My first Munster

[jodud]

Dear Cheesemakers,

My wife lived in the French region of Alsace for a decade and my in-laws still reside there. While we lived in Germany when we got to know each other, we loved the cuisine alsacienne everytime we had a visit (and we had lots of visits). While some specialties might sound scary in the beginning (frog legs, escargots) they are usually fantastic. We are living now in Canada, and sometimes miss some of the wonderful food from over there. One thing we miss a lot is the traditional Flammekueche (German: Flammkuchen, French: tarte flambée, they speak a wonderful mixture of French/German in that region, the history of Alsace is very interesting, it was claimed by France or Germany multiple times). Flammekueche is some kind of very thin "pizza", a rather hard and well baked dough, with lots of onions, garlic, and a strong cream sauce. They come in different varieties, the classic one just with some bacon, but there is a wonderful variety made with Munster cheese (Flammekueche au Munster, please look up some pictures on google to get an idea). It is just wonderful. Imagine the strong taste of onions and garlic being comparably weak to the Munster taste which just fills every bite...  To cut a long story short, we both love those and tried a couple of times to reproduce those Flammekueche, and while we succeed mostly, all the cheeses we tried were rather bland... there are just not many good washed rind cheese to buy here on Vancouver Island. So lets try to make one by myself...

I have read a little bit and got my inspiration mostly through the recipe from cheesemaking.com, but also have read a bit in Giannaclis Caldwells great book. Here is the recipe I used (sorry for the formatting):

Cheese:   Munster style #01         
Date:   02.01.2021         
               
Ingredients            
Milk:   8 L (The farm house grass fed cows milk, 4% fat, non homogenized (January 2021, no cream top, yellowish color))         
Culture:   MM100   1/16 tsp      
Culture:   B. linens (SR1)   1/32 tsp      
Culture:   Geo 17   1/64 tsp      
CaCl2:   sat. solution   3/8 tsp      
Rennet:   microbial, ss   3/8 tsp      
            
Ripening/Coagulation            
RT         pH N/A   
32 °C   add 3 cultures   60 min   pH 6.3   (calibration buffers might be cross contaminated, did not wash and dry probe with dest. water in between liquids)
35 °C   heating to, add CaCl2   10 min      
35 °C   add rennet         
   flocc after 10:30 min         
   multiplier 4         
   cut curds after 45 min         
   1.5-2 cm cubes         
   heal for 5 min         
33-35 °C   stirred for 25 min   curds taste slightly sweet, very wet, almost pop in mouth      
            
Draining/Pressing            
removed whey up to curd level            
transferred to 8" Tomme mold, leftovers to 5" random mold, both lined with butter muslin            
30 min   minimal weight, glass of water for small mold, 1.5 kg for Tomme mold         
repeated 8x, RT around 20 °C            
left over night with no weight, RT around 18 °C            
            
draining/pressing stopped after 19 hours, no more whey expelled            
squeezed whey out of muslin         pH 4.9   (see calibration notes above)
            
Salting            
   weight   salt   %   
Large cheese   1057 g   19 g   1.8   
Small cheese   372 g   7 g   1.9   
            
dry rubbed all sides            
            
Affinage            
Temp   RH   Time   Treatment   
16-18 °C   80-85%   1-3 days      
12-14 °C   90-95%   14+ days   wash with light brine every 2-3 days   
5-7 °C   wrapped   until desired texture      



The cheeses are now in the salting phase and I am looking forward to the washing steps and hopefully to a nice development of B. linens. I will add a few pictures below.

Kind regards and have a nice day!

[jodud]

A few pictures:

[not_ally]

Thank you for the story and the recipe. I love make posts. Definitely cheeseworthy, adding one!

[CarlB]

looks like a good start.

[jodud]

Thank you both for your kind words!

Not much to report, keeping them at 16 Celsius (looks like my 2 zone wine fridge can not go higher while the other zone is at around 10 C) at around 80-85% RH. I wicked away the moisture twice a day and today was the first day that the downside of the cheese did not release any whey/humidity anymore. I also spotted the first Geo growth, a white cover on several spots...

I will deviate from the initial plan to start washing after 3 days, I will wait until I get a better Geo coverage to make sure the pH of the surface starts to go up enough.

Cheers!

[jodud]

Hi everyone!

It took a bit longer then planned, but today I gave the cheese the first wash. I decided to wait a few days longer so that Geo hat enough time for a nice coverage. Attached are two pictures, the first with the initial Geo coverage, the second right after washing it off with a 4% brine solution. Now we wait for the stink! :)

I will keep you posted.

Cheers!

[jodud]

Hello!

After 11 days and 4 washes we are still waiting for B. linens to show up. Geo coverage is nice and recovers quite nicely after each wash... no issues with other molds yet. I will keep you posted...

Please find a picture prior and after the 4th wash attached.

[mikekchar]

Looking good!  You may need to up your humidity a bit to get the b. linens going.  If it doesn't show up in a couple of days, possible try to get it a bit more humid (you can put a wet paper towel under the cheese mat -- that seems to help me).

[Bantams]

I couldn't get any B linens to show up with a 5% brine. Once I switched to 3% - bingo! Maybe try a 3% brine?

[jodud]

Hi Mike,

I was indeed wondering about the humidity. I keep the lids of the food containers closed, but open them twice a day for some air circulation. While the lid and the walls always have some moisture, the cheese is surprisingly dry, maybe just a tiny bit tacky... I added a wet paper towel to both cheeses today, lets see how that goes. Thanks for the advice!

Another thing I noted is that the large cheese (not the one in the pictures) has a couple of deeper 'crevices'. It is not really possible to remove the Geo from there during the washing. Interestingly, two of those really deep crevices slowly develop an orange color tone... maybe Geo had some more time to increase the pH there and the rest of the surface is still to acidic. But that's just a theory... :)

Interestingly, I slowly notice a change in smell... the classical Geo smell gets more intense, more stinky, I suppose that is a good sign.

Thank you Bantams for your input. I am currently washing with a 4% brine. I will keep in mind that I could get lower with the salinity. I will be patient a few days longer before I change anything though.

Cheers!

[mikekchar]

Yeah, the smell often proceeds everything else.  Sometimes you look at the cheese and think, "Is that just a shade darker than it was yesterday? No, I'm imagining it"  But the smell tips you off.  I find at first it just starts to smell more "cheesy" and very slowly it starts to pick up the unmistakable b. linens smell.  Sounds like it's on the right track!

[jodud]

Hi everyone!

Something is definitely going on...

I started washing on the 8th, every two days ... the recipe from cheesemaking.com suggests washing for 2 weeks, so that would be a couple more days.

The smell is getting very intense, its a delight (not for everyone though ;) ) every time I open the box. The Geo growth is still strong, usually one day after washing the cheese has a nice 'fur' again. The cheeses are also noticeably getting softer, I have to be a bit careful now while washing not to damage the rind. Today was the first day where I really noticed some orangish  areas on the cheese, they are not very clear on the pictures though. I also followed Mike's recommendation and added a wet paper towel to the boxes, they cheese also gets turned at least once daily, sometimes twice because I also wanna keep an eye on some air exchange...

I will keep you posted!

Kind regards,
JD

PS: The first two pictures are before, the last picture after washing the large cheese.

[jodud]

Today I wrapped the cheeses and put them in the common fridge, top shelf at around 7 Celsius. They look good, not really orange yet, but the smell is almost overwhelming! That seems to be a good sign. :)

The affinage up to now was the following:

Code Select Expand


16 °C                   02.01.-8.01.    5 days until nice Geo coverage
11-12 °C                08.01.    wash 4% brine
10.01.
11.01.
13.01.
15.01.
17.01.
19.01.
21.01.
7 °C         23.01.    wrapped and stored in fridge


What I would do differently next time is that I would leave the cheese out for drying a bit longer after each wash. Especially the larger one has a very soft rind already which is a bit fragile... maybe this is because the rind was to humid after the washing steps. Other than that it looks pretty good and hopefully it will also taste good! :)

I think the small cheese (294 g) will be in the fridge for something like 10-14 days, the larger one (942 g) for 6-8 weeks, but I will carefully monitor the softness and can decide to take it out earlier. I am also happy to hear other suggestions...

Thanks and have a nice weekend!

[jodud]

Hi everyone,

here comes an update. The little Munster was butchered already a couple of days ago and did not last 2 days... it was wonderfully ripe and had a lovely, but mild taste.

The big Munster was opened today, we just could not wait any longer...

It has an almost perfect ripening, maybe 7-10 days longer to get the core a tad more soft, but we prefer them this way instead of too runny... it can age a bit further in the fridge. The smell is lovely, not overwhelming but definitely 'old socks' B. linens. The taste is almost perfect, a strong flavor from the rind mixed with a rather mild one from the inside of the cheese.

We finally could make a authentic Flammkuchen au Munster, it tastes just wonderful... similar to the ones we so often had in the Strasbourg area... maybe even better because the memories start to faint... :)

I will surely repeat the recipe, and I am so happy with the result that I do not know what I would change...

Cheers!