Chaource, first try

[anutcanfly]

So far so good!    This will be a nice treat for Valentines Day. 


Chaource #49            1/27/12

1 gallon raw Brown Swiss Cow, pH6.7
1/8 tsp Flora Dancia
1/16 tsp PC & Geo
1 drop chymosin
1 – 2 tsp salt

Warm milk to 77 degrees and add cultures & molds.  Let rehydrate 5 minutes and mix in. Add rennet and let sit for 12 hours, maintaining temp of 77 degrees (my dehydrator work well for this) Temp 74 to 76 degrees, pH 4.9

Filled mold with slices of curds until all curds were used.  Took a while to drain down enough to get them all in.

Let drain overnight (oven with the light on worked great, almost too great, as temp was 84 degrees by morning), flip and let drain overnight again.

[Boofer]

Let drain overnight (oven with the light on worked great, almost too great, as temp was 84 degrees by morning), flip and let drain overnight again.

I suppose you could crack the oven door a bit to drain off some of the captured heat.

Looks good so far.

Chaource #49?

-Boofer-

[anutcanfly]

Hi Boofer,

Yes, I'll play with that over the next few days so I have more control over temp.  Feel a little silly that I didn't think of using the oven light myself! 

[Boofer]

It's too obvious. I've done that myself in the past. In fact there are instances that, when pointed out here on the forum, I slap myself because it seems I should have thought of it already.

That's one of the neat things about this forum...someone mentions something offhand which someone else picks up and runs with. Sailor's tip of pressing in the pot has been part of my regimen since he tossed it in here. It makes sense, you want to maintain the warmth of the curds while initially pressing. Now it just seems so obvious. 

-Boofer-

[anutcanfly]

  Yep, too obvious!  Back when D&D was still dice and imagination, we had a special roll called "detect the obvious roll".  If a dungeon master thought you unreasonably slow to catch on, he/she would give you a chance to roll the dice and if successful he/she would tell you what obvious thing you were overlooking.  So in real time, anytime someone realized they were being especially dense, they would say "I missed my detect the obvious roll".  Nowadays nobody knows what you're talking about.

[Boofer]

What are you talking about? 

-Boofer-

[anutcanfly]

 

[anutcanfly]

Chaource at salting.  It seemed to be too moist, so I let it sit out at room temp for another day.  Then I moved the container to a 50-55 degree room with lid cracked open.

[JeffHamm]

Hi anut,

That looks like all is going to plan!  Very nice.  How much salt did you end up using?  Did you add a percent by weight of the cheese?

- Jeff

[anutcanfly]

Thanks Jeff 

No, the recommended amount by weight is way too salty for me.  I used 1 1/2 teaspoons, even that is pushing it, one would be better!  It's a dance between what I can tolerate and what the cheese really needs to mature correctly.  This is pretty familiar territory for me so I didn't actually weight my cheese.  I guesstimated the salt needed.   

[margaretsmall]

Must be the season for this, as I have just made one too.

22 Jan, 7:45am. 2l organic milk warmed to 25oC, added one cube frozen meso, a pinch each of PC and Geo and 1 drop veg. rennet diluted. Waited. Waited. Waited. At 6:30pm the curd was firm but no whey evident. Went out to dinner with friends. 11pm, still no whey. (The day was cool, it's supposed to be summer here but you'd never know).

23 Jan. 8am Small puddle of whey. Waited. Noon. More whey, started ladling into 3x8cm molds, then realized that there was actually a lot of whey, with the cream floating on the top. Drat. I lost a lot of the cream in the process - low fat cheese maybe? Drained all afternoon. Firm enough to flip at 6:30pm, then again at 8pm.

24 Jan. Salted top and bottom with 1/4tspn salt each surface and turned out onto a mat. Flipped several times.

25 Jan. A small domestic crisis meant we had to go away for a few days, leaving my three little babies alone. What to do? Decided to put them into the cave and hope for the best.

31 Jan. They survived  an impressive bloom on the top and sides, but the bottom, not surprisingly, was stuck to the mat. The surface was separating a bit from the the cheese so after another day in the cave (with the previously stuck bottom now up) I wrapped them and put them in the fridge. They weighed 150gm each. The taste is like cream cheese, quite pleasant on toast this morning. I'll do this again.
 
What should I have done to prevent the cream floating to the surface?

[anutcanfly]

I've never had that happen?  I used raw milk for the first time with this type of cheese.  I noticed the cream was no longer evenly dispersed by the time the curd set.  You can see the layers change color down the sides of the cheese.  But I didn't lose cream to the top of the whey???

This sounds like a problem for our older, wiser cheeses!  Hello out there!

[Brie]

Chaource is one of my favorite cheeses! I do make it with raw milk and find that if the cream rises to the top, I drain it before straining and mix the curds up--then continue with the draining process. If made with heavier cream it will take longer to drain before aging. Keep a lid on it and watch for condensation, which will result in slip-skin. Good luck and cheese-on!

[anutcanfly]

Thanks Brie.  I'll try that next batch.

Day 5 and geo is now visable

[margaretsmall]

Thanks Brie, I mostly work with PH milk, so the floating cream was a bit of a surprise. This is what my little babies looked like. The marks from the draining tray are of course the result of not turning them for 6 days. Given that the temp. in the cave was probably about 15oC (this is a whole other story which I won't bore anyone with) and there was some condensation on the lid when I got back, it's surprising the slip skin was only minor. A very lucky first attempt.