Hi Guys and Gals,
I am developing this cheese that is aged in a sheep or goat skin (Tulum) in Turkey. It is a crumbly cheese with sharp taste. I have found some research papers and derived this recipe. There is a blue version of this cheese as well and it is the most saught after. I am planning to do it this weekend's batches and the recipe is open to dicsussion.
When I am developing the formula, I have taken 2 cheeses of this type as a base, one is aged in a sheep stomach and the other aged in a goats skin. Both used mixture of goat's and sheep's milk. As I am using cow's milk, I am adding lipas.
The additional butter and yogurt is to add flavour during the 4 months of aging.
For casing, I will be using cow bungs which are large enough (about 6 or 7 cm) and fill them with my sausage stuffer.
CaCl2 is also added to fix store bought milk.
Both recipes I used are doing tremendous amount of pressing to get rid of the whey as much as they can. I am keeping temps on the higher end to remove the whey also an extended period of pressing with smaller cube sizes during the cutting.
One recipe also uses whey ricotta mixed with this cheese before stuffing.
There is no indication of bacterial flora for this cheese and I am guessing it will be diverse as they used fresh milk, I have decided to use mesophilic flora danica type. Later addition of cultured butter and yogurt will add required thermo type bacteria for ripening. Butter will also help excessive moisture loss from the casings.
Ingredients20 litre cow's milk
Mesophilic starter
1/8 tsp Lipas
1/2 tsp CaCl2
Rennet
%3 cultured butter
%2 or %3 salt
%20 Yogurt (clean, unopened box)
MakingAdd CaCl2 and lipas to cold milk stir well.
Take the milk to 34C and add mesophilic starter according to factory default dosage.
Wait an hour for ripening of the milk
Add rennet according to factory default dosage and wait about 1.5 to 3 hours for the clean break.
Cut to 1cm cubes, keep the temp at 34C
Stir slowly and wait for 10 minutes. Do this 3 times.
Take the curd to a cheese cloth lined colander and gravity drain between 10 to 36 hours.
While the cheese is draining, make a ricotta from the remaining whey. Drain ricotta as much as you can.
Mix cheese and ricotta by breaking into small pieces by hand.
Prepare your press and press the mixture with 30kg for 2 days.
At the end of the press, weigh your cheese and calculate how much salt, yogurt and butter you will need.
Mix cheese, yogurt and butter, mix well and start adding salt slowly. You may not need to add all the salt. Keep it to your preference. More salt will keep the cheese better and longer.
Some recipes of Tulum also incorporate roasted onion seeds. You can add them now.
Fill this mixture to cow middles.
Get your cave working on %70 or %80 humidity and 5C to 10C degrees and hang your cheeses. this is to simulate cave conditions. Weigh each cheese so that you can calculate how much water is lost.
Aging will take about 2 to 3 months according to the atmospheric conditions.
For some pictures have a look at this URL.
