Brie, Raw Milk - Aging 60 Days For Retailing

[janesmilk]

Hello!

A few questions here. I would like to do a raw milk brie, aged 60 days for legal sale. It will be sold at farmers market only.  I know that brie is best at 21 days, so how can I best keep it for 60 and still give it a week of shelf life?

my ideas are:  make the brie, bloom it as usual for 7-10 days, wrap, refrigerate at 34F?? to day 55, move to 45F for 5 days to re-bloom, sell at 60 days and tell customers that it has a 7-10 day shelf life?

how does this sound, any other ideas?

also, how possible is it to make good brie in longer cylinder molds ( say a 20 inch tall mold) and sliced into 3 or 4 individual cheeses after draining? any thoughts?

Thanks again, you guys are a great help!

[Brie]

Hi Young--sure you'll find a lot of great info here. Bries can be aged to 60 days or longer--I would personally recommend not wrapping; but aging for at least the first 45 days in containers with 80% humidity at 50-55 degrees and then wrapping and moving to the colder temp. Farmer's Market's have each their own idosycracies and rules, so best to check the local health department. Be very careful with the recent outcrys of lysteria--I would stay away from selling a raw-milk cam at this point, unless you have a dairy-approved facility and are making certain you  have a HACCP plan in place. Protect yourself and your customer. Good luck to you!

[Sailor Con Queso]

Janesmilk,

I would not sell any cheese in public unless you have your cheese making license. Here in Kentucky the milk and food inspectors frequently visit the Farmer's Markets looking for unlicensed products. My inspector tells me that offenders are black listed and will never get their license. Cheese production is generally controlled by the state and not local health departments.

The 60 day rule is being reviewed right now because there are pathogens that can survive beyond that timing. I expect that will be extended to 75 or 90 at some point. That being said, a 60 day raw milk cam is a bit risky.

[linuxboy]

I know that brie is best at 21 days, so how can I best keep it for 60 and still give it a week of shelf life?

Your options for extended life are (likely have to use more than one)
- Use a TA adjunct to stabilize the paste and make a stabilized brie. These can actually be rather decent when done right
- Target a lower moisture to slow down the protein breakdown rate (cut the curds smaller/use lower floc multiplier)
- Age at the coolest temp possible after you get a good bloom
- Use a mold that is low to moderately proteolytic
- Drain the curds at a higher pH to increase the calcium retention. Calcium will stabilize the curd and make it less runny.
- Increase the fat content to stabilize the brie with fat. Say, like a double creme.

my ideas are:  make the brie, bloom it as usual for 7-10 days, wrap, refrigerate at 34F?? to day 55, move to 45F for 5 days to re-bloom, sell at 60 days and tell customers that it has a 7-10 day shelf life?

That's a decent way of doing it, sure. Or use in combination with one of the methods I suggested above. Herve Mons makes a cam using the affinage you described. Longer than 10 days shelf life, too.

also, how possible is it to make good brie in longer cylinder molds ( say a 20 inch tall mold) and sliced into 3 or 4 individual cheeses after draining? any thoughts?

Yes, possible, but it's more work. Handling a large 8" or so wheel and cutting it isn't the best from a process perspective. Easier on the workflow to just scoop into individual molds. You'd need to make sure it drained properly, in the tall mold.

[janesmilk]

thanks for your input!

I should probably explain that I will be a fully licenses cheese manufacturer in January, we are finishing up our cheese buiding/licensing as we speak! I am currently solidifying my "cheese lineup" for next year. The majority of my sales will be farmers market and restaurants in Ohio. We will be the first sheep dairy in the state and will be purchasing Cows milk as well for cheese.

Our sheeps milk production will be low this year ( only 40 sheep to milk currently) so I will be filling in the production gap with cows milk. I KNOW that I call sell oodles of a small brie or camembert at markets. I have been working with it, btu have not nailed down a good method for the 60 day aging. WE do not have a pasturizer and will be making the brie/cam from cows milk only. possibly sheeps in the future when the sheeps milk is not so limited  .

Linuxboy: thanks for the tips, I has been thinking about going the stabilized paste route, I have a good recipe for that method from Peter Dixon, so I think I will go that route this time in my experimenting.

Thanks agin!

[linuxboy]

OK, but even with a stabilized brie, if you don't do the affinage right, it only gets you so far. Temp, humidity, and timing are crucial.

How does Peter do his? TA50/52?

That's exciting! I only know of Lucky Penny and Canal Junction in Ohio, who make cheese. I bet there's a huge market for sheep's milk cheese.

[janesmilk]

yes, in fact we just went out to Canal Junction today!

Peter Dixon uses ( 1-2% of Ezal TA050 - which is 1 unit per 25-50 pounds of milk. ) I think the U  in this recipe was before the change to DCU....

the recipe is from his "Farmstead Cheesemaking" quarterly- Sumer 2005. You might be able to get one from him through his website???

Linuxboy:As far as affinage, do you agree that wrapping it should be later in the process?

[linuxboy]

I was just curious. I've not made much stabilized brie, but that's what I've used before.

There are tradeoffs for the affinage

If you wrap immediately after bloom, humidity is less of an issue. And you can clear our your cave and put sell-ready product into the chiller to ripen slowly, and then remove and sell when the time comes.

But, the flavor will not be as delicate. And sometimes you may want a little water to evaporate. With wrapped bries, there's no air circulation and exchange, so the flavor is not as deep.

If you keep unwrapped, what happens is that the mold continues to grow. It needs oxygen to grow, and as it grows, it will keep breaking apart the cheese by releasing enzymes. So your ripening will happen faster. But, you can evacuate the gases, and develop a different flavor profile.

So it depends on what you're trying to do. It's a choice to achieve an outcome based on the way you make it.

[steffb503]

Same question different cheese...

I have been making Camembert with raw goat milk.
My recipe says to wrap after full bloom and keep at 45 F for 3-5 weeks. Then 33-45 F for an additional 45 days. So all total thats over the 60 day needed to sell it raw. Or do I need to age 60 after it is done?

[Oude Kaas]

Age 60 days from day of make to make it legal to sell.
After that, determine time of sale on taste of the cheese. Don't let it over ripen and don't sell it too much under age. You want to catch the customer with the taste of your cheese and still have some time for the cheese to mature when it might be kept by the customer or retailer.

[steffb503]

So if i start timing the day I wrap it I am then in control of temp and humidity till it goes home. It then has some shelf life in the consumers fridge.

[fjernsyn]

This is an old thread I realize but I didn't see anyone mention this, so I wanted to be sure it got said. The 60 day rule has another component: you also have to keep it above a certain temperature for the entirety of that 60 days. I believe that temperature is 35 degrees, so your plan could easily be adapted it seems, but I just wanted to point out that it's not a "how low can you go" kind of thing, and that just keeping something fresh for 60 days at a near-freezing temperature doesn't qualify as meeting the legal requirements for a raw milk cheese.

[janesmilk]

Hello,
I know its been a while, but here she is! My ( almost) 60 day bloming rind cheese. It will be 60 days on June 10, but I couldne resist opening one up for me! Made this batch with 30 gallons cow's milk plus 2+ gallons cream. 

Thanks Pav for all of your help! It is really good 

[linuxboy]

Perfect! You nailed it

Excellent cover, your paste looks spot on (great milk PF and process to balance calcium and acid), and it should last you another 20-30 days, which is wonderful from a shelf life perspective.

yeah!

[WhiteSageFarms]

That is a beautiful cheese, congratulations.