First Colby

[cowboycheese]

To honor my dad and everything bland in his life ::) - I made him his favorite Colby/Longhorn for Christmas. I gave him a wheel at Thanksgiving for him to babysit till today (you try and explain what an "affineur" is to an old cowboy...). My mom said he treated that little orange wheel better than her. Talking to it and turning it every day like he was going to hatch something.

I used Karlin's recipe as a base and doubled it with these specifics:

4 gal NH Cozy Cow
1/4 tea FD
1/4 tea Meso II
1/2 tea annatto
3/4 tea cacl2
1/2 tea super strength instant ArtisanGeek rennet (apologies to Yoav - its a good story and he is such a great help)
floc of 3x
Cut at 6.51 pH. Washed curd at 6.45 pH. Mold at 6.4 pH. Out at 5.3 pH.
~22% brine for 8 hours (made two small wheels so kept to the 2gal recipe for the brine time).
Dried and PVA coated. Aged about 2 months. One wheel I vacuumed bagged after about 2 weeks. Both had a small amount of dry rind developed under the PVA. I think with the next batch I'll vacuum bag after drying to avoid any rind development. Salt content was spot on. The paste is/was slightly rubbery, breaks as expected and with small shiny holes (not mechanical I think).

I'm more of a sharp/stinky cheese fan myself and would be glad to just chock this make up to experience. However, after the samples went out, I was told to make this on a regular basis to throw into the volcano and appease the bland gods (dad, neighbors, etc). Isn't this partly why we slave over the vats?

Edit: Get Herman's most excellent cheese label maker software here https://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,12209.0.html
I think it actually helped with the affinage as it made the cheese feel a bit more professional  ;)

[Schnecken Slayer]

What a terrific looking cheese and label!
You deserve a cheese for your efforts.

[MacGruff]

That's a beautiful looking Colby.

A Cheese for you, kind sir!


8)

[h4ppy-chris]

That does look good...

[GlennK]

Nice cheese!  Did you use a CD labeller template for the label?

[jwalker]

A cheese to you for that cheese sir !

Nice label too.

That labelmaker of Hermans is really taking off among the members here. ;D

[Al Lewis]

That labelmaker of Hermans is really taking off among the members here. ;D

Need to get hold if that label maker. LOL  Looks great.