Tomme rind types?

[Boofer]

It's not straightforward, but there are proven ways to create specific types of rinds, which is generally what I ask about in order to answer.

How do you know what type of rind you could possibly develop? Is there some guideline to different types of rinds?

I made a Tomme on January 2nd and after a week of drying, put it into the cave yesterday. The rind is dry but not cracked. When I wiped it with brine yesterday it had many small white "fluffs" (geo?) spread across the top. The sides all had a bloom developing. Temp/humidity has been 65-70F/84%. The cave will drive the temp to 50-55F and 90-96%. I want to grow a simple natural rind without a lot of "hair" to develop flavor. I've never tasted a Tomme so I'm rather in the dark as far as what the ending flavor and texture should be.

I used 1/4 tsp MM100, 1/8 tsp TA, 1/32 tsp Geo13, 1/32 tsp KL71, 1/16 tsp SR3 in 3 gallons Darigold P&H whole milk with 1 gallon Dungeness Valley raw Jersey milk. Using 1/8 tsp dry calf rennet my floc was 5 min using 1 tsp CACL2. That's probably the quickest I've ever had the floc. Could be because of the ripening. Good curd set.

I think my acidity may have dropped a little too low when I removed it from pressing. It was 4.89. I was going to hold it in the mold overnight, but thought it better to get it in the brine ASAP to try to slow down the acid production.

So now that it's in the cave, I'm thinking that I can just wash with a 3% brine with a tiny dose of SR3. Again, I'm not sure what target rind types are out there and what they contribute to the underlying paste.

-Boofer-

[linuxboy]

How do you know what type of rind you could possibly develop? Is there some guideline to different types of rinds?

For what you're talking about, which is multi-species complex rinds on tomme-type cheeses, the general guideline is so vague that it's not helpful. The reason is that at the earliest point in your decision tree, you start with something like 15 different branches, some of which can intersect and overlap if you want to transition from one rind to another in the process. I can be more helpful here with this answer, but have no time to type it out. If you want the generality, it is to keep the humidity high (95%) if you want fast growth of the candidums, and even higher (98%) if you want more b linens. For other cheese types it is easier to be specific, but not for these rustic types of rinds... too much variation.

I want to grow a simple natural rind without a lot of "hair" to develop flavor.

Then keep the humidity at 85% and brush the rind back after 2 weeks or so. You want a coating of mold at first, and then to knock them all back. Management of mold is about not having humidity too high so it does not grow crazy, and about brushing it back.

Again, I'm not sure what target rind types are out there and what they contribute to the underlying paste.

It's about balancing the rate of enzymes released by the molds with internal cheese ripening. A tomme rind most often is something of a cross between a hard cheese washed with brine, like a gruyere, and a camembert or smear rind type. Meaning a tomme has more moisture in the curd, but not as much as cam and more than a gruyere. So the molds on the rind penetrate slower than a cam, but faster than a gruyere. The paste develops at an intermediate rate, making the cheese ripe in 3-4 months.

I'm not sure how to begin answering your questions, too much background info required to explain it even halfway decently. Maybe I can just answer the question about your rind.

With what you have in the culture mix, there are 3-4 ways to go at this point:

1) let everything grow for 3 weeks, then brush it all back, which makes for a thick, mushroomy type rind (RH 85%), strong flavors.
2) Wash with brine in a high RH to get a complex smear type rind
3) Brush back periodically to get a thinner, more nuanced type rind, and control the species dominance by using humidity, temp and salt (high salt to kill geo, high humidity to encourage b linens, for example)

Remember that your kluyveromyces does add some flavor, but it's mostly to deacidify. Now you're balancing geo and b linens, and lots of ways to go with that combo by balancing the salt, humidity, and temp.

[ArnaudForestier]

Piggybacking here. Following this closely, as I am assembling the components of my cave and preparing the first tomme shortly.  A bit disappointed to have a cave that will achieve only a 90% RH, at best, as I would like to encourage both the candidum and b linens.  I am going on the working presumption that the lower humidity will mean a slower growth among these, and also therefore a different complex rind culture than would be obtained with a higher working RH (obviously....I guess I'm hopeful of a projection on what exactly I should expect to see, in terms of mold development, sustaining a Temp of 55F and this RH).  (I should mention that in addition to rind "captured" culture, I will likely be using bought products on certain runs, to include Myco and, possibly, the KL71). 

[iratherfly]

Boofer, I would add a pinch of that geo 13 to the wash, as well as KL71 cheese yeast if you have any. It will prep the surface for the growth of that SR3 and grow it better. It will also change the pH level and bring it back down, though I am not sure how much of the paste pH it can actually affect. Start washing it right away. Do once every 2 days (turning it on the off day in between) for 10 days. Then once every 3 days for a week, then once-twice a week. When it's heading into the orange zone stop washing and watch the white powdery geo fuzz grow nicely over the orange, giving you a nice mix over the next few weeks. Just turn once or twice a week and consume at min 6 weeks 8 is better, 12 weeks is best. One more thing you can use in your brine would be Mycodore (like in Tomme de Savioe) but then the B.Linen would have to go; they will fight each other and non will grow if you put too many of these together.

This isn't once rind fits all solution but it fits your situation since you have overly acidified cheese that already has SR3 in it.  For other situation I would have suggested a more creative approach, from chocolate to balsamic dunking to drunken cow to some crazy wild rinds.  I just hope you haven't over acidified it. The more acidity in tomme, the closer it gets to the chalky-brittle-sour zone.

[Boofer]

3) Brush back periodically to get a thinner, more nuanced type rind, and control the species dominance by using humidity, temp and salt (high salt to kill geo, high humidity to encourage b linens, for example)

Thanks, linuxboy. This sounds like something worth trying.

Boofer, I would add a pinch of that geo 13 to the wash, as well as KL71 cheese yeast if you have any. It will prep the surface for the growth of that SR3 and grow it better. It will also change the pH level and bring it back down, though I am not sure how much of the paste pH it can actually affect.

I just hope you haven't over acidified it. The more acidity in tomme, the closer it gets to the chalky-brittle-sour zone.

I too hope that the acidity is not overdone. The curds were washed and I did brine it right away. Time will tell. The reason for the acidity was trouble again with my ExTech meter, I believe. It seemed like it took forever for the pH to drop before I put the rennet in. I get the feeling I should be sticking to the clock instead of waiting for the magical pH point to be reached. The pH will probably drop eventually anyway after renneting and while cooking, correct? My next effort will follow that strategy unless I hear some alternative advice.

-Boofer-

[linuxboy]

With tomme, the knit pH is not the most critical point, provided that it does not fall below 6.0 at the time of knit (absolute lowest, this is far from optimal. Optimal is about 6.35). rennet pH does make a difference, but not terribly much if you use the floc method. Makes a difference because with the lower pH you have a faster time to cut. If you don't get the rennet pH drop, not the biggest issue. But try to get the brine pH right. Point of a tomme is to make it and let it form and then let the acidity build up in the mold.

4.9 at brine is rather low, but not terrible. With a good rind, salvagable.

[iratherfly]

Boofer, when making cheese my Extech meter is on the side in case I want to take measurement but frankly, I always feel that by the time I get a pH reading that I can trust out of this $300 piece of garbage, I would have destroyed my cheese 10 times over.

ALWAYS prioritize on what you think is the right process and timing of the cheese making over the need to get a pH reading.  It's nice for consistency sake but it's a bit like a GPS in the car. If it malfunctions or has no reception, you should still be able to feel where you are and read the signs to get you to your destination. Fix the GPS later but not when you are on the highway. Know what I mean?

There are traditional techniques such as curd feeling (springiness and shrinkage) and whey height and flocculation multiplier - to name a few, which will almost certainly will get you to a safe harbor when all else fails.

[Boofer]

Boofer, when making cheese my Extech meter is on the side in case I want to take measurement but frankly, I always feel that by the time I get a pH reading that I can trust out of this $300 piece of garbage, I would have destroyed my cheese 10 times over.

ALWAYS prioritize on what you think is the right process and timing of the cheese making over the need to get a pH reading.  It's nice for consistency sake but it's a bit like a GPS in the car. If it malfunctions or has no reception, you should still be able to feel where you are and read the signs to get you to your destination. Fix the GPS later but not when you are on the highway. Know what I mean?

There are traditional techniques such as curd feeling (springiness and shrinkage) and whey height and flocculation multiplier - to name a few, which will almost certainly will get you to a safe harbor when all else fails.

Good analogy with the GPS. I have been leaning away from reliance on the meter because I don't have complete faith in it. This make really irritated me. By the time the milk reached what I had pegged as my target pH for renneting, it was already speeding up. It seems like once it reached a certain point it really began to fall. My goal is to anticipate and react just before that point. That will come with the next make...and the next...experience.

Last night I mixed up a brine wash with geo, KL71, and b. linens. Hopefully things will improve from this point. Just to be clear, what proportions of water to salt should I be using at this point with this mix?

at the time of knit

Is that going into the mold, post-pressing, or what?

-Boofer-

[linuxboy]

Time of knit= earliest point curds mat. If settling under whey, that's the point. If prepressing under whey, that's the point. If draining immediately, then that's the point.

[iratherfly]

As Linuxboy says, if you see that pH begins to drop like crazy, mold and press ASAP. You want most of the acidity to build under press with Tomme.

As for the brine: I do 3%-4% salt by weight. I do about 200ml water (approx 8 fl.-oz.) and then drop a smidgen - about 1/16th teaspoon of each culture in. Water should be at room temp at this point. Let it sit for 5 minutes to rehydrate before mixing it.  You should cover it and let it sit in room temp for the first 12 hours. After that, do your first wash and put the wash in the fridge for the remainer of the cheese.  If you intend to keep using the wash just make sure the bottle never comes in contact with the sponge you use for washing or the cheese itself - you don't want bacteria from the cheese traveling back into the bottle. Instead, just pour a little into a sanitized dish every time and use your sponge or rag with it.  Sometimes when the rind is too sticky for several days and begins growing what looks like unwanted mold, I will rub it dry with a bit of kosher salt. This helps kill unwanted stuff and also "scratches" the ring and encourages its firm, dense and stable growth. Don't oversalt it though!

[Boofer]

Good stuff, guys. Makes me anxious to try it again soon. My problem is I don't have any more room in the cave. I guess it's time to expand and add some more cave storage. 

You want most of the acidity to build under press with Tomme.

I would presume this is because you don't want to over-acidify before you get to the press.

-Boofer-

[iratherfly]

Yea, the more acidity you build before hand, the more of these undesirable characteristics your cheese may have: chalky, dry, hard, inflexible, brittle, can't melt. Possibly poor rind development too. Early high acidity is better in non pressed cheeses that are surface ripened such as Camembert (hence its very long culturing time)

[ArnaudForestier]

Early high acidity is better in non pressed cheeses that are surface ripened such as Camembert (hence its very long culturing time)

Appropos to this, jusr read an interesting comparison of pH over time in both camembert and St. Nectaire.  Sister Noella Marcellino's ("The Cheese Nun", Abbey of Regina Laudis) and David R. Benson's (U. Conn's Dept. of Molecular and Cell Biology) study, (warning, pdf): "Scanning Electron and Light Microscopic Study of Microbial Succession on Bethlehem St. Nectaire Cheese" shows (Fig. 8, pg. 6) that if St. Nectaire, the pressed cheese, exhibits a rather flat pH course in both the rind and paste over 35 days (rind roughly neutral, paste roughly 5), the camembert of the study is much more acidic by day 2 - both rind and paste at around 4.5, increasing in pH over the next month (rind sharply to day 16 or so, then gradually to a near neutral; paste sharply from day 16-32 to 6.0 or so).

I paraphrase and quote in part:

The early St. Nectaire is washed and pressed early, which brings a forced drainage of the curd.  After 4-5 hours, “no lactose remains in highly pressed cheeses.”  In cheeses that are not pressed, such as Camembert, lactose does remain, and “can cause postacidification of the curd through fermentation by lactic acid bacteria.  Lactose has been found in Camembert in the rind on day 15 and interior on day 25.  The neutral exterior pH of St. Nectaire is probably due to the metabolism of lactic acid by the fungi that develop sequentially on the rind.”

Spurred by Linuxboy's comments in this vein, I'm interested in microbial succession so I found this study particularly fascinating, but was also pleased to learn something about the relationship of technique to metabolism by lactic acid bacteria.  (All of this is news to me, as a noob).

[iratherfly]

Just as an anecdote; historically there is a huge connection between the human background of these cheese types and their acidity levels.

Camembert style cheese was made by the farmer for family consumption and trade with neighboring farmers (and of course hiding from the tax men). As such, they used the leftover of the evening milking which set overnight and acidified before mixing with the leftovers of the morning milking. They then let them age on hay in damp farmhouses. That's how this cheese came into being and why it's so acidic.

On the other hand, Saint Nectaire and the washed rind family of cheese are monastery cheeses. Monasteries owning big land and herds would use cheese to bring in funding and food. They also had less to hide from god fearing tax men and frequent exemptions by state and monarchy. They would engage monks in a strict work-pray regiment; As such, Saint Nectaire was made with the premium milk and never had enough time to acidify. It was produced by a large number of monks quickly before the next set of prayers and duties. Monks would arrange them in the cellars (caves) and wash/turn them and their wooden shelves daily as part of cleaning duties after the noon prayers. Generations of cheese aging made these cellars a haven for cheese-friendly microorganisms, and so was the birth of the washed rind cheese.

[ArnaudForestier]

Just as an anecdote; historically there is a huge connection between the human background of these cheese types and their acidity levels.

Camembert style cheese was made by the farmer for family consumption and trade with neighboring farmers (and of course hiding from the tax men). As such, they used the leftover of the evening milking which set overnight and acidified before mixing with the leftovers of the morning milking. They then let them age on hay in damp farmhouses. That's how this cheese came into being and why it's so acidic.

On the other hand, Saint Nectaire and the washed rind family of cheese are monastery cheeses. Monasteries owning big land and herds would use cheese to bring in funding and food. They also had less to hide from god fearing tax men and frequent exemptions by state and monarchy. They would engage monks in a strict work-pray regiment; As such, Saint Nectaire was made with the premium milk and never had enough time to acidify. It was produced by a large number of monks quickly before the next set of prayers and duties. Monks would arrange them in the cellars (caves) and wash/turn them and their wooden shelves daily as part of cleaning duties after the noon prayers. Generations of cheese aging made these cellars a haven for cheese-friendly microorganisms, and so was the birth of the washed rind cheese.

Fantastic story, iratherfly, thanks.  Not sure if you've read it, but my old dog-eared copy of Waverly Root's Food of France is in this spirit, your wonderful description.  The marriage of history, land, culinary traditions, how all of them were (and are) almost necessarily (not to get too reductionist about it) ineluctably intertwined. 

One of the things I found interesting is that at least in this study, if the camembert starts off much more acidic, its rind basically goes to neutrality - having an almost identical pH progression as the St. Nectaire by day 20 and pH 7.0ish by day 30, and actually ends up with a higher paste pH than the St. Nectaire - about 6.0 for the camembert and 5.2 for the St. Nectaire by day 30. 

I'd love to know specifically what fungi are involved in this pretty dramatic lactic acid metabolic path, in the camembert.  I can understand the obligate aerobes may work similarly on the rind, but the really curious thing to me is how dramatically the camembert paste jumps; what facultative or other organisms are specifically responsible for the metabolism.