Low-Budget Beginner Brie Question

[AvB]

Hello!

I am very interested in attempting to make Brie and Camembert cheese, but have no cheese-specific products other than those available to me at the local grocery store.

My question, is whether I can use my homemade meso starter cultures (from buttermilk) and a scraping of white mold from a store-bought cheese, with the only other ingredients being milk/cream and rennet?

Advice is appreciated!

[DeejayDebi]

It has been done.

[iratherfly]

The milk - yes. Use good quality milk that isn't ultra-pasteurized or UHT and possibly don't have additives. If you can get non-homogenized mil that's even better but it may be more expensive.

The starters, yes. Buttermilk can be used for Mesophilic.

The mold, technically yes, but the problem is that most inexpensive brie have stabilized mold and even if it's good mold, I am not sure how you can assure you have enough strength in it to do the work. I think that if I were to do that, I would boil 1/2 cup of clean water in a jar (use filtered, spring water or other non chlorinated water), dissolve a pinch of salt into it (non-iodized. Kosher salt is good). I would then wait for it to cool down completely (room temp or below) and dump the rinds of the cheese you are trying to copy into it, close the lid and refrigerate it for no less than 12 hours. I would then take it out and bring it back to room temp before dumping the bacteria water into the milk at the same time you dump along with the buttermilk.  Has anyone else done it here successfully?  Please share how you did it. This is just the method that would make sense to me.

[stoneyridge]

I'd like to try a Brie.  I have the cultures, but nothing to use to mold/form the cheese.  Any suggestions for a low-cost substitute for the mold?  I'm also a bit confused about the size it should be.  It seems to vary - I'm thinking about 7"?  Thanks for any ideas.

Diane

[iratherfly]

Welcome to the forum Diane!

Brie and Camembert have quite loose rules about them. Brie is usually shaped like a disk and is classically 20cm which is about almost 8".  7" mold will be perfect too.

You will need hoops of material that is food safe (such as food grade plastic or polypropylene) and doesn't interact with the curd (so no aluminum, iron, varnished or painted surfaces, treated wood, etc. Also consider that the material cannot leave traces, color, aroma or flavor behind and you should be able to sanitize it easily with boiling water or solution like StarSan). Tupperware or any food container or (even used packaging such as a sliced off bucket of yogurt) can work out very well. You just have to drill holes in it. You can also use a segment of a non-PVC pipe. You will need to place it on top of some net or sushi mats and place all of that on top of a draining platform so that the cheese can drain freely without swimming in its own whey.

That being said... since you already have the cultures (where did you get them? Most places that sell them will also sell you molds), I would suggest to invest a few bucks in hoops or molds. There are enough difficult variables for you to perfect before you finally make your first ever successful brie. The hoops or molds shouldn't be one of them.  I realize that a brie hoops or tomme molds are usually not the cheapest ($13-$20) but it will cost you less than the milk you would have to buy again to do-over a couple of bries that failed due to flimsy molds...

I often make my own molds, but if you are new to that, you should develop a good feeling with a proper mold first. then it will be easy for you to guess what would make a great mold when you want one or when you run into something in a store or around the house ("Hey, this would be a great cheese mold!"). My opinion anyway.

[stoneyridge]

Thanks for all the info.  I ended up finding a plastic container with relatively straight sides, and it seems to have worked well.  We'll see in a few weeks!

The reason I chose not to invest in the mold is that my husband is convinced he won't like it (he's never had it).  I hated to buy the mold only to have it taking up space.  Since I've got the milk (my own goats), I'd rather waste a bit in experimenting than buy something that won't get used.

Diane

[iratherfly]

Diane, my Fiance is gluten intolerant and a vegetarian. That doesn't stop me from baking bread and curing meat at home -with all the apparatuses that are related to it. She also thought I was a bit nuts getting molds and containers (and since you have goats, I can only assume that our Manhattan NY kitchen has far less space than yours to store things). So I slowed down:  I started with a couple of small molds which turned my mediocre experimental first cheeses into something totally different. As she got addicted to the cheese (or at least to the idea of it) I brought in more and more molds, press, draining board, net, aging containers, cheese cave (converted wine refrigerator), hay, curd knife, pH meters, hygrometers and salometer... as well as 4 thick books about cheese.

I got all of these piece by piece over the course of 2 years. As the cheese kept coming, it was always justified to get another tiny thing.  I don't actually need anything else right now for cheesemaking (I have everything I need) but perhaps, doing it slowly and taking less risk can do it for you. This way you buy only stuff you know you'll use and you justify the prudent purchase with low acute cost and reaching the next level in cheesemaking where you are ready for the next thing...

[Boofer]

hay

Hay?

That made me do a double-take. Did I miss what animals you were feeding the hay?

-Boofer-

[motochef]

AvB

If you get this to work please post the brand of cheese you used! I was looking at this myself! 

[iratherfly]

Boofer,

Hay. Yes. Those French hay mats from that cheese stores use.  Affineurs use them too. It's an incredible way to transform the quality of your cheese to a different cheese planet altogether. There is so much flavor and aroma development due to it. It really holds the microorganisms alive and helps rind and bacterium development while it kills unwanted pathogens. It helps grow a rainbow of other molds. It also acts as a wick and helps drain your cheese and accelerate osmosis.  The shelves of my cave are lined up with it. So are my aging containers. This isn't proper for ANY cheese. I just do it in cheese where I need more developed rind, or more pronounced grass or barnyard character