shropshire blue

[broombank]

thanks Aris . I'm glad you liked the website. Lagavulin 16 is a great whisky but in short supply now. I can buy Kilchoman for about £45 . As for cheese my  real doubt is the degree to which spraying will penetrate the curd sufficiently to leave a lasting flavour. I think dunking might be better. Or you could steep the curd before pressing as you would with an ale cheese. What I really need to do is produce three at the same time and treat each differently to see what works best. We have a cheesemaker up Deeside called Cambus O' May who are producing a cheddar steeped in Ardmore malt. I can't say that I am that impressed with the flavour although their cheeses are generally excellent.

[Aris]

Thanks for the heads up with Lagavulin 16. I feel a massive price increase is coming. I need to buy 1 or 2 bottles while it is still very cheap. Yeah steeping the curds when making Cheddar is what I plan to do but I don't know what alcohol content the whisky should be. Using standard proof whisky (40% or 43%) might ruin the texture and flavor. I need to learn to make plain Cheddar first. I will eventually make an ale/beer soaked cheddar using homebrewed India Pale Ale/Pale Ale or Helles to soak the curds. If those are successful, that is when I will try making a whisky cheddar. Blue cheese can also be soaked in beer/ale. There is a water buffalo milk blue cheese in Italy where they soak the best wheels of their blue cheese in Surfin hop IPA for two months! Ardmore seems to be a good whisky for cheddar since it is smoky and mildly peated.  Laphroiag or Ardbeg are too peaty and has that cigarette ash smell.

https://www.quattroportoni.com/cheese/surfin-blu-26

[broombank]

Giaclinis Caldwell who's book is fantastic says the alcohol wash should not be more than 10% or it will interfere with the enzyme production. So take some Ardmore and dilute it from 40% to 10% presumably with bottled water. I think steeping the cheddar curd in it is a good idea. I did that with Brewdog's Jet Black Heart but the flavour is not strong enough for my liking. Maybe do that and then augment it with baths of whisky at intervals. We should post the results - this probably is the wrong thread as it has strayed from blue cheese !!

[Aris]

Ah no more than 10% that is good to know. Getting it down to 10% would be easy since there are online alcohol dilution calculators and I already have an alcohol meter. A cheap and decently sherried whisky like Naked Grouse would be good as well. With blue cheese I might inject it with 10% abv whisky after it has softened from aging. Soaking it whole would be too costly.

[broombank]

I tasted the Calvdos steeped monks cheese with a Trier yesterday and was not impressed that it has taken on much of the flavour. I need to wait for it to be ripe before being really sure. Actually you say immersion would be too expensive but if you have to dilute the alcohol to 10% then you don't really need that much to immerse the cheese providing your immersion vessel isn't much bigger than the cheese. I suspect I may end up doing that or mixing with the curds as you suggest. I just don't want to kill the maturation bacteria - just make them drunk !!

[Aris]

It seems injecting the cheese is much more economical and efficient. Nowadays I make big blue cheeses, one is 1.6 kg and the other is 1.75 kg. I plan to make one in the future that is even bigger like over 2 kg. Soaking those cheeses would be very costly. I will probably need a liter or two of diluted whisky. I used an alcohol dilution calculator and it takes 250 ml 40% abv whisky diluted with 750 ml water to get a 10% solution. One of these days I will make small blue cheeses and try both methods (soaking and injecting). The issue with soaking blue cheese is that it has a funky tasting rind and would probably ruin the flavor of the diluted whisky. The size and shape of the blue cheese will also matter. You have to make it into a shorter cylinder shape so it easily soaks up the whisky compared to making it into a tall cylinder like a Stilton.

[broombank]

Its great to be able to play and just see what happens, so more experimentation is justified. Its good to have people to share it with here

[broombank]

I just got to taste the Monk's cheese ( New England cheesemakers recipe) onto which I have sprayed a saline/calvados mix for several weeks as a washed rind. It has regrettably ABSOLUTELY NO CALVADOS FLAVOUR. I just chanced upon a recipe foe Calvados camembert in the book 200 Easy Homemade cheeses by Debra Amrein-Boyes. She waits until the camembert is almost ripe and then immerses it in Calvados for 12 hours - turns it and then steeps the other side for 12 hours. She then takes it out and covers it with breadcrumbs which in France is the standard presentation of this cheese. So it seems logical to apply the same treatment to my Monks cheese which at the moment is pleasant but unremarkable.  I will not apply the breadcrumbs but dry it out before eating it or maturing it for a bit longer. If you see this Aris - take note! No point wasting good Calvados on a completely ineffectual process. Sorry for posting on this thread which should really be in a different place but it continues our conversation.

[paulabob]

I want to mention the beer cheese I made from cheesemaking, where you mixed the beer with the curds, was remarkably strong.   In fact, too strong for me and my spouse!  But anyways, mixing with the curds definitely ramps up the flavor.

[Aris]

Yeah I already learned my lesson back in the day using scotch whisky. Washing cheese with spirit doesn't really impart its  flavor to the cheese. Please post a picture of the cheese.

[broombank]

the is looking promising - we will see - first picture is immersion ,second is the 2 month old Monks cheese before immersion

[bansidhe]

That first one looks like Apple pie with caramel sauce!

[Aris]

It does look promising and proper ripe.

[broombank]

the experiment was a guarded success. The Calvados definitely penetrated the cheese to a depth of about 1cm as it changed the colour of the paste. The cheese is distinctly alcoholic ! I thought it could do with being a bit sweeter and it also went very soft in the Calvados. I have put the second one in a dilute calvados and honey diluted in water,  mixture ( 100ml of each ) with a  table spoon of apple vinegar and a teaspoon of Calcium Chloride to try to stop the protein loss. I have just taken this cheese out and is definitely much harder. I will dry it until its touch dry and then taste it. I will report back