Author Topic: 1st St-Marcellin  (Read 6959 times)

HB

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1st St-Marcellin
« on: January 30, 2012, 08:57:49 PM »
I attempted St-Marcellin recently and have just put them in the cave. I wanted to use Meso II but had none, so used MM100. I will get some Meso II for the next time I make these. I am pretty happy with how they are looking. The only problem I had was that like Hande's, they came out a bit too thick for a St Marcellin. I think I could use half the amount of milk (I used 1 1/2 gallons for 8 cheeses) and the thickness would be about right. They have been draining for about three days and will stay in the cave for about two weeks.

HB

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Re: 1st St-Marcellin
« Reply #1 on: January 30, 2012, 08:59:04 PM »
This is what they looked like today at the end of draining

HB

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Re: 1st St-Marcellin
« Reply #2 on: February 04, 2012, 04:12:45 PM »
Five days in the cave and they look good. I am aging them on the cold side at 85% RH. You can definitely see the geo at work. They do not feel softened at all yet. I am aiming to age these until 2/12/12.

Tomer1

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Re: 1st St-Marcellin
« Reply #3 on: February 04, 2012, 04:26:01 PM »
Quote
they came out a bit too thick for a St Marcellin. I think I could use half the amount of milk (I used 1 1/2 gallons for 8 cheeses) and the thickness would be about right

Ha?  :o

HB

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Re: 1st St-Marcellin
« Reply #4 on: February 04, 2012, 04:30:01 PM »
I used 1 1/2 gallons of milk for 8 cheeses and they are too tall. If I used less milk dispersed among the 8 molds they would be less tall.

Tomer1

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Re: 1st St-Marcellin
« Reply #5 on: February 04, 2012, 09:19:19 PM »
Rereading it makes complete sense. :)
Googling shows a cheese ripened in a ceramic pot,completly liquid. are you gone take it that far?

HB

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Re: 1st St-Marcellin
« Reply #6 on: February 04, 2012, 10:04:27 PM »
If all goes well I will open one up at the 2 week point and go from there. I have 8, so I can let some age further and see how it goes. I have a feeling they will take a little longer to ripen since they are on the tall side.

iratherfly

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Re: 1st St-Marcellin
« Reply #7 on: February 08, 2012, 02:27:32 AM »
HB you are on fire!
I love that cheese. I occasionally make it too. You are correct, thickness and form factor are super important with this one. It is suppose to age quickly at high humidity and be gentle and gooey (hence the ceramic pot). The PC is a minority strain and it's all about the geo here. Being surface-ripened, you want both sides of the rind to ripen and meet each other in the center - hence the thin format.  Watch out for skin slippage, as this may happen with this cheese if the bloom starts too early and too thick.

One thing I notice you wrote was your preference for Meso II over MM100, which I don't quite understand. How come?  Meso II is just Lactococcus lactis subsp. cremoris. MM100 contains Lactococcus lactis subsp. cremoris but also contains Lactococcus lactis subspecies lactis and Lactococcus lactis subspecies biovar diacetylactis, making it more rounded, buttery and rich. It's perfect for bloomy cheeses. The Meso II is more generic and good if you want to make your own culture mix along with other single-strain cultures.

HB

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Re: 1st St-Marcellin
« Reply #8 on: February 08, 2012, 03:06:31 AM »
Well, I found a reference online from the newly released book Artisan Cheese Making At Home by Mary Karlin that said to use Meso II. I was under the impression that MM100 would give a slightly more open texture that I have not encountered with St Marcellin. If this culture is better than I am happy to hear it. It has served me well in the past. I very much appreciate your insight into my process. What are your thoughts on decreasing the amount of milk in my make? I suspect that the milk I have is quite rich (it is at least half Jersey and partially Brown Swiss). I receive it raw and non-homogenized but pasteurize it at 145 F for 30 minutes. I also add calcium chloride and consistently end up with a higher volume of curd than is required.

iratherfly

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Re: 1st St-Marcellin
« Reply #9 on: February 08, 2012, 04:23:34 AM »
Theoretically, the MM100 will give you slightly more open texture due to gas production in diacetyl, which is responsible for the buttery/creamy aspect of the flavor profile. The gas creates little bubbles which are the holes or eyes in the cheese. We are not talking Emmental kind of big holed open - just random tiny eyes here and there. The formation of these eyes depends on having an elastic paste texture to form permanent hole openings. In the case of Saint Marcellin the cheese is dense and the geo breaks it down into a nice thick goo rather fast. Being so thin, the whole cheese turns into this soft substance. The bubbles collapse as the paste can't sustain them open. I personally think MM100 gives it a fuller, broader flavor and improves the texture and aging too.

Your milk sounds wonderful!!! I am jealous! If it's good and tested, then you shouldn't pasteurize it any more than you pasteurize and organic head of lettuce!  Anyway, your pasteurization sounds like a very gentle batch process. With such high milkfat and no homogenization you can probably eliminate the Calcium Chloride from your make altogether.  If you add too much you will end up with overly stiff curd and minerally cheese. Calcium has this soapy bitterness about it if too if too much is present.  I say, let the milk do its work without the added calcium. If you get too much - add more moulds or better yet, use the excess curd to experiment with something wild that you would not otherwise dare trying, perhaps with one of the other moulds you have laying around... In short, don't decrease your milk. Eliminate the calcium. The smaller yield you get will be of much better quality.

Rule of thumb: If you have a clean break from a curd where no calcium was used and your whey is clear/greenish (not milky) than your curd quality is very good. No calcium needed.

By the way, if you mold a Saint Marcellin to the top with proper curd, it should end up as the thin disc it was meant to be.  If you over-load the mould (for example waited for it to go down a bit and then topped it off with remaining curd) or your curd is too stiff (too much fat or too much calcium) than you will get these thick pucks that you didn't want. If that happens and the cheese is still in its early draining phase, you can cut a 1/3 of each of 3 cheeses to make one 4th cheese of equal height. As long as this is early enough and still very wet, these 3 slices will fuse together to become 1 cheese. You will hardly be able to tell which of the 4 this is after the rind grows!

Here is a St. Marcellin I did this past summer, from a past post. This one was done with MM100 by the way. As you can see - no open texture
http://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,8555.msg60881.html#msg60881
« Last Edit: February 08, 2012, 04:37:00 AM by iratherfly »

HB

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Re: 1st St-Marcellin
« Reply #10 on: February 09, 2012, 01:21:06 AM »
Yes, I will try leaving out the calcium chloride. I have pasteurized the milk because if I did not, it would throw off my recipes. As I have not made this cheese before, I wanted to see what the recipe got me and work from there to adapt it to raw milk. For the pasteurized I use 1 1/2 gallons milk, 1/4 tsp MM100, 1/8 PC, 1/16 Geo. I know I will need less with raw milk(and also less rennet, I used 1/8 tsp liquid calf).

iratherfly

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Re: 1st St-Marcellin
« Reply #11 on: February 21, 2012, 08:53:08 AM »
You can make this work better with only 1/8 tsp of the MM100 if this is only 1½ gallons. That's plenty. Remember that this is a lactic type of cheese so it builds up acidity over many hours. No need to get so much acid working so quickly like a Camembert.
Way too much rennet. Use about 5-6 drops for 1½ gal. That's maybe a tad over 1/16th tsp but not quite 1/8th. At most, do 1/16th+ 1/32nd tsp.

Anyway, it's been a while since we wrote each other here... how are they looking?

HB

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Re: 1st St-Marcellin
« Reply #12 on: February 21, 2012, 03:10:52 PM »
I do not have a recent picture, but they have not softened much and the rind has a hint of unpleasant bitterness. If I over-renneted then that is probably the problem as well as the unnecessary calcium chloride. I will give this another go, but may wait for spring milk. Thanks for the advised amendments. I will make this work.

iratherfly

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Re: 1st St-Marcellin
« Reply #13 on: February 21, 2012, 05:44:11 PM »
Yes, you will! This cheese is worth it. Once you get it you will replicate this success many times over. The fact that it's tiny yet pack so much flavor makes it a really great one because you can make so many wheels from just 1-2 gallons. I love giving those away, experimenting with them and cooking with them, yet I go back to the fridge and find that I still have wheels of that stuff left... It's like an endless tap of cheese :)

margaretsmall

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Re: 1st St-Marcellin
« Reply #14 on: February 21, 2012, 08:08:30 PM »
The ceramic pots you mention as being traditional for this cheese - would they be glazed or earthernware? Do they have little lids or are they open? I saw some cute little glazed casserole dishes of about the right size yesterday (terribly pricey of course!). I presume you drain them first in their molds etc and put them into the pots when they go into the cave?
Margaret