Camembert Comparison

[GortKlaatu]

Today I made a 4 gallon batch of Camembert out of my raw goat milk.  (6 Cam molds and 8 St Marcellin molds--those I call "Baby Bears"--get it?)


Tomorrow a friend --who has a cow herd (he sells his milk to what is the Costa Rican equivalent of Borden's)--is bringing raw Jersey milk and we're going to make the same cheese with the same recipe and age for the same time (well, one day off)


The experiment is to see just how differently cow milk and goat milk affect the cheese outcome.  (BTW, they have a similar percentage of fat--4.9% for Jersey and 4.5% for La Mancha)

[Al Lewis]

It should affect it 100% as Camembert is made from cows milk.  Goat's milk camembert is a derivative cheese made for the markets today.  No different than Stichelton being made from raw cows milk and Stilton from pasteurized.  You can buy goats milk camembert in the store and try it.

[GortKlaatu]

Al
I don't need to buy goat milk Camembert to try it--I make all the time    (Not that you could buy any kind of camembert in a store in Costa Rica LOL)
I've only made Cams with cow milk a couple of times....so this is really about having goat and cow side by side for comparison--taste, texture, proteolysis, etc

[GortKlaatu]

Time to dry out a bit

[GortKlaatu]

The results are in!
Here are the photos of the two camemberts--one from La Mancha goat milk the other from Jersey cow.
They are exactly the same recipe made only one day apart  and they are 4 weeks old.
Can you tell which is which?
I was surprised by how different they were.  (And btw, 8 people preferred the goat version over the cow.)

[H-K-J]

I'm going to take a guess and say the top one is the goat, no?

[GortKlaatu]

Ding Ding Ding  That's right HKJ
You can tell by how white the goat is compared to the yellow color of the cow (No annatto used.)
I think there was just enough more fat in the Jersey that it stabilized the paste more like a Triple Cream

[timsumrall]

Nice!

[Andrew Marshallsay]

Well done!
What an interesting experiment.
That's got to be worth a cheese.
How does the taste compare?

[GortKlaatu]

Thanks Andrew,


Honestly, I was surprised because I had a party with 8 guests and I didn't tell anyone which was which--and to the person they all like the goat better.

[OzzieCheese]

Oh !! they both look wonderful.  Having tried both I do prefer the cows milk Camembert - especially those longer aged.  I like to mature mine out to 7-8 weeks.  By then the Goats milk cam a very runny and the cows milk ones just coming into their best.

Cheese On...

-- Mal 

[GortKlaatu]

Thanks Mal

[Gürkan Yeniçeri]

I made a goat's milk cam once and since then cow's milk cam is a tasteless blob of stuff to me