Hi All,
I've never tasted real Humboldt Fog, but people rave about it so I thought I would give it a try.
I'm basing my make on Brie's recipe elsewhere in this forum:
http://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,2019.msg23336.html#msg23336First obstacle: I cannot find goat milk in any shops where I live that has not been ultra-pasteurized. So, first I accidentally tried it with ultra-pasteurized goat milk from Woodman's (Periwinkle brand). No clean break, no proper curds, even after 24 hours and quite a lot of rennet and CaCl2. Then I tried it with Goat Milk Kefir from Trader Joe, figuring that that is NOT ultra-pasteurized and should mainly be just goat milk that already has some cultures added. Same thing. No proper curd after 24 hours.
So, now, I'm $40 USD into this, with 2 gals of barely-curdled goat milk. So what's a poor boy to do? I mean, I actually do like the taste of goat milk and goat kefir, but I can't drink 2 gals of it before it all goes bad. And I'm not about to just dump $40 USD all over my tomato plants.
Hmm, what does one do with useless cheesemaking leftovers: Make Humboldt Ricotta!!!
So, here's what I did:
- Heat 2 gal of barely-curdled goat milk to 195˚F. Yes, I know this will kill all the cultures. But see below for my evil scheme!
- Add 1/2 cup red wine vinegar per gallon to curdle. White wine vinegar would've been better, but at this point, really? I'm grasping at straws here.
- Cool and strain through cheese cloth. Pre-drain in a bag overnight. This Pre-Draining might be important. There's another thread somewhere on here that emphasizes the usefulness of pre-draining. Apologies to the original poster about that subject.
- Next day, make a spritz of cultures to add back the cultures that I killed by heating: 1/32 tsp Flora danica, 1/64 tsp P.candidum, 1/64 tsp G.candidum in 10 ml NC water. Break up the curd mass and spritz curds liberally all over. i used a cheap 5 ml perfume atomizer from Amazon: 3 for about 9 bucks USD; seems like a good investment so far.
- Pack curds into two chèvre and two valençay forms (because those were what I had on hand - another simpler option would be camembert forms like the original Humboldt Fog.) Drain for 48 hours. If you're using forms where it makes sense to flip the cheese, then do so (e.g., cam forms). If using weird forms like valençay, then maybe don't bother. After having done already the pre-draining, these didn't really shrink much and kept to the shape of the forms. So I recommend pre-draining if you care about final shape and size.
- Mix ash & salt and spread all over surfaces.
- Store in cave and watch to see whether Pc forms a white bloom. It did.
- Let Pc cover cheese all over (about 1 week), then wrap with cheese paper and store in regular fridge.
So that's where I'm at right now. I think I'll crack the first one in about one week (~3 weeks after the initial make, ~ 2 weeks after ash & salt)
Fig 1 shows the cheeses immediately after unhooping.
Fig 2 shows immediately after ashing.
Fig 3 shows 4 days after ash.
Fig 4 shows about 1 week after ash and just before wrapping and storing in regular fridge. The goofy designs on top are from the goofy shape of the rack. I flipped them halfway through - prolly not necessary.
They smell good, and they look good. Texture is firm, but soft. We'll see in about one or two weeks when I cut one open for a preliminary taste test at 3-4 weeks after ash. It could be a disaster, but I have no reason to think so at present.
Anyway, I thought some of you might get a laugh out of this utter fiasco. It remains to be seen whether it's been rescued. Couple of weeks, yet, I think.
Cheers,
Matt