (Read 5137 times)

Zoey

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Blue #1 (I'm such a mess)
« on: September 23, 2009, 07:39:47 AM »

I was going for my first blue, using the John(CH)/DaggerDoggie/Fankhauser recipe.

- Warmed 10l whole pasteurized milk to 28C, added buttermilk 0,5% and diluted blue cheese (Finnish Aurajuusto 1 spoonful)
- 2hrs and I had a very nice clean break
- cut, let sit for 10min, mixed, started warming
- here I got distracted, and the next thing I know is the whey temperature was 50C! Oh no!
- Quickly turned off heat, took out much of the whey to accelerate cooling, added 0,5dl buttermilk in case my culture died, drained curds, let drained curds drip for 15mins in colander
- texture was pretty nice, a bit rubbery though. Not surprised...
- mixed in dry salt (about 3 heaping spoonfuls, to taste)
- placed in cheese form
- flipped without weight a couple of times in the evening and left over night
- in the morning, cut the cheese in half (it was too high for my fridge-cave)
- placed the halfs in 12C 70% fridge-cave

In the picture you can see my new cheese mold. Made from a plastic 1½ liter juice jug. My better half was kind enough to drill the holes for me. :)

So, is this a total loss? Did I kill the started with 50C, or the blue? Should I re-inocculate it with either or both? Should I just toss it? Since it's in two parts, I was thinking maybe I could just re-inocculate one and see the difference?


Zoey

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Re: Blue #1 (I'm such a mess)
« Reply #1 on: September 23, 2009, 11:47:01 AM »

Noticed that Road Rush made the same mistake in this thread: http://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,1461.0.html

Still don't know what to expect.

Zoey

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Re: Blue #1 (I'm such a mess)
« Reply #2 on: September 23, 2009, 01:39:30 PM »

Having this monologue by myself...

I decided to try again today without the heating part. See how they compare.

So today, I'm gonna do a half batch (since the last ones had to be cut into two anyway) with 5l whole pasteurised milk, 28C, starter + blue, then when clean break, make like fankhauser's neufchatel (place in colander, let drain), then mix in salt, put in cheese form for about 10 hours.

Another half batch I will cook at 38C before draining (I can just separate those before starting the cooking phase).

So the basic idea is to have comparison material for a) no cooking, b) cooking at 38C, c) overcooking at 50C. Hopefully I can make this fiasco into a learning experience.

After deciding about this retry, it seems pretty clear that I should re-inocculate one of the overcooked versions. This gives me the comparison versions c1 and c2.

Any guesses as to the results are welcome of course. :)

Updates below shall use the following terms:

A for non-cooked
B for cooked at 38C
C1 for cooked at 50C
C2 for cooked at 50C and re-inocculated

Offline Aris

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Re: Blue #1 (I'm such a mess)
« Reply #3 on: September 23, 2009, 03:38:56 PM »
I recently made a hard cheese with yogurt as inocculant and the curds were overcooked, i dont know the temperature but the whey was scolding hot. Now after a week, the cheese doesnt seem to be developing/aging because it doesnt have that cheese smell like my previous hard cheese that was undercooked. I think i killed off the yogurt inocculant.

Sailor Con Queso

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Re: Blue #1 (I'm such a mess)
« Reply #4 on: September 23, 2009, 05:08:24 PM »
You probably killed the bacteria.

Tea

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Re: Blue #1 (I'm such a mess)
« Reply #5 on: September 23, 2009, 08:30:33 PM »
mmm I agree with Sailor.  The cultures that make cheese what it is, are very particular about the temperature that they live in.

BauerHaus

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Re: Blue #1 (I'm such a mess)
« Reply #6 on: September 23, 2009, 11:04:44 PM »
I think the better story is how did you... "- here I got distracted"?

Just yesterday I made a Gouda and mightly fought off my work from calling me in until after I had my cheese in the press.

Zoey

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Re: Blue #1 (I'm such a mess)
« Reply #7 on: September 24, 2009, 06:27:26 AM »
BauerHaus, you're right, that's the best part of the story. :) But I'll just leave it to imagination.

I made two more cheeses today, so now I have A, B, C1 and C2 aging together in my fridge-cave. Picture below.

A and B turned out perfectly as I had planned. :)

It seems that the hotter the cooking, the better the result stays together - even with this approach, where I mix in the salt and thereby break the curds in between.

I got my best curds ever so far. This time the curd forming temperature was a bit low - close to Fankhauser's suggested room temperature. The clean break formed in three hours, which was a bit slower than for the first two.

Afterwards, I did as I planned: cut curds, mixed, warmed to 28C because it was a bit below, took out the first curds (drained in colander), warmed to 38C while mixing, took out the rest of the curds (drained in colander), mixed salt with first curds, placed in mold, mixed salt with second curds, placed in mold.

So I'm expecting A and B to turn out very interesting. C1 in still the probably dead version. C2 might have some blue activity, but no culture, maybe. I added blue to C2 by spooning on it a little of the blue solution left over when culturing A and B (with addition of meso and rennet).

ATM my cave is 11,4C and 98%. I'm trying to lower the humidity. I placed a silica gel bag into the mini-cave (so that it doesn't touch the cheese). I don't know if the silica gel is powerful enough for so much moisture, but I suppose it can't do any bad. In the evening I'll check if I have to do something else for the moisture issue.


Zoey

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Re: Blue #1 (I'm such a mess)
« Reply #8 on: September 24, 2009, 06:31:04 AM »

Oh and well... it seems that A and B would be smaller than C1 and C2. Well, that's true, since they lost more volume while in the mold (no pressing). I also got a pasta plate full of leftover that I'm eating fresh, since it didn't fit into the mold. :)

Offline DeejayDebi

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Re: Blue #1 (I'm such a mess)
« Reply #9 on: September 25, 2009, 12:17:02 AM »
Well they are looking happy right now anyway.

Zoey

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Re: Blue #1 (I'm such a mess)
« Reply #10 on: September 25, 2009, 06:06:57 AM »

I think the guesses are correct. Today A and B had a slightly sour, pleasant smell. C1 and C2 smelled sweet, the way my goudas have smelled right after pressing. So to me it seems like C1 and C2 haven't changed in acidity since draining. I'm keeping them along for a while though, but I suspect it soon to become a two-cheese-comparison between A and B. (still happy, since I'm curious about the differences)

Offline DeejayDebi

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Re: Blue #1 (I'm such a mess)
« Reply #11 on: September 26, 2009, 12:44:49 AM »
This is a great experiment hon. Many of us will learn a great deal from your experinces.

BTW

I really like that container you got there!

Zoey

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Re: Blue #1 (I'm such a mess)
« Reply #12 on: September 28, 2009, 07:53:02 AM »

I definately hope this will be useful. :)

Still nothing new to report... except, before I forget, version A would need a pretty large mold, since it looses a lot of volume during molding. If I had made a full batch of A, I wouldn't have had a mold big enough for it. (in case it turns out to be the best one, maybe I could make 5-liter batches)

Zoey

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Re: Blue #1 (I'm such a mess)
« Reply #13 on: September 29, 2009, 10:31:11 AM »

Update:

A and C2 bloomed yesterday. I'm concluding that probably the culture in C1 is dead (C2 was re-cultured after cooking, if you remember).

The smell of C1 and C2 still suggest that the meso culture is dead. I'm planning on ditching both, only waiting whether or not C1 will also bloom.

So it seems that B hasn't bloomed as early as A. I would be surprised if it doesn't, but has anyone tried inocculation at starter adding time and then cooking curds at 38C? Could it be that p.roqueforti does not survive that? Of course I cannot rule out cross contamination, so I guess I'll never find out for sure.

Temperature has been balancing around 11.4C lately. Moisture too high... around 86-98%. Ideas to lower moisture are most welcome.

I'm really enjoying this test. It is fun to see how the differences affect the outcomes. Besides now I can learn really effectively.

I'm thinking about starting a new test soon, when I ditch C1 and C2. That should leave enough room in the fruit box for a gouda, so I can compare two gouda's: one aged in the blue container and another aged in another container (same fridge). So I can test airborne contamination and contamination by touch.

Offline DeejayDebi

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Re: Blue #1 (I'm such a mess)
« Reply #14 on: September 30, 2009, 01:39:06 AM »
The experiment seems to be going well - even though two of the cheese seemed to have gone bad there's is a good bit to learn from this. Good job!