Chaource question - cream separation during long coagulation time

[modibo]

Hi all,

I'm new to the forum and have a question about making chaource using the recipe from the 200 Easy Homemade Cheese Recipes book by Debra Amrein-Boyes. I used raw cow's milk, mesophilic culture and animal rennet. I brought the cow's milk out of the fridge and up to the required temp (77 F) before adding culture etc.

She indicates a very long coagulation time (12 hours) after adding the rennet, but I understand that's accurate under the AOC rules for chaource. The ripening time before adding the rennet on the other hand was very short, though it calls for very thorough stirring (5 mins top to bottom stirring). While the curd firmed up very well, during the coagulation the cream had separated again and was not super firm. I tried to use thin scoops to load up my molds as she instructs, which was fine but a lot of the cream basically drained away 

I thought with the extensive stirring that this wouldn't be an issue. I'm wondering now if I should have either done more top-stirring, or brought the milk up to a higher temperature to start with, closer to a cow's normal body temperature while stirring vigorously, then brought the temp down to 77 with more stirring?

Any thoughts welcome.

[Bantams]

I've never made Charouce before but I do make fromage blanc with cream top cows' milk.  It's similar in terms of getting the rennet just right so that the majority of the cream is still incorporated into the curd.
I think her temp is wrong. I would start the milk at 93-95° and it will coast down during the long coagulation. You should be able to add the culture and rennet together.  You may need more rennet but I can't recommend that without knowing quantities, plus your rennet will be far more effective at this warmer temp.

This might help:
http://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php?topic=2530.0

[modibo]

You should be able to add the culture and rennet together.  You may need more rennet but I can't recommend that without knowing quantities, plus your rennet will be far more effective at this warmer temp.

This might help:
http://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php?topic=2530.0

I'm pretty sure I saw another recipe where the rennet and culture were added together, it seems logical. On the other hand, on the CheeseMaking blog there's a variation of the recipe I used that calls for culturing for 8 hours before adding rennet.

The curd I ended up with under the cream was very firm and broke beautifully and very cleanly. I'm stubborn so I'll probably try this again, and will review the post that you linked in more depth before I do. Thanks!

[Mornduk]

I love Chaource, it was the first homemade cheese that made us go "wow", and stop purchasing some type of commercial cheese -in this case Délice de Bourgogne and Fromager D'Affinois, which are not exactly the same but were a weekly thing in our household.

I go with basically Caldwell's recipe for Lactic-set Bloomy Rind cheese. I'm not going to reproduce it completely but you heat the milk to room temp (~70F), then add culture and rennet, then put a lid and let it sit there until you hit pH. I hit pH in 16-23h when using DVI, and in 7-10h when using mother cultures. The curds firm up way before the pH target is hit, which scared me at first.

[Mornduk]

Just remembered that Peter Nixon had some good context in his lactic milk recipes. You might want to check it out. He waits 25 min from culture to rennet, I do not since I use mother cultures so no need to activate them. He also gives examples of more rennet being added to prevent cream rising to the top, in others the cream is ladled out to churn butter or make creme fraiche.

[mikekchar]

If I remember correctly, Chaource is actually made with homogenised, ultra filtered milk :-)  Honestly I don't know what black magic they have to use the protein stream from ultra filtered milk and not end up with mush, but that's what I've been told...  (BTW, I've tried it... one of the worst cheese disasters I've had).  Homogenised milk for lactic set should work very nicely, though.  I've actually done lactic set UHT, homogenised milk cheeses before!  Actually not bad if you age them long enough. The protein doesn't resolubilise the way pasteurised milk does, though.  It makes a very different cheese, but like I said, not at all bad.

[modibo]

mikekchar, thanks for your input, but not so sure about the accuracy of your sources on the use of UHT milk in chaource. What is your reference for the use of UHT in this style? I would love to review it.

I did a little research and found the AOP specifications for chaource, most of them are in French: https://www.fromage-chaource.fr/pdf/cahier_des_charges_aop_chaource_2013.pdf (in French)

Nothing about UHT milk, and a strong insistence on the farmhouse origins on the style. There's some dispute on whether the milk should be pastuerized https://www.fromage-chaource.fr/pdf/etapes_fabrication_aop_chaource.pdf (also in French) or whether it can be raw ttps://www.fromage-pouillot.fr/vache/37-chaource-fermier.html (in French). The emphasis on the milk requirements is that the milk should not have any additions or have any elements (eg cream) removed.

My sense is that because of the requirement that the milk for chaource come from a limited number of farms in a specified zone, be treated in a specialized dairy or in a specialized stream within a dairy, and the insistence in the AOP style documentation on the farmhouse origins and intentional synchronizatiion of fabrication steps with the agricultural workday, and the fact that ultra pasteurization is not mentioned at all in the AOP specifications, it's highliy unlikely that UHT milk is commonly used for commmercial chaource.

Francophones can also consult cached pages from a page focused on promotion of chaource cheese:

https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:n0Gt6J4DyWMJ:https://www.fromage-chaource.fr/caracteristique-fabrication.php+&cd=18&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us (French)
https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:ULp9MOOZnboJ:https://www.fromage-chaource.fr/transformation.php+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us (French)
https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:OW4uVTMkcAMJ:https://www.fromage-chaource.fr/production-de-lait.php+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us (French)

All that said, it seems that draining the curds and any separated cream, and then stirring them before molding (http://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,2529.msg19753.html#msg19753) might be the way to go to achieve a successful home made chaource cheese.

[mikekchar]

Ultra filtered, not UHT.  But given, "Le lait destiné à la fabrication du "Chaource" est obligatoirement du lait entier qui n’a subi ni d’ajout  ni  de  soustraction  de  matières  grasses  ou  de  protéines,  sauf  celles  contenues  dans  le  milieu de culture des ferments lactiques, dans une limite maximale de 3 % du volume de lait
mis en fabrication. ", clearly I'm mistaken.  Possibly I'm confused with a different cheese, but I swear someone was holding up Chaource as an example of an ultra filtered milk cheese (which I once claimed was impossible because I tried it ;-) ).  Sorry for the confusion!