Greetings from another Aussie

[OzzieCheese]

I don't mind making cheese in Summer as it help keep the milk at a constant Temperature without reapplying heat.  I have a converted Wine fridge to age my cheeses in which keeps about 10-12 degC. A warmer period while the cheese is drying out also seems to help the rind and pH development.

-- Mal

[shaneb]

That's good to know. My cave (a repurposed 360L fridge) is set to 12°C. I'm waiting on an ultrasonic fogger to arrive in the post so that I can sort out the humidity. All of my cheeses are in plastic boxes until I can sort the humidity side of things out. The controller is sitting there waiting to drive something.

Thanks for your help guys.

Shane

[TimT]

Shane, my culture is a yoghurt. We just eat it during the week and add milk to it when most of it has gone, in a fresh jar to minimise risk of infection. Keep it out at room temp for around 18-24 hours and Bob's your uncle - yoghurt! We usually keep some stray blocks of it in the freezer in case something terrible happens and the jar gets stolen or gets a terrible infection from an unknown source, or whatever. The initial instructions said reculture once every seven days.

There was one near disaster when my wife went to pour some of it in a stew and the whole lot poured out! Instead of salvaging the messed up yoghurt from the stew, we decided to try to reculture from the stuff that was clinging to the sides. We added a small amount of milk and voila, in a day the bacteria remaining in the jar/on the curds clinging to the sides was enough to give us a new pot of yoghurt. Brilliant.

It came initially as a powder from Cultures for Health and we may still have a sachet of it lying around, but it's been so long - about two years - that the spores in the powder may have died! So we just hand out pots of yoghurt to those interested - we gave some to our friend Kim in Heidleberg who has had great success with making yoghurt at home. I think she's also made labneh from it (hang the yoghurt up to drain and dry until it has a creamy/cheesy consistency).

[TimT]

I've speculated too that the warmer ambient temps would be good for making cheeses like cheddar, etc - especially since in the past I've had difficulty getting cheddar curds to knit because the ambient temp hasn't been warm enough. But then the summer temps can play havoc with ageing cheeses and I just keep my cheeses out at room temp. (I am not at all showing them off to visitors. Not. At. All...) Anyway, I don't have a cheese cave either so now is not a good time for me to begin cheeses like cheddars, etc. So in summer, I concentrate on the cream cheeses, ricotta, chevre, the occasional fetta, etc. Haloumi and mozzarella are both great summer cheeses (I reckon haloumi would probably be somewhat easier on your hands because of the weird 'kneading' that goes on in the mozzarella recipe).

And try a Crescenza cheese. They're lovely and simple - milk, curdled, then brined for a few hours to give them salty flavour. You can keep the brine cool by reserving some of it in the freezer and refreshing the brine bath for the cheese when you flip it. Great fresh or on pizza.

[shaneb]

Thanks Tim. That sounds very similar to my sourdough starter. I use probably 3/4's of it and then top it up with fresh flour and water. I share my starter around also. It took a few goes to get it working properly. It is pretty much bomb proof now. Like you I've accidentally taken too much out, but the little remnants were enough to keep it going. It's pretty impressive how robust some of these little bugs are.

I have the buttermilk out at the moment trying to make the culture grow. I'll try it out on Tuesday when I hope to make a cheddar.

Today (in 34°C weather) I did make a double cream brie and it is shaping up alright despite my impatience. I don't have a proper mould yet (i do have a couple of camembert moulds, but the bigger round of cheese is more impressive in my opinion  ), so until then I have a modified food grade bucket with many drilled through it. It is 18cm diameter and due to that and the height, it is rather difficult to flip. I actually have a second bucket that I use to insert and flip over onto. Today I was attempting to flip the cheese far too early. I eventually got there, but made a hell of a lot of mess in the process. It started as 4L of milk, plus 600ml of cream. My last brie ended up at 800+g.

What cream do you guys buy here? There don't appear to be many options without gelatine in them. The first brie I made I did find pure cream, but the last time I have used thickened cream. They do seem to have worked, although they are obviously not vegetarian (not that it matters here).

That is interesting about the warm weather being better for getting a better knit. I thought things may have been worse. I did have the air conditioner running today, but that was more for my comfort. 

Yeah it sounds like halloumi would be easier for me. I also have problems with hot and cold in contact with my right hand, so working with the hot mozzarella might be problematic. The nerve pain really screws around with the sensations that it comes into contact with.

I'll have to read up on crescenza cheese, it sounds interesting. We made pizza for dinner tonight and it would have been great to put homemade cheese on it.

I only have a cheese cave out of good timing. I was about to put it out for hard rubbish collection. The fridge freezer is a very big upside down one (519L total). As our fridge it kept freezing up, but the defrost cycle couldn't defrost the ice where it would accumulate. We ended up replacing the fridge. When I thought about a cheese cave I read that it wasn't suggested to use a fridge with a separate freezer. I thought I'd give it a go anyway as i didn't really have much to lose. I have an RTD controlling the temperature of the fridge by driving the compressor via the control line on the freezer control board. The temperature control is generally 12°C +/- 1°C. There is something going on where once a day I find the temperature briefly at 14°C. I think what is going on is that during the defrost cycle (I have the element disconnected as it doesn't generally freeze up under these conditions) is that it turns off the fan between the fridge and freezer. I will need to look at having this permanently powered separately but I can't do that right now. In the freezer I also have a 20L bottle of water to provide some thermal mass. The bottle stays mostly frozen in the centre with water around the outside. The kids also use the freezer as a pre cooler for water icypoles when there is not enough freezer space. It doesn't take very long the freezer them solid when they transfer them over.  So far the compressor doesn't appear to be too unhappy. It stays on for a reasonable amount of time during a cooling cycle and is off for at least an hour for each cycle. I think this is the main concern. Overnight I don't think it cycles at all.

Anyway I've been rabbiting on a bit, so better be off to check the cheese.

Thanks for your help.

Shane

[TimT]

The cream issue is a real tough one, I hate using stuff with additives and really, they're just there so the manufacturer can give you a more standardised product. One of the things I like about cream is how unstandard it is.

Basically there's a double cream you can get in the supermarkets (usually Woolies) from, I think, Gippsland; Coles in-store cream doesn't have any additives; at some organic stores you might be able to buy some 'pure' creams from Meredith dairy and.... that's about it I think. Really annoying. I don't want those additives mucking around with my cheese. If I want to add stuff, I'll add it.

[shaneb]

Thanks Tim. The first time I made brie I managed to find a 600ml carton of pure cream, but haven't seen them since. With the double cream do you dilute it with milk to get the right fat content for the cheese recipe?

Shane

[TimT]

No idea! I guess you just have to do what seems right to you.

Probably best to bear in mind that in its natural state, milk isn't really standard anyway - it will vary greatly over time, depending on when it was taken from the cow (just after gestation, first milking of the day, etc). Now considering that milk manufacturers usually just remove the cream prior to homogenising the lot, it's probably wise to add cream back. A lot of old cheese recipes include terms like 'stroakings' - ie the richer, creamier, last few pints of milk drawn from the cow.

[shaneb]

Thanks Tim. I found this on Wikipedia. Looks like there is quite a range on each type of cream.

In Australia, the levels of fat in cream are not regulated, therefore labels are only under the control of the manufacturers. A general guideline is as follows:

Extra light (or 'lite'): 12–12.5% fat.

Light (or 'lite'): 18–20% fat.

Pure cream: 35–56% fat, without artificial thickeners.

Thickened cream: 35–36.5% fat, with added gelatine and/or other thickeners to give the cream a creamier texture, also possibly with stabilisers to aid the consistency of whipped cream (this would be the cream to use for whipped cream, not necessarily for cooking)

Single cream: Recipes calling for 'single cream' are referring to pure or thickened cream with about 35% fat.

Double cream: 48–60% fat.[4]

Shane

[OzzieCheese]

HI,

I use Paul's Pure Cream @ 35% fat if I'm makeing Camemberts I use 1 600 mls to 8 litres of Melany 3.9% fat unhomoginised milk. I add 125 mls to 10 litres to my cheddars. Not sure what that is in percentage but they taste gooood  .  I don't know the Maths to equalise that out but it's cheese - not rocket science.

-- Mal

[shaneb]

Thanks Mal. I wish your message had come in an hour earlier. I'm attempting a cheddar now, but without the cream that you mentioned. The milk is presently ripening. Oh well, I will remember for the next one.

Shane

[Andrew Marshallsay]

I use Paul's Pure Cream @ 35% fat if I'm makeing Camemberts I use 1 600 mls to 8 litres of Melany 3.9% fat unhomoginised milk. I add 125 mls to 10 litres to my cheddars.

According to my calculations that works out at about 6% for the camemberts and 4.3% for the cheddar.
For what it's worth I use Jersey milk for my camemberts at 4.8%. I share the concerns expressed elsewhere in this thread about the how difficult it is to find cream without additives which is one of the reasons that I haven't used cream in any of my cheeses yet.

[shaneb]

How do you come across Jersey milk Andrew? I'm guessing not from your standard supermarket? I think Paul's Pure cream is what I used for my first batch of brie, but I haven't seen it on the shelf since.

Yesterday I tried the buttermilk mesophillic culture and the cheese seemed to come out okay. It is still in the mould, so won't know how it has come together until tomorrow morning. Hands wise the cheddar make was fine. The only time I had any difficulty was handling a stock pot full of 8L of milk. I got there in the end though and very happy for it.

The brie I made and have to a colleague at work appears top have gone down a hit at my work. It was shared around and all rave about it and want more. I'll have to get some photos on here.

Thanks for all your help.

Shane

[OzzieCheese]

We have a 'Morning Tea' every couple of week so I get to show off a little and the reaction is the same  - they love any cheese I bring in.  One collegue has even stopped buying store bought Cheese if I'm bringing in one - a bit of self promotion , probably, but the store bought one just goes to waste and mine just disappears - especially the Cams.  There is nothing wrong with the Store bought stuff (nor anything really special about my efforts) but people have become accustomed to bland tasteless rubbery stuff that when a real one comes along, they just go nuts.  We've become too far removed from our food sources.

Off the soap box ...

Jersey Milk -oooohh I'm going weak at the knees...
 

[TimT]

There's a brand of Jersey milk I pick up occasionally at The Fruit Peddlers on High Street, Northcote. It's delicious, super-creamy. I forget the manufacturer, sorry. The best, of course, is raw milk - I think it's Jersey raw milk. It tastes amazing. Interestingly it seems to last longer than the pasteurised version (which seems to be very variable quality - when buying these milks it's best to keep an eye on the use-by-date).

Some friends in Warburton get Jersey milk from a friend with a cow and they tell me it's one-half cream! (Drools in manner of Homer).