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CHEESE TYPE BOARDS (for Cheese Lovers and Cheese Makers) => ADJUNCT - Rennet Surface White Mold (Penicillium candidum) Ripened => Topic started by: chilipepper on March 01, 2009, 08:44:39 PM

Title: Chilipepper's Cheese #019 - Camembert (6-pack)
Post by: chilipepper on March 01, 2009, 08:44:39 PM
2/28/09 - Started another raw milk batch of Camembert.  My previous batch  (http://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,1007.0.html) with store bought milk and cream just doesn't smell quite right and the first batch with raw milk was/is absolutely Divine.  Well I ended up with a 3 gallons of raw milk to burn and so there was not better way to utilize I could think of but Camemberts.  I really wanted to check the numbers and times posted in many of the recipes and see how well they correlated to the pH numbers in the CHR Hansen Soft Cheese Guide (http://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,593.0.html).

Well I'm pretty happy to report they are pretty close.  I started with my raw milk coming to about 56 degrees over 3.5 hours on the counter at room temp.  From there I put it in the water bath at 110 degrees and in 45 minutes my milk temp was 89.5 degrees with a pH of 6.63.  I added my cultures:

1/2 tsp MM101
1/16 tsp P.Candidum - Choozit SAM3
1/16 tsp Geo. Cand - Choozit GEO17

According to the CHR guide renneting should occur at a pH of 6.1-6.3 or 6.25-6.35 depending on what part of the document you are reading.  My recipe calls for a 90 minute ripening period.  After 90 minutes my pH was 6.37. I added another 15 minutes for the pH to reach 6.26 which was within the margins of both CHR numbers.

1/2 tsp of liquid veggie rennet was added and allowed to set. Recipe called for 60 minutes, however after 45 I had a very good (probably one of my better) clean break. 

(http://www.kesabe.com/cheese/camembert0201.jpg)

I cut the curd in 1/2 - 3/4 inch cubes.  The vertical cuts went well buy you could tell the set was really good.  When I utilized my curd knife for the horizontal cuts, it just about didn't work.  You really had to force it through to get the curd to cut.

(http://www.kesabe.com/cheese/camembert0203.jpg)

(http://www.kesabe.com/cheese/camembert0204.jpg)

Curd was allowed to rest/cook for 10 minutes to allow whey to separate. pH was now 6.12.

(http://www.kesabe.com/cheese/camembert0202.jpg)

I removed as much whey as I could ladle off.  Then transferred to my 6-pack of recently made Camembert hoops for thin walled 4 inch PVC pipe.   A lot more whey drained while hooping.  In the hoops the pH was 6.11

(http://www.kesabe.com/cheese/camembert0205.jpg)

Here is the mold sandwich made with 2 cookie sheets and my draining mats for ease of flipping.

(http://www.kesabe.com/cheese/camembert0206.jpg)

Molds were turned after 1.5 hours and then every hour for a total of 5 times.

(http://www.kesabe.com/cheese/camembert0207.jpg)

After an overnight rest roughly 10 hours pH was 4.85.  According to the CHR guide the pH of the curd at demolding should be 4.6-4.8.  I allowed them to rest another 3 hours.  I removed from the molds at a pH of 4.79 and lightly salted the cheeses with flaked salt on all surfaces. 

(http://www.kesabe.com/cheese/camembert0208.jpg)

(http://www.kesabe.com/cheese/camembert0209.jpg)

Couple of observations:

From the 3 gallons of raw whole milk these 6 cheeses ended up a little on the tall side, about 2 inches.  Next time I do this with raw milk I will make 8 cheeses and should end up with an average height/thickness of about 1.5 inches.  Hopefully they will age gracefully but I'm assuming they will take a little longer to fully ripen to the core. 

This particular recipe was pretty close to the numbers.  Some minor adjustments made to accommodate the numbers in the CHR guide but otherwise pretty close.  The CHR guide does however indicate a 7-8 hour renneting period.  Of course that guide is also for 10,000 L of milk!

Ryan
Title: Re: Chilipepper's Cheese #019 - Camembert (6-pack)
Post by: finewino on March 02, 2009, 05:24:52 AM
Ryan, those Camemberts look great and the numbers seemed to be right on.  I think that the proportions look pretty good and 2 Camemberts/gal is pretty typical.  One thing you might try (it was suggested to me by an accomplished professional cheesemaker) is to sprinkle a little salt on the top surface of cheeses at the last couple of flips.  It will expedite the draining of whey from the cheeses and you will probably see them come out a little thinner.  I feel it helped my cheeses when I started doing this.
 
Looking forward to seeing how these evolve.
Title: Re: Chilipepper's Cheese #019 - Camembert (6-pack)
Post by: Tea on March 02, 2009, 08:02:00 PM
Chili they look tobe off to a great start.  Watching with interest.
Title: Re: Chilipepper's Cheese #019 - Camembert (6-pack)
Post by: Cartierusm on March 04, 2009, 11:32:51 PM
Looks good. Hey can that digital thingamajig performe a ECG of your brain waves as you're making cheese to see how exiceted you are?
Title: Re: Chilipepper's Cheese #019 - Camembert (6-pack)
Post by: chilipepper on March 12, 2009, 03:52:58 AM
3/11 Update:  I'm still waiting on the mold to grow... well the right kind anyway.  I've had the temps pretty cool (average of about 44 degrees) and I think that may have given me a little slow start compared to my previous batches.  I have had a bit of the puffy grey mold crop up so I took and rubbed the spots down and salted tonight.  There was a pretty light film of white mold on there and hopefully it'll take off now.  I just hope I can keep the other under control. 

One question I have is do you guys flip the cheeses often during this phase of waiting for the mold to grow.  I've been flipping them still daily and I wonder if that is maybe a bit more cause for the other mold contamination.  I've tried to keep them at least about 5 feet physically separate from the Stilton I've got going in there too.  Anyway just thought I'd update. Thanks!

Ryan
Title: Re: Chilipepper's Cheese #019 - Camembert (6-pack)
Post by: Cheese Head on March 12, 2009, 11:32:24 AM
Ryan, I aged this batch of Camembert (http://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,587.0.html) in similar low temp household fridge and even after Day 25 I still had minimal mold growth, see picture! So I moved them to warmer garage and after 2 days poof, nice bloom, see picture. Thus I believe that P candidum has an optimal temp range as as well as an optimal humidity range and of course as I read once, mold "doesn't like it's feet in water".

When I more normally get a nice bloom in < 7 days, I (try to) turn daily, when I haven't I've found the cheese can sometimes get a little stuck - grown into the mat.

Watch out for that blue cheese, you could end up with Cambozola (http://cheeseforum.org/Recipes/Recipe_Cambozola.htm) ;D!
Title: Re: Chilipepper's Cheese #019 - Camembert (6-pack)
Post by: chilipepper on March 12, 2009, 03:19:00 PM
Thanks John,  I think I'm going to try a Cambozola this weekend. I read your information here and did a little more reading on it last night and it looks to be a challenge.

This morning after rubbing these Camemberts with salt I had some water drops to mop up.  I will try and slowly raise the temps over the next couple of days and hopefully get a nice bloom so I can wrap and let them do their thing.

Here are a couple of shots before I removed the mold spots from a couple of nights ago.  I just wanted to include these here as reference so others might see what is happening.  Hopefully when they are ready and IF they turn out we'll have a good paper trail of what is happening along the way. :)

(http://www.kesabe.com/cheese/camembert0210.jpg)
All 6 sitting at 44 degrees and 90% humidity.

(http://www.kesabe.com/cheese/camembert0211.jpg)
Very light frosty white boom starting but some darker mold on the side (bottom of picture just to the left of center)

(http://www.kesabe.com/cheese/camembert0212.jpg)
Another fuzzy mold spot that popped up.
Title: Re: Chilipepper's Cheese #019 - Camembert (6-pack)
Post by: kai on April 01, 2009, 07:12:49 AM
in www.isleomullcheese.co.uk (http://) said

if they grow blue instead white penicillium,your cheese is too acid.
if they grow hairy,grey,molds they are under acid and retaing too much moisture as a result of this