How to learn to age cheese?

[blindahl]

I'm relatively new to cheese making, having received a mozzarella kit for Christmas a couple years ago. I've gotten pretty good at the basics, like mozzarella, milk ricotta, cheese curds, etc. Thing is, I'd really like to move on to aged cheese, like Swiss, cheddar, and the like. Want to do a good Brie at some point, but that's a different learning curve.

My question is this: I tend to learn iteratively, especially in the kitchen. I make something, see how it turned out, make changes, and make it again, until it's how I like it and consistent. Since most aged cheese are in the 3+ month range, how do I learn the craft in a more timely fashion? I'm currently getting 6-10 gallons a week of milk from a friend with an over-productive milk cow, and I'm getting tired of the same old thing every time - and I've got enough mozz in the freezer to last me several months. That said, I can't see making one or more two pound wheels of cheese a week without really feeling like I know what the results are going to be, and making just one and waiting several months to see the results isn't going to keep my attention very well.

How did you learn when you started out? What kinds of cheese did you make (and how much) while learning?

[MacGruff]

You have quite the quandary there. That's a lot of milk to work through. I started years ago and am only getting as much milk as I need to do the cheeses I am interested in, but the process is exactly what you described: Make, age, taste, adjust and do again.

The problem - again, as you described - is that for some of those cheeses that age for a while is that it take a long time to go through that cycle. The only thing I can think of is to work on several different cheeses with different life cycles at the same time. Most bloomy rinds take only a few weeks before you can taste the results - so doing a Brie make coupled with maybe a feta (one week to taste) and a butterkase; tomme; and another alpine (all of those are in the six weeks to three months range) should keep you going for a good while.

Good luck and enjoy the ride.

[mikekchar]

When I first started, I literally made the same cheese every single day and progressively aged it.  So the first one I ate the next day.  The next one I aged for a few days.  The next one for a week.  The next one for a few weeks.  After getting up to a few months (and getting tired of the same cheese), I did it again for a different kind of cheese.

This information is for a natural rind cheese.  If you are vacuum packing or waxing, etc, things are a bit easier because you just dry it off, seal it up and age it for how ever long.  But for a natural rind cheese, it's literally a living thing and it takes a while to get used to how to deal with the cheese.

You kind of get the first week for free.  Typically very little happens that you can see.  If you smell the cheese, you will probably notice that the smell goes from basically just lactic acid to progressively yeasty.  Somewhere in the next week or so, things start to obviously grow on the cheese.  It might get a bit greasy feeling from yeast setting up shop.  You may get some white dusting from geotrichum.  You may get some blue.

Most beginners err on the side of being too humid.  If you are getting lots of blue, and especially if you are getting black or orange stuff, then you need to keep the humidity down.  It's at this point where the "Make lots of cheese and age it for short periods" strategy pays off.  Cheese that you eat early is always good, even if it can be a bit boring.  As the cheese ages, it develops more and more flavor.  However, it can also produce more and more weird mold and bacteria that you won't be sure about.

The thing about aging natural rind cheeses is that 80% of it is in making the cheese in the first place.  A good structure, that isn't over pressed (and hence doesn't lock in too much whey) is important.  And you need a very nice, smooth rind without cracks, crags and ledges for blue to hang on to.  Learning that stuff takes practice and experimentation.  So making lots of cheeses and aging it out 1-3 weeks allows you to get that practice and eat good, if boring, cheese.

You'll know when you have the cheese right and the humidity right because you will have to do almost nothing.  You will get a nice white dusting of geotrichum (or equivalent) growing on your rind.  Blue will be limited and easy to brush off.  No black dots that stain your rind.  You never wash your rind or rub salt in it or spray it with vinegar or all the other things that are suggested but actually tend to make matters worse.  It just ages nicely.  You flip it every day.  You inspect it.  You dry out the container it's aging in.  You brush off anything you don't want.  It just keeps aging.

Once you get that point, you will have found all the tricks that work well for you and your cave.  You'll wonder why everybody things aging natural rind cheeses is so difficult.  You'll struggle to explain it to people because, actually it's just a series of very small, well time tweaks that you do because you are paying very good attention to your cheeses every day.

So just make cheese as often as you can.  When things are going wrong, eat the cheese.  When things are going right, age the cheese a bit longer.  Don't panic.  Just make more cheese.

[B e n]

I like Mikes advise about making a lot and consuming it if you aren't happy with the way it goes. I would also start making some stuff that can age out for a very long time (cheddar, parm, gruyere etc) since you have a surplus. As said above, once you figure it out there is very little to do. Having some long aging stuff in there will allow you to eat it at your leisure.

Tomme is a great starter, and it can be eaten young or aged for quite a while.

It takes very little time to maintain cheeses when they are going right, and there is little difference between dealing with 5, 10, 15 wheels or however many once you have it locked in. It shouldn't be overwhelming to take care of the whole stash, so get after them while you have the milk and time.

A couple things to add:

Take a lot of notes on humidity, rind development, and the way you react, basically as soon as you notice anything that you perceive to be good, bad or different. Note it, and make notes about what you think might have caused it. That way you can replicate it or avoid it in the future, especially if it starts to occur in a bunch of the cheeses. You can use Casein markers, or mark the boxes if you are using aging boxes. Being able to look back at your notes on a 6 month old cheese is helpful, it is really hard to remember what happened with that one white block of food when the memory is mixed with a bunch of other white blocks of food.

Get on the Brie sooner than later, it takes a few to get them right, but they are a fast turn around and really satisfying when they go well. Once you have the process down you can time them to basically always have one ready. And as soon as you get the make and aging conditions right they are extremely easy and delicious.

[broombank]

I very much agree with Mike and Ben - make more - keep some of it - you will be surprised how quickly six months goes by. Write everything down- you always think you will remember everything you did but you won't. Try making some blues - they mature much faster so you get more rapid feedback but watch that you keep them separated from the others as the blue mould is very predatory. Brie is easy - it's the one I use to teach since it requires minimal equipment. Get your temperatures and humidity levels sorted. With blues or brie err on the low temperature side as they can bolt very easily. Around 7-8C is best. Hard cheeses need 13C. Debra Amrein Boyes in her 200 cheeses has one of her own recipes called Castle Blue. It's like a blue brie and matures really quickly sometimes in 3 weeks. It's a great one to begin with blues. Keep the cheeses in a lidded box at around 7C.

[paulabob]

Hey, I would start with Brie, or more easily Camembert.  They age pretty easily and quickly, and the mold/yeast powders are quite easy to get right.  Just follow a good recipe that has you wrap/move to fridge after the full coat appears.

It's pretty amazing as a beginner to watch each day as the little cheeses grow their coats.

[Tedybar]

Canestrato would be another good one to move to.  The recipe can be found on cheesemaking.com.  I love eating it short aged (2 weeks to a month or so), but it can also be long aged for a grating cheese.

I will add that I have had the same issues you describe, since I cook the same way.  I found cheesemaking to be challenge, but I've never been one to back away from a challenge.  Since you are not eating the cheese directly after making it, I have found keeping a notebook and notating down everything I do, all ingredients used, etc is very important so that I can look back at what was done and can make tweaks. 

[tecla]

I have the same issue, I very much rely on that quick feedback loop (really, debugging loop) to learn. I began learning cheese making specifically to teach myself patience and get to where I'm happy waiting months to get the final feedback on one iteration of the loop.

What I've discovered is that, after a couple of years, I can recognize quite a few of the signs of how a cheese wheel is going to turn out now right on make day, and many more quite soon thereafter. I still have some surprises in the months afterward, but they're fairly limited in type and scope now. Mostly the end result is fairly close to what I'd already concluded about it in the months prior.

This takes time to learn the signs, and the only way to do it is to make a bunch of cheeses, as already mentioned.

There are about three things that still catch me off guard  sometimes when I cut into a wheel, and I'm learning how to control and predict those issues. That number used to be higher. The trend is down, not sure it'll ever get to zero, though.