I'm digging up old topics again... *sorry*
I just really love how this cheese looks. I wanted to post some more links, and I'm really interested in trying this cheese. I have some ideas on where to start, please comment (ideas below the links)
I've never seen this in stores, or had the chance to taste it. This thread is the place I heard about it first, and I doubt I will be able to taste it anywhere, so I'm basing everything on the looks of it. Basically, it's so beautiful and strange that that is reason enough for me to try it.
http://www.chaesundco.ch/09/bestof-produzenten-galerie.php?pid=20018&lang=en
(note the light yellow young cheeses and the darker red smear ones... meaning that the hoop has been there during aging all that time)
A video with loads of closeups
http://www.formaggiokitchen.com/shop/product_info.php?products_id=1289(mentions the parameters "washed rind" and "cow milk")
http://www.schweizerbauer.ch/htmls/artikel_17584.html(nice picture, no idea what the text means)
http://www.artisanalcheese.com/cheeses/Forsterkase(mentions washing with white wine)
http://culturecheesemag.com/Kr%C3%BCmmenswiler%20F%C3%B6rsterk%C3%A4se(very informative. mentions: thermalised cow's milk, retaining a lot of moisture in curds, 24hours in hoops in room temperature (maybe no pressing then or only own weight or so), then brine, then add strip of bark (kept in place by rubber band) that is previously sterilized in hot water and softened in the water to be able to curve to the size of the cheese, aged 6 weeks, washed 3 times per week)
- what bark? the quotes earlier in this thread suggest pine or fir, but I seem to recognize birch in the pictures... Birch is used for some traditional foods in Finland (other than cheese) so I could easily believe that birch is the way to go - although fir is most often mentioned
- maybe use bark as hoop, sort of resembling an outer brie hoop. probably the best way to achieve good knit between bark and cheese
- Sterilize bark in pressure cooker (would this be necessary)? It seems that wood itself has some antibacterial properties. But I don't know it that also is true with bark (since that's the most vulnerable part of the tree trunk, isn't it) and of course some trees are infected by mushroom growth or similar already while they grow... probably not cheese-compatible species though. I'm under the impression that pressure cooking quite efficiently destroys mushrooms / spores. But maybe normal boiling water would be fine too...
- curds and inocculation could be similar as with general smear ripened cheese, texture soft, but maybe on the harder side?
So, I probably wouldn't be able to recreate Försterkäse with these thoughts, but maybe Zoey's bark cheese instead... which would be great if it just tastes good.