Mary's Butterkaese #5 - aka "Boofer's Butterkaese"

[george]

After anxiously awaiting Our Friend Boofer's first butterkaese ... and awaiting ... and awaiting ... I offered to make one instead, in his honor.  So, ladies and gents and cheeses of all ages, I present - Boofer's Butterkaese!!

(said in the voice and intonation of what's-his-face in The Princess Bride, of course - well, the last part, anyway)

And Boofer, the last pic is just for you, since I know what you'll tell me later ... 

[Tomer1]

Looks like a very high moisture cheese, perhaps you should put a band on it to help it retain its shape next time.

[george]

Actually, no, it was just really hot outside the days it was air-drying in a non-air-conditioned room, so he sort of wilted in the heat.  (Actually, they always slump a bit, heat or no, but I don't care.)   

[jrhockey33]

That looks awesome! I will have to add that one to the upcoming cheese list!

[Boofer]

ROFLMAO! 

Hey, I recognize that last shot...it's the Time-Out Corner!!! Alright!

Wow, I don't know whether I should feel honored or now. I made a cheese on Monday and I had every intention of it being a Butterkaese but somehow it turned out to be a Tilsit.

george, you are truly the Master of Cheese...or is it the Mistress of Cheese? Nicely done, george. If I had a hat on, I'd tip it to you.

Okay, another complimentary cheese for such a sterling effort. What a good-looking, wonderfully-named cheese. 

-Boofer-

[george]

Jared&Kelly - it's a great little cheese, Butterkaese is.  It's my havarti substitute. 

Boofer - 

[jrhockey33]

I noticed you vacuumed sealed right away, do you not have issues with liquid being pulled out of the cheese onto the ride when you seal that quickly? I think i am doing something wrong...

[george]

Nope - if you look at the dates on the pics, I air-dried it from 6/28 (out of the press) to 7/2.  I just put them on a little contraption (you can see it in the "tired" pic.  It's a breadboard with a piece of eggcrate on top of it, and a piece of embroidery netting on top of that).  Depending on ambient humidity, most of my cheeses finish air-drying within 4-8 days.  I make dang sure they're dry before I even consider sealing them - if I'm not sure, I let it go another day.  (Although actually, counting up the days on this one, it was only about 4-1/2 days - I must have done it early because I was more concerned about it melting - plus I DO remember it was weeping butterfat.  So apparently I winged it again and got lucky.)

I usually flip them a couple times per day - once in the morning and then again sometime in the afternoon - if I happen to think of it as I walk by.   (Lazy, me, remember?)   

[jrhockey33]

was that a 3 gallon batch? What was the final weight or start weight on that wheel?

[bbracken677]

What was the recipe? I am planning a butterkase very soon and would really appreciate a solid recipe!!  (specially for one that turned out so nicely for you)



Please please please?   haha

Here's a cheese for you for such a nice looking cheese!!

[george]

I sincerely apologize for the delay - I went to go get my make notes and then completely forgot to do something with them (as in ... TYPE THEM OUT???!!).

Jared&Kelly, I don't know what the before and after weights were - I don't bother to weigh stuff unless something looks really off, I just assume ROUGHLY a pound per gallon of milk finished weight.  I also vac seal everything as soon as they're dry - I don't have the temperament to try natural aging for anything but b.linens cheeses, cams and blues.  Hate having to remember, much less DO, all that rind maintenance. 

(Okay, so can I stop saying stuff like that now, because by now you've all figured out that I'm LAZY about things like that?    )

Anyway, here are my make notes - this is based loosely on the recipe from 200 Easy Cheeses/Debra Amrein-Boyes, with my own modifications made from personal preference that I've had time to experiment with over the past 18 months or so that I've spent voraciously reading this forum (wow, has it really been that long?).


Mary's Twisted Version of Butterkaese, But OH So Good!

•   Heat 3 gallons beautiful spring raw Jersey milk from Baldwin Brook to 102F
•   Sprinkle ¼ tsp C201 (basic thermo culture from NECheesemaking) and ¼ tsp Flora Danica onto surface of milk.
•   Cover and let rehydrate 5 minutes
•   Stir culture down into milk, let ripen 40 minutes
•   Add scant 1/16th tsp dry calf rennet (dissolved in ¼ cup water) to milk, stir down
•   Wait for floc, use multiplier of 5
•   Cut curds into 1-1/2-inch pieces, vertical cut only
•   Rest 10 minutes
•   Cut curds into ¾" pieces, vertical AND horizontal
•   Rest 5 minutes
•   Stir 20 minutes (first 5-7 minutes are "jiggling", not actual stirring stirring)
•   Settle 15 minutes
•   Remove whey to level of curds
•   Have hot water ready (170-180) – temper with room temp water, add enough of both to raise temp to 108, using the 2-degree rule: raise temp no more than 2 degrees Fahrenheit every 5 minutes, until the volume of curds and whey equal what it was before you removed the whey.  In practical terms, this means that you tend to add a bit more room temp water than hot water at the beginning just to get the volume up, then go with the hot later/slower.   Keep stirring the whole time you're raising the temp.  If it looks like the curds are getting overcooked/stirred, finish the temp raise fast and don't worry about the timing issue (mostly because all the recipes I've seen say to raise the temp all at once, not using the 2-degree rule – I just do the 2-degree rule because it usually seems like the right thing to do).
•   Settle 15 minutes.
•   Pour off whey and smoosh the curds down a bit in the pot to remove more whey to drain off (this replaces having to wash another dish and cloth by draining in a cheesecloth-lined colander - again, I'm lazy)
•   Pile curds into hoop
•   Press with 10 lbs weight in fancy-dancy fantastic Dutch press that you got from member Smolt1 (sturdypress.com, I think) for 30 minutes.  For this particular cheese I use the stainless steel hoop from NECheesemaking, don't remember the dimensions.  Except in the case of Boofer's Butterkaese, I have a note that it did this first pressing for 60 minutes, because my notes say "hangin' with Vince" – guess I was having a beer with the neighbor.   
•   Flip, redress, press with about 18-1/2 pounds weight for 6 hours.  Except in my case that is always WAY longer – Boofer's Butterkaese says it went in for the 6 hour press at 4:15 PM (see next bullet)
•   Into brine @ 10:15 AM (only about 18 hours pressing instead of 6, eh?)
•   Flip @ 2:45 PM
•   Out of brine to air-dry at 7:15 PM (total of 9 hours brining, 3 hours per gal/lb)
•   Air-dry till nice and dry without cracking, vac seal and toss into cave for 4 weeks.
•   Enjoy!

And there ends my story ... tune in next time for yet more extraneous comments buried inside hopefully otherwise useful information.   

[Boofer]

Gee, it's like running the marathon...I feel all hot & sweaty! 

-Boofer-

[bbracken677]

Thanks Mary! (George...whichever lol ) 

btw...the wife bought me one of those fancy cheese presses from sturdypress....looking forward to using it : )

I specially liked the "pour off whey and smooshed" part !

I will be using your recipe, but I think I will be adding some MD89 and LM57 to the culture mix for additional butter flavor. I really like the smell those are giving to my triple cream cams !  Thanks to Iratherfly for that suggestion!

[george]

Boofer - are you all hot and sweaty because of all the effort you went through to make this particular butterkaese?   

Bbracken - I'm not sure what LM57 is, but I'm pretty sure the MD89 might be overkill since that "buttery stuff" is already in the Flora Danica in fairly high concentrations - or at least enough to satisfy even MY desire for buttery flavor in a butterkaese.  Are you going to use FD, or substitute the MD89 and mystery-to-me LM57?

(Oh, and by the way, another GREAT BIG THANK YOU to JeffHamm for the idea to add the FD to begin with.  Your research paid off for ME, Jeff, and if I haven't already given you a cheese or three for it, I'll make sure to do so - again.)

Either way, I'm sure it'll be cool.  I open the butterkaeses 4 weeks after make, so it's not like it will take a long time to figure out if it's right for you.  No fuss, no muss (assuming vac-bagging).  They're quite mild (yet buttery! LOL) at 4 weeks, and develop a little more flavor the longer you go.  I first had butterkaese from a little shop in Alexandria, Virginia - and they had the very mild, creamy version, so that's what I was shooting for in my own makes.

[bbracken677]

The LM57 is much like MD89 in that it adds buttery flavor. If I get some FD then I wont be using them....but I think I will stick with my meso +MD+LM combo for now...the buttery smell coming from my cams is just unreal...cheesey buttery goodness!...they are far from ripe and I already want to eat one lol