Innovative hoops (and my first brie)

[Zoey]

So I made this yesterday. I used the following recipe:

Warmed 3 liters of 3,5% fat pasteurized milk to 32C
Added cultured buttermilk and a piece of store brought brie rind
Waited 30mins (removed the piece of brie rind)
Added rennet (0,5 teaspoon)
Waited 115 minutes
Moved curds to hoops with spoon
Let drain 26 hours at room temperature, turning 3 times
Salted quite lightly with salt shaker
Placed in fridge (8C)

I didn't try to maintain the temperature after the initial heating, so there was a slow temperature drop during coagulation. But my room temperature is almost 25C so it doesn't cool the milk very quickly. I believe my end temperature when filling the hoops was still around 30C.

The hoops: milk is sold in cartons of 1 liter over here. So I just cut of the top and bottom, pierced the remaining tubes all around with a sterilised piercer, dipped in boiling water to sterilise and filled them (I threw them away after use, so I'm gonna have to make new ones next time, but it was 10mins of work so that's okay).

Notes: it seems that one carton full of milk is just enough to fill a hoop made of one carton. Nice.

Also nice: the cartons work in a way that make the cheese a bit stuck on the place where it is. Result: when you turn, as long as the curds are a relatively uniform mass, it will glide nicely and not drop like a stone. So it won't break when turning. It glides beautifully, as one piece, keeping itself horizontal all the time. You don't even have to lift the bottom surface when turning, since you can just lightly squeeze the outside of the hoop (the place where the cheese is)  and the cheese will be stuck on the sides. Of course none of this works for the first few hours of draining.

Another important note: the hoops are very light and they don't create enough pressure to hold the hoops on the surface at the beginning. So to avoid the hoops lifting up and letting the curds escape, it is necessary to lightly hold the hoop down by hand, while filling it. Hence the plates also - after filling, I put the plate on the hoop to keep it touching the surface (so I don't need to hold it down for the whole 26 hours . Note: The plate does not touch the curds, so it's not pressing.

I feel quite good about this recipe. Hope that the P.Candidum was transferred properly by my soaking technique. That's the thing I'm most uncertain about, but if it's anything like the blues, I'm sure it stuck. (for blues, I'm using the same technique and a much smaller piece for a larger batch).

[susanky]

Great idea!  They look lovely.  I'm thinking of trying a similar thing with a store bought blue.  Have you cultured blue mold this way?  I suppose you just guess how much to add?  Or maybe I'll culture it first in some warm milk then strain the blue cheese back out.  Let us know how these turn out.  Thanks for the pics!
Susan

[Zoey]

susanky, when I make blues, I do it like this:
I just add one teaspoon of diluted blue cheese (just cross it with a fork into some milk/water) to 10 liters (2-3 gallons) of milk - if small lumps remain, I don't think that's a problem. I add it at the same time when adding buttermilk culture. The only thing that can go wrong, seems to be that the blue dies at around 55 Celsius. So never let it get that high (I once majorly overheated and noticed this - I don't know if it could be a concern with thermo cultures). Blue is highly active, and to me it seems that as long as your cheese even sees a blue, it will grow blue itself. There's no risk of putting in too little spores...

[susanky]

susanky, when I make blues, I do it like this:
I just add one teaspoon of diluted blue cheese (just cross it with a fork into some milk/water) to 10 liters (2-3 gallons) of milk -

Thanks Zoey.  I might try that this weekend.  I'm not sure what you mean by 'cross it'.  Do you mash a few mold laden chunks of cheese into a small amount of milk?  Do you have to heat it or give it time to ripen before using it?  The hardest part of this cheese will be going out in this cold to meet the farmer to get the milk!
Susan

[Zoey]

susanky, yes, mash some existing blue cheese into a small portion of the milk you're using (or water) and then add that to the mix along with the cultures you're using. Don't heat it in between, it will most likely destroy the spores. As you're using the same milk as for the cheese, there is no reason to heat the milk if you don't pasteurize the whole batch... any contaminants that you would have in the small amount, would be in the big amount also. If you use water, you can heat it first, but let it cool before adding the cheese.

[MrsKK]

Thanks for sharing the photos and your idea for an easy, inexpensive mold.  Recycling in it's highest form!

Your cheeses look great.