CheeseForum.org » Forum

CHEESE TYPE BOARDS (for Cheese Lovers and Cheese Makers) => RENNET COAGULATED - Hard Other => Topic started by: Tiarella on August 19, 2012, 01:26:01 AM

Title: Caerphilly #1 is ripe and we tried it!
Post by: Tiarella on August 19, 2012, 01:26:01 AM
Kind of exciting....almost felt like we should have been passing out cigars to celebrate, or at least those chocolate fake cigarettes we'd get in our childhood stockings at Christmas.

Soooo, it did develop some b. linens but I kept it wiped off.  It was made without meters and I'm not sure if I timed the curd cutting by flocculation time on this first one.  (by the way, "flocculation" sounds like a word to describe what college students do when they head to Florida for spring break)  Ahem, back to cheese story.  I'm not exactly sure how it's supposed to taste but we really like it!  it's mild and salty and we tried it on small slabs of heirloom garden tomatoes with bits of chive, red amaranth leaf, basil leaf ribbons and dill.  Also tried it on some flax seed crackers.  It really is yummy!  We also ate slivers of it with out rice and beans dinner.  Here are some photos. 
Title: Re: Caerphilly #1 is ripe and we tried it!
Post by: Dulcelife on August 19, 2012, 01:59:19 AM
Beautiful and yummy enough looking.  Please post your make notes and I would like to try it some time.
Title: Re: Caerphilly #1 is ripe and we tried it!
Post by: JeffHamm on August 19, 2012, 02:23:49 AM
That's a nice looking caerphilly.  Caerphilly is one of my regular makes.  The quick turn around makes it a good learning cheese.

- Jeff
Title: Re: Caerphilly #1 is ripe and we tried it!
Post by: Tiarella on August 19, 2012, 02:28:15 AM
I'm sorry to say but I don't have make notes from this.  I combined two recipes...I found both on the blog owned by cheesemaking.com. One was by Gavin and one by Suzanne.  It's a pretty straight forward make with a short aging requirement.  I used our raw goat milk, vegetable rennet and can't remember which culture.  Hope I remember when I look over my cultures because I really like this cheese!  Do try it!
Title: Re: Caerphilly #1 is ripe and we tried it!
Post by: Tiarella on August 19, 2012, 02:31:29 AM
That's a nice looking caerphilly.  Caerphilly is one of my regular makes.  The quick turn around makes it a good learning cheese.

- Jeff
Maybe you can post some make notes for Dulcelife.  I do agree about the quick turn around making it a great learning cheese.  My aging Parmesan was made as an act of optimism since I won't know how it turned out for so long!  And the question I ask myself is whether to make more before I know how the first came out.
Title: Re: Caerphilly #1 is ripe and we tried it!
Post by: JeffHamm on August 19, 2012, 07:06:23 AM
There are a number of posts including make notes on Caerphilly listed on the board - mostly found in the hard cheddared forum.  I've just posted my make notes for my 8th caerphilly, and it's based upon Gavin's make, which he based upon Tim Smith's book.

- Jeff
Title: Re: Caerphilly #1 is ripe and we tried it!
Post by: margaretsmall on August 19, 2012, 08:33:17 AM
As it happened, I made my first caerphilly today, mainly based on the recipe in the Willman book. They say to eat in 2 weeks - I'm hoping to age it a little longer than this - Tiarella, how long did you keep it before eating?
Margaret
Title: Re: Caerphilly #1 is ripe and we tried it!
Post by: Tiarella on August 19, 2012, 10:26:09 AM
Hi Margaret!  I think it was 3 weeks.  My first bite had me a little disappointed thinking there was no much flavor but then my tongue got acclimated to the subtleties, the texture, the balance of saltiness and tender flavor, etc. and then I liked it a lot.  I have to read up on what the texture should be before I know if mine is a bit dry or what.  I made 2 batches/wheels the same week so I think I'll let the other one age longer just to try that.  I also wonder what might be my best way to store and continue to age the second half of a wheel after opening it.  It's a natural rind so waxing it doesn't necessarily seem like the right approach and I don't have one of those nifty vacuum sealers so not sure what to do.  Let me know how your batch tastes when you finally taste it!
Title: Re: Caerphilly #1 is ripe and we tried it!
Post by: boothrf on August 26, 2012, 04:37:28 AM
Very nice looking cheese Tiarella, well done.! I am going to try my first Caerphilly next weekend.
Title: Re: Caerphilly #1 is ripe and we tried it!
Post by: Tiarella on August 26, 2012, 12:16:13 PM
Hi Bob,  I really liked the first Caerphilly.  The second one was a bit dry.  I think less rennet perhaps would have served my raw milk better.  It's still a fine usable cheese....just  not as stunning as the first one. 

Which recipe are you planning on using?  I just made another batch yesterday and created 2 more.  I'll post photos later.  I like this cheese and want to perfect it since it's such a great cheese and doesn't require months of waiting.  (although I think I'll keep one of these for longer just to see what flavors it develops) 

I looked at the recipes here:
http://cheesemakinghelp.blogspot.com/2011/05/caerphilly-with-suzanne-mcminn.html (http://cheesemakinghelp.blogspot.com/2011/05/caerphilly-with-suzanne-mcminn.html)
http://cheesemakinghelp.blogspot.com/2011/03/caerphilly-almost-instant-gratification.html (http://cheesemakinghelp.blogspot.com/2011/03/caerphilly-almost-instant-gratification.html)
and at Peter Dixon's recipe online and kind of merged them all a bit.  I used a whisk for cutting the curd this make yesterday.  My earlier ones I used a curd knife.
Title: Re: Caerphilly #1 is ripe and we tried it!
Post by: boothrf on August 26, 2012, 10:29:16 PM
Hi Tiarella, I'll be using a recipe from an Australian book "HOME CHEESEMAKING - The secrets of how to make your own cheese and other dairy products" by Neil and Carole Willman. This is my cheese "bible" along with the information gleaned from this forum. It is a simple meso based recipe, and I'll probably make some minor adjustments, incorporating some of Jeff Hamms' experience as well.

I'm interested in what size hoop you used for your Caerphilly?  I have a hoop that is appox 6" diameter that I used for my blue (see My first True Blue post) that I'm hoping to use. My make size is usually 8 litres, (around 2 US gallons), but I might be able to stretch to 9 litres. Alternatively, I could make two smaller cheeses with my cheddar baskets, around 4.5" dia.  I would appreciate your thoughts.

Hope your cheesemaking went well yesterday!  :)
Title: Re: Caerphilly #1 is ripe and we tried it!
Post by: Tiarella on August 27, 2012, 12:44:28 AM
Hi Bob,
I used two different molds yesterday, both about 6", both with different basket designs.  I'll post photos when I'm at my other computer.  I brined 1 and am just air drying the other.  Gavin waxes his but I don't have any wax right now.  I'll air dry it and see if it develops a rind.  Don't know if I should rub it with a bit of olive oil or just let it air dry.  I'll post my make notes when I'm back on my regular computer.  I'm concerned that I needed to use less rennet because my flocculation time was much less than I wanted.
I think my first two batches of Caerphilly were done in a mold closer to 5" or just under but I don't think it matters too much.  I've also got one aging that is a lower larger round....maybe 7-8" across.
I'll post the recent make photos soon and I hope you will share your experience of your batch.
Title: Re: Caerphilly #1 is ripe and we tried it!
Post by: JeffHamm on August 27, 2012, 01:31:19 AM
Caerphilly is usually eaten around three weeks, so I wouldn't worry about waxing it unless you want to store one for 6 months to a year (but if that's the case, make a cheese designed for extended aging, like a traditional cheddar).  Air dry it at normal room temp for 4 or 5 days, flipping morning and evening until dry to the touch, then move it to your cave.  It may develop a bit of a white mould (wild geo) by 3 weeks or so.  That's normal.  You can brush it back with a clean nail brush. 

I've never waxed a caerphilly, nor have I bothered to even vac. bag it.  Just store them in a ripening box and they should be fine.

- Jeff
Title: Re: Caerphilly #1 is ripe and we tried it!
Post by: Tiarella on August 27, 2012, 02:23:08 AM
Hi Jeff, why do you think Gavin waxes his?  I'd like to try aging them past 3 weeks.  Yoav sent me a photo of 7 week old ones with natural moldy rinds that he said were lovely I think.  They sure had some mold on them and looked great!

Bob, here's my make.....for the most recent batch that is.

Caerphilly Cheese 8/25/2012
Used raw goat milk: 13.5 quarts, 4 quarts of which were fresh from morning milking
Brought milk to 88 degrees
Added cultures: a shy ½ tsp. of MA4001 and a shy ½ tsp. of Thermophilic B
Let cultures rehydrate 5 minutes
Stirred and rested it 30 minutes
¾ tsp of double strength rennet added.  I think I used too much because I was forgetting that I had double strength.  I had lowered the amount somewhat but my floc time was only 6 minutes.  I multiplied that by 4 to get a cut time of 24 minutes after rennet addition.  I will have to adjust recipe next time for a longer floc time.

Cut curds with whisk and stirred to find uncut pieces and reduce size of them.
Rested 5 minutes
Raised temp from 91 to 96…….it got ahead of me.  The temp was raised over the course of 25 minutes and then it got 40 minutes of intermittent stirring to keep curds from matting.
Removed excess whey and then strained the curds.  They matted together and seemed quite firm so I skipped the step of cutting into slabs and letting them drain further.  I was concerned they’d get too dry to press well. 
Broke curd mass into small bits….roughly their original curd size
Added 1 ½ T of sea salt and mixed in.

Put into two molds and pressed at about 10 pounds under whey for 20 minutes
Took out, redressed and flipped and salted tops and bottoms
Put back into make-shift pressing contraption for another 20 minutes
Took out, flipped and redressed and put back into press….forgot to re-salt the tops and bottoms.
Pressing under about 20 pounds of weight, intending to do it for some time but not sure how many hours since I’m concerned the curds may have been overheated and the cheese may tend towards dryness. 
Ended up pressing about 14 hours at that weight.

One went into brine and one is air drying. 

I hope the one that I didn't brine is fine.....and develops a rind of some sort. 

I've had naturally occurring B. Linens show up in my cheese fridge.  (wine fridge)  Not sure how it found me but it's been fine and I've washed it and some small blue spots off with salt/vinegar solution.

I've been trying watercolor pencils to mark my cheeses.  I'll take a photo sometime to show what it looks like.  I just wonder if it'll have to be relabeled if I have to wash mold off of it.


Oooh, sorry the photos show up sideways.  Not sure why that happened. Well, just lay on your desk to view them!
Title: Re: Caerphilly #1 is ripe and we tried it!
Post by: boothrf on August 27, 2012, 03:04:21 AM
T
h
a
n
k
s

T
i
a
r
e
l
l
a
 Ha ha. I'm sitting up straight again now  ;) I love the look of your 1st cheese, a very pretty cheese indeed! The second one looks like it uses exactly the same hoop as I have so I'm happy to try it now. My make is roughly half the size of yours, so I should get one nicely shaped cheese.

Thanks also for your recipe, I'll put that into the mix on the weekend.  I will be using fresh cow's milk, I don't do goat! ;)
Title: Re: Caerphilly #1 is ripe and we tried it!
Post by: JeffHamm on August 27, 2012, 03:20:23 AM
Hi Tiarella,

Not sure why Gavin waxes his.  The one benefit to waxing is that you don't need to store ripening boxes or worry about humidity in your aging cave.  So, once the cheese can be waxed, you save room in your cave.  But, you sacrifice the ability to develop a natural rind, and the molds add flavour by causing some biological reactions in the paste which don't occur with a waxed cheese.  Experiment, try both, and if you don't like it the first time, try again as it can take a few tries to work a natural rind to be the way you like (or to figure waxing out so that you don't end up with too much moisture under the wax, etc). 

- Jeff
Title: Re: Caerphilly #1 is ripe and we tried it!
Post by: Tiarella on August 27, 2012, 08:43:13 PM
@ Bob,  cute response!  And about the make.....with fresh milk I wonder whether less culture might be a good idea.  I didn't do that and I don't yet know enough all of this to make a good guess.....but it's a thought. Also, Suzanne's recipe does have the temp go up to 95 degrees so mine wasn't super far off..... cheddaring might help if your flocc time is better than mine. 

@ Jeff  how do people keep enough room in their caves with boxes.  My 1/2 size wine fridge is almost full already and I don't even have them in boxes.......there'd be no room if I did.  I'm not doing any blue cheese to limit my contamination.  Wild b. linens showed up and a bit of white mold..... probably pc.   And also, is it only me or does making cheese make your kitchen look like a disaster area?  I do more dishes while making cheese than 2 days of eating!  Oh, to have a cheese kitchen with stainless steel counters, floor drain, etc.  Ooh, and don't forget the clean up person too as long as I'm fantasizing!  I suppose it will help when I've got a real press rather than a balancing act of buckets and bowls.
Title: Re: Caerphilly #1 is ripe and we tried it!
Post by: JeffHamm on August 27, 2012, 08:56:06 PM
Hi Tiarella,

Boxes do take up room.  I can keep 2 cheeses in a box, and generally keep 3 boxes in the fridge.  That leaves 2 shelves to stack waxed cheeses, and I can get 8 waxed cheeses on a shelf if they are not too tall.  The 3 boxes allow me to develop natural rinds on some cheeses, so I'm quite pleased with my current set up.  But then, another fridge would allow me to expand, and a stainless floor, and drain, and .... :)

- Jeff
Title: Re: Caerphilly #1 is ripe and we tried it!
Post by: boothrf on August 27, 2012, 10:03:56 PM
Hi Tiarella,

I make my own mother cultures so will use my normal amount of culture. I'll raise the temp to 35C (95F) too, and plan to do the cheddaring step. I'll post photos on Saturday as I make, when I get time between all the stirring and stacking and cutting!  :)

I have just bought a new cheese fridge (ie wine fridge), and only have one small cheddar in it at the moment. I'm planning to make plenty of Caerphilly's, cheddars and maybe even a butterkasse to fill it up. Up until now i have only made soft ripened cheeses, cams, blues, blue bries, as well as the mandatory Fetta and cream cheese/quarg types. Jeff in NZ and Ozzie in Brisbane have inspired me to get into pressed cheeses, their cheeses look so good!

Cheese making can get messy, especially in a home kitchen. For that reason I usually make on the Saturdays that my wife is working, that way we wont get in each others way and everyone will stay happy  ;)  Of course I dream of having my own cheese workshop, but until we move, that's not likely.  Clean up person..............how can I find one of those........ :D
Title: Re: Caerphilly #1 is ripe and we tried it!
Post by: Tiarella on August 28, 2012, 02:04:04 AM
Well.......thought I'd see who drools on their keyboard.  Here's what I did with Caerphilly tonight.  After barn chores I got stuck in the veggie garden before I could even get back to the house.  There was just too much amazing food and it made me feel creative.  I even was going to use red amaranth seeds as a garnish but decided I would wait for another time for that. 
Soooo, first I made a beet green (only red leaves) salad with fennel flower clusters (they are so fragrant) and these yellow tomatoes that almost look like apricots.  IN fact they feel like apricots when you handle and cut them.  Okay, so I didn't put any cheese on this version.....but it was the first course of a meal that had cheese in the other two courses so the photo is coming along!

Then there was the tomato salad with Caerphilly cheese.  I think I'll call it the Caerphilly Carefully Salad.  It has more of those wonderful tomatoes joined by 2 more varieties, ribbons of basil, more fennel flowers  (they are wonderfully sweet!) and the Caerphilly cheese.  It was scrumptious and we ate it sitting at opposite ends of the kitchen daybed, where all important things happen.  I think the salad looked better visually without the cheese but the taste of the cheese was a perfect addition.  I'll put a pre-cheese photo up for eye candy.

Then we had a salad that I invented that uses a lot of garlic, some scallions, and cherry or grape tomatoes halved, cook those together just a bit and then put over a bed of greens or whatever.....in this case grated raw zuchini, then layered with toasted pecans and cheese.  it's a festival of flavors although best with feta cheese which I am out of.  There's the sweetness of the barely started to cook tomatoes, the bite of all the garlic  (1/2 head per person served), the tingle of the scallions, the deep oiliness of the pecans and the bite of the feta cheese.  It's not as pretty as the others salads though.  sorry about that.    : (   In tonight's version I created Caerphilly confetti.  (don't recommend saying that three times fast)  Oh yes, I garnished with dill.  A little bit of wine to go along with that and we were well stuffed by the end of it all.  Hope you enjoy the photos.
Title: Re: Caerphilly #1 is ripe and we tried it!
Post by: Boofer on August 28, 2012, 02:19:43 PM
how do people keep enough room in their caves with boxes.
It's a challenge. I have two 4.x cu ft fridges stacked. In the photo, the upper cave holds 3 minicaves (ripening boxes) while the lower one holds 2. They don't remain in there forever. They have a certain time to be at cave temp & humidity and then they're wrapped in cheese paper or vacuum-sealed and moved to the big colder fridge. That frees up shelf space for more new cheeses.  :)

I currently have a Beaufort with a natural rind that stays in its minicave and stays...and stays. It's a rare exception to the move to the bigger fridge. It needs to stay at cave temp & humidity for a year or so.

Yeah, I was drooling over your pics. Nice.  :D

-Boofer-
Title: Re: Caerphilly #1 is ripe and we tried it!
Post by: Tiarella on August 28, 2012, 04:44:30 PM
Thanks for the photo of your fridges!  A photo is always worth a thousand words and when there's cheese involved it's even better.  Mine is a wine fridge and I need to find some flat racks that fit it because the wavy bottle ones waste head room.  I'd do it out of wood except it's impact air circulation. 

Do you think your cheese boxes are really airtight?  Which brand(s) do you use?  I'll definitely need another cave.....sigh.  I can't just let the daily milk go to waste.  Soooo, how do you decide how long a cheese stays in the ripening cave?  Is it by the recipe? Or by a taste and reseal episode?
Glad the photos made you drool.  Hope you weren't leaning over your keyboard.  : >
Title: Re: Caerphilly #1 is ripe and we tried it!
Post by: Susie on August 28, 2012, 10:38:04 PM
I have a wine cooler with wavy shelves. I bought some of these "shelf helpers" in the right size, cut off the legs and laid them on the wavy shelves. Voila!

(http://www.plumbersurplus.com/images/prod/6/Grayline-40710-rw-248447-351118.jpg)
Title: Re: Caerphilly #1 is ripe and we tried it!
Post by: Tiarella on August 29, 2012, 12:59:41 AM
HI Susie,
I want to find racks that fit so I can regain the lost head room of the wavy racks.  I just haven't had much time for these kind of projects.  I bet though that I could get any kind of rack and cut it down with my sawsall to make it fit.  Hmmmmm.....
Title: Re: Caerphilly #1 is ripe and we tried it!
Post by: Boofer on August 29, 2012, 03:00:00 AM
Do you think your cheese boxes are really airtight?  Which brand(s) do you use? Soooo, how do you decide how long a cheese stays in the ripening cave?  Is it by the recipe?
The minicaves don't need to be airtight. In fact, there are times early in the ripening process that you want to be able to adjust the amount of humidity, which you can do by cracking the lid slightly. See the one minicave with a chip clip?

I've been using primarily some Rubbermaid and Sterilite boxes. I needed a tall one for my Fourme d'Ambert (http://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,9508.msg68826.html#msg68826) and then Creamy Blueberry Delight (http://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,10028.msg73936.html#msg73936) and I was lucky to find a Rubbermaid gallon-sized tall container. That allowed them to fit nicely in the cave door, just like a gallon of milk.

Reblochons are ready in 2-3 weeks, wrapped in cheese paper, and moved to the big fridge. Some other semi-soft cheeses like Leiden, Maasdam, Tomme, Tilsit, and Esrom may require 3-4 months in the cave, then get waxed, vacuum-sealed, or paper-wrapped, and moved to the big fridge. Some semi-hard and hard cheeses like Cheddar, Gouda, some Tommes, Beaufort, Gruyere, and Parmigiano may spend a year or more in the cave. Some cheeses just get shoved to the back, forgotten, and don't see the light of day for years...right, Debi?  ;)

The recipe may give you a rough clue as to how long a cheese should be cave-aged. I get ideas from reading what some of the cheese retailers say how long a cheese ages and also what kind of care it may receive during that time (brine-washed, wine-injected, washed under running water to remove linens growth, brushed, etc.). Also, personal experience helps provide steerage after a time.

-Boofer-