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CHEESE TYPE BOARDS (for Cheese Lovers and Cheese Makers) => ADJUNCT - Lactic Surface White Mold (Penicillium candidum) Ripened => Topic started by: insilva on January 06, 2014, 10:49:09 PM
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Last thing to do in the old year 2013, is to make, what else could it be, cheese. Now my girlfriend and I had a good impression what a Chaource looks like, because we had this cheese several times to eat, in Iceland made at a farm there and also the original bought at the Naschmarkt in Vienna. Now we wanted to try the same with ewe's milk. Normally Chaource is made from cow's milk and as there is less fat and protein in cow's milk and the milk reacts different, I calculated the amount of water to add to reach the same composition. This seems to work out really well (without additional Calciumchloride), as you can see in our pictures, which show the cheese after 5 days in our DIY aging fridge, already covered with PC mold. I got this hint with additional water for same processing technology from a milk technician in Tyrol, who works with sheep's milk a lot, so I gave it a try and it is really easy, because the periods of time for aging the milk to a certain pH were the same as with cow's milk. So there's is nothing more to say, except I am really looking forward to taste the cheese after a few weeks of aging. Has someone an idea what's the maximum aging time for this cheese? And after which time will it be ideal to wrap it in foil?
I will keep you updated on how the Sheep'ource :D turns out.
Sheep'ource picture 1 / 5 days of aging
(http://www.insilva.com/stuff/cheese/chaource/chaource1.jpg)
Sheep'ource picture 2 / 5 days of aging
(http://www.insilva.com/stuff/cheese/chaource/chaource2.jpg)
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What lovely looking cheese. Nice PC development in only 2 days. What temperature was it stored at?
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Yes…amazing mold growth. Between 11.5 and 12.5 °C exactly.
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Here are some new photos of the actual aging status. The cheese is in the ripening fridge since 31st december 2013, thus it is 9 days old on the pictures below.
The cheese is still firm on the outside. Mold growth is really great. To my opinion temperature and humidity is ideal for now, maybe it needs adjustment when the cheese gets mature.
Currently I am planning to wrap the cheese in foil within the 4th week of aging. I am dying to see how the Sheep'ource looks inside, when it has reached its ripeness.
I have some grape leaves from the last cheese I made soaked in Gin, maybe I give it a try and wrap one or two of the Chaource style sheep cheeses in them.
Pictures (9th day of aging):
(http://www.insilva.com/stuff/cheese/chaource/chaource3.jpg)
I had to make bigger cheeses too, because I haven't had enough Chaource moulds:
(http://www.insilva.com/stuff/cheese/chaource/chaource4.jpg)
(http://www.insilva.com/stuff/cheese/chaource/chaource5.jpg)
If someone is interested I can also send the recipe.
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Just in case someone wants to watch historical videos on how french cheese was made years ago:
http://www.fromagerie-beaufils.com/la-fabrication-du-fromage/ (http://www.fromagerie-beaufils.com/la-fabrication-du-fromage/)
Really nice to watch, while waiting that my Chaource style cheese is mature.
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Cool!
So, how much water per liter did you add to equalize the milk's P:F ratio?
Nice looking cheeses! :)
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I added 20% water to the amount of milk (14 liters) this time and it worked for me quite nice. Maybe if the fat content would be higher, I would add up to 30%. However I had ~4 kg cheese (fat, protein, water content) at the end, the smaller one's had 180g (20 pieces) and the 2 bigger one's had 240g. If I knew the protein and fat content exactly, I would calculate the exact water content to add with a mixing ratio calculation, based on the fat content (was not the case, because I had it from a sheep farmer nearby and he could not exactly tell me, because he normally delivers it to a creamery and they have not told him for this month).
Example with 100 liters:
• Milk (6% fat content)
• Water (0% fat)
• Target-fat-content: 4%
6-4 = 2 units water
4-0 = 4 units milk
6 fat-units in total, so 100 liter divided by 6 and multiplied with the units for milk and water (4 and 2)
Milk: (100/6) x 4 = 66,6 liters of sheep's milk
Water: (100/6) x 2 = 33,3 liters of water
So you have milk with 4% target-fat-content.
I hope I could help you with that.
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YOur cheese looks great!! Usually PC cheese experts tell you to pat the white mold down regularly so it doesn't get too thick but I never saw that information a book and I ruined some cheeses until someone told me to pat it down gently. Now I pass on that idea to others.......but I do not know if it is the right thing for this exact cheese. ???
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Thanks for the video link. Really interesting.
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YOur cheese looks great!! Usually PC cheese experts tell you to pat the white mold down regularly so it doesn't get too thick but I never saw that information a book and I ruined some cheeses until someone told me to pat it down gently. Now I pass on that idea to others.......but I do not know if it is the right thing for this exact cheese. ???
What effect does the patting down have? Causes it, that the moisture stays in the cheese instead of coming out too much, so that it prevents the cheese from drying out? It has never occurred to me that the rind got too thick, maybe because I have the possibility to hold humidity and temperature very accurately.
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There is another question I have: If I wrap the cheese and put down the temperature for storing (+4°C), how high should then be the humidity in the storage room? I would have thought low (~75-80% rH), because if the humidity is too high, it will condensate on the inside of the cheese paper/foil and make it sweat. Would someone please correct me if I am completely wrong :)
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I am no expert but when I do wrap a cheese I move it to a colder refrigerator. (my kitchen fridge)
Patting down the PC helps prevent thick rinds I believe but it has to be done a lot of you are having luxuriant PC growth. They say of good gardeners that they have a "green thumb" so it made me wonder if I have a "white thumb" when I saw how fast and thick my PC would grow. Forum experts said to use less PC but perhaps as important are the conditions on the rind of the cheese and humidity and temp. A lot of recipes use both Geo and PC and people try to find a balance of growth of those two. There are different types of PC, some are more restrained than others. For myself I don't mind if the skin is a little thick on PC cheeses. I like the succulence of it. Using Geo and PC will, if I remember correctly, help avoid a totally liquid ripe cheese that sometimes happens with just PC. If I have made mistakes in all of this I hope others will chime in and correct me. ???
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Thank you all for your previous replies. I have taken new pictures of my chaource style cheese yesterday (aging time: 2 weeks).
I am very happy so far, how the cheese turned out. It got a bit less firm over the last days and the color turned into a white to golden tone. That should be normal so far. I am already patting down the fluff every second day. The temperature in the aging fridge is now 10°C (±0,5 °C), to allow the cheese to age slowly and to slow down the PC growth, because it was very fast so far.
So here are the pictures:
(http://www.insilva.com/stuff/cheese/chaource/chaource6.jpg)
(http://www.insilva.com/stuff/cheese/chaource/chaource7.jpg)
(http://www.insilva.com/stuff/cheese/chaource/chaource8.jpg)
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Looks great! Hope you post photos and tasting notes when you try one! :D
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New pictures from the my cheese at the age of 19 days now, temperature still 10°C and 90% rH.
I think they turn out quite nice so far. Next week I will cut the first one to see how it turned out.
(http://www.insilva.com/stuff/cheese/chaource/chaource9.jpg)
(http://www.insilva.com/stuff/cheese/chaource/chaource10.jpg)
(http://www.insilva.com/stuff/cheese/chaource/chaource11.jpg)
(http://www.insilva.com/stuff/cheese/chaource/chaource12.jpg)
It is already getting some yellow to orange spots. Are these spots derived from the geotrichum candidum beneath the PC surface, or why do these yellowish to orange spots occur? I have already seen them on other chaource cheeses too.
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Sometimes the white of the PC wears thin on some edges. If there is really orange showing it might be B linens joining the rind party. That might give it a strong cheese flavor..... I'm answering only because no one has answered with more experience than I. I had this happen to some shitake mushroom Brie cheese I made and the flavor was not what I like. You may like it a lot......and I'm not even sure if I am correct with my guess of what is happening. My advice would be to gently feel all the cheeses and open the one that feels softest. See if you like how it tastes now in order to assess whether you are likely to enjoy the direction the flavor is going in.
Good luck and post back here because I'm curious! :)
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thank you for your answer. I am quite sure it isn't Brevibacterium linens. I think it is the first thing you suggested, that the PC is a bit low on the edges and I think the Geo comes through then. I have been at the market this weekend and looked for a chaource there and could see one with quite the same colors (off-white to yellow, at least a bit of orange maybe :) )
I'm curious too and will give it a try end of this week, I think.
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If there is really orange showing it might be B linens joining the rind party. That might give it a strong cheese flavor.....
I know you like making bries so my question is does the b. linens "crash" the party or bring refreshments 8)? I think corynebacteria has established a home in my cave (my doings; washing with it makes such a great soft rind on my pressed cheeses), and I did detect an orange tinge to the rind of my last brie before the white overcoat and an aroma of Reblochon. I guess my question is is this a good thing or a bad thing?
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Maybe this attachement from Fundamentals of cheese science (book) may help you. Because B. linens is a secondary flora on the surface and it is obligatory aerobic it will only grow on the surface and accelerates the ripening of a cheese. Normally it is found on smear-ripened cheeses (very popular here in Austria). It is therefore responsible for the "stinky-sock" odor.
I would recommend to read the little snippet from the book. I hope I could help you.
I think if you liked the cheese, I mean how it turned out in the end it cannot be bad to have it in the cave. However if you want a traditional brie you wouldn't want it in a great amount, I think. Then you should bring it to another room. I think if the conditions for PC and maybe GEO are ideal in another room, you wouldn't have any problem to establish a geo-pc rind only. Especially if the surface is covered fast with geo. If the surface is colonized, there is not as much space (or nutrients) for the others.
And you can read it below, only if the amount of bacteria is really high (10^8 or 10^9/g) it would make a difference. Therefore I would experiment a little bit.
I think it would be more critical to have PC on the other rinds in a great amount or bad molds as Aspergillus niger.
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Thank you so much for your advice, insilva - definitely worth a cheese for you. I always wondered how the B. linens could impart it's distinct aroma within the paste, but it sounds like the aroma is confined to the surfaces? That begs the question if I take a Limburger or German (sorry, Austrian) Tilsit if I cut the rind off would it still have the aroma? I haven't tried that because I love the taste and aroma. After I read Alp's post on smear ripened cheese I've adopted that for most of my pressed cheeses with great success. The pictures below show (1) what I call my "honey pot" with a B. linens / salt solution I've been nurturing for about 5 months, and a recent Caerphilly that I'm smear-ripening with it. That said if anyone has comments about whether the B. linens is the not the best bacteria to surface ripen a Caerphilly please let me know.
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B. linens is a respiratory species, that means it metabolizes methionine to methional (sulphur compounds), which is responsible for the aroma ("dirty-sock odor"). It should smell like apple, my cheese teacher said, not somehow bad, moisty-moldy-…. If B. linens grow is good or not so good depends on NaCl concentration in the brine (ideal 8%-10%, if its B. linens), they need amino acids and vitamins to grow (shouldn't be the problem) and the cave temp. should be between 10-15°C (depends on the cheese made), although B. linens has its optimum temp. at 20-25°C. Also it won't grow below a pH of 6.0. The intensity of the aroma depends on the B. linens strain you take for your cheese and also on the washing method of the cheese, it makes a difference whether you brush it or rub it with cloth. If you brush it, more little particles will go of the surface and therefore a bigger surface area is achieved, with more metabolization and more O2 for this aerobe bacteria. Nevertheless the aroma gets into the cheese while ripening by diffusion processes. This is why the aroma gets less intensive towards the core of the cheese, and also the reason why your local cheese monger will cut triangles for customers to taste the entirety of the cheese's character. For a rise in pH you could introduce GEO to the party (but it will most likely appear unrequested) :)
For your Caerphilly, I have no experience at all. However the production is one of an internal bacteria ripened cheese, not surface ripened. Which means that it is not especially brined with B. linens on the surface. This is what I found in my books, to this cheese. I can post you what it says about it: Caerphilly, which originated in Wales, is a crumbly acid cheese. It is made from pasteurized cow milk using calf rennet and a mesophilic starter. The curds are cooked to 32-34°C and held at this temperature for about 1 hr. The whey is drawn off and the curds are collected at the bottom of the vat, where rapid acid production occurs. Some dry salt (1%) is added to the curds before molding and pressing overnight. The pressed curds are then brine-salted for 24 hr and packaged. Caerphilly matures rapidly and is ready for sale after 10-14 days.
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I have never heard of B linens smelling like apples so I want to know how to achieve this. Any hints? My B linens cheese don't smell musty or like mildew but they do have strong smell of stinky body. ???
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Hahaha…I don't know, but I can only confirm it did smell like freshly pressed apple-wine after just a few days of ripening, it was really fruity, while also stinky. And when I entered their really amazing and big cave in Tyrol with just smear-ripened cheeses it did smell kind of apple-like overall or maybe like a peace of fresh cabbage. I have to inform you, that they have a own laboratory, where they isolate their own cultures, which cheesemaker can buy there as a liquid culture. The smell will mainly derive from the relation of gases, such as Methylmercaptan, Dimethyldisulfid, Dimethyltrisulfid and others.
It doesn't mean that there is a smell exactly like apple juice, but there is a sweet odor near to it given in the cave and also stinky.
So in the end the cheese turned out really fresh and clean, with a mild to aromatic flavor.
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Hahaha…I don't know, but I can only confirm it did smell like freshly pressed apple-wine after just a few days of ripening, it was really fruity, while also stinky. And when I entered their really amazing and big cave in Tyrol with just smear-ripened cheeses it did smell kind of apple-like overall or maybe like a peace of fresh cabbage. I have to inform you, that they have a own laboratory, where they isolate their own cultures, which cheesemaker can buy there as a liquid culture. The smell will mainly derive from the relation of gases, such as Methylmercaptan, Dimethyldisulfid, Dimethyltrisulfid and others.
It doesn't mean that there is a smell exactly like apple juice, but there is a sweet odor near to it given in the cave and also stinky.
So in the end the cheese turned out really fresh and clean, with a mild to aromatic flavor.
That sounds nice. Maybe if I had a real cave instead of converted refrigerators and freezers I'd have better luck with sweet smells. I did have one hard cheese that was a natural molded rind and whenever I brushed it off there was a very lovely strong smell of very sweet fruit. I'll attach a photo of it. I wish I could attach the smell of it so you could smell how sweet it smelled! ::)
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The cheese looks really great. Would you mind to send me the recipe (maybe also ripening temperatures & humidity) for a Caerphilly with natural rind? How old exactly is the cheese on the picture.
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I'm so sorry but I don't remember these details because it was from last year. It was aged in a plastic box with the lid propped open in a cold room over winter. I aged it longer than most Caerphilly chees, probably several months. It may have been exposed to some Mycodore because it was in the same area as some Mycodore tommes I was aging. I remember it tasted very good. There is a Caerphilly recipe in The book by Gianaclis Caldwell. There is a good basic Caerphilly set of makes here also. This blog is by the New England Cheesemaking Supply Company and it's all guest articles. Down in the right column there are links by cheese type under the heading "Labels". The link I'm going to post here is the webpage I got when clicking on the Caerphilly link. It has a collection of 3 guest bloggers with their versions of Caerphilly. I like Gavin's the best here although I use recipes from the books I have also.
http://cheesemakinghelp.blogspot.com/search/label/Caerphilly (http://cheesemakinghelp.blogspot.com/search/label/Caerphilly)
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Finally I cut open one of my Sheep'ource, the real cause of this initial post :)
I am so happy with the result. This is the one I have already wrapped in foil a week ago. The others I wrapped later to see the difference between them in a week from now.
The cheese is very soft at the edge and is creamy, directly out of the fridge. I hope the others turn out the same way, but I do think so.
The aroma of the cheese is very mild right now, it smells and tastes of mushrooms and is a bit acidic (like freshcheese but more lively/tangy) in the middle (at the core). It is not bitter at all, and fits perfectly to dark double baked bread.
I am thoroughly happy to be able to eat them all :) Certainly I will share some of them :D
(http://www.insilva.com/stuff/cheese/chaource/chaource13.jpg)
(http://www.insilva.com/stuff/cheese/chaource/chaource14.jpg)
(http://www.insilva.com/stuff/cheese/chaource/chaource15.jpg)
(http://www.insilva.com/stuff/cheese/chaource/chaource16.jpg)
(http://www.insilva.com/stuff/cheese/chaource/chaource17.jpg)