This article was shared to me by an Italian professional cheesemaker who I randomly encountered in a Philippines facebook group about cheese and has nothing to do with cheese making. He seems frustrated with all the nonsense about cheesemaking in the internet and people using the names of famous cheeses. Because of that he gave me some useful advice and confirmed what I already know like how the size of the cheese affects its moisture after aging. The author of the article is also a teacher at Accademia Internazionale dell’Arte Casearia and a cheese consultant. Link to the article
https://www.ruminantia.it/i-formaggi-erborinati/?fbclid=IwAR3BXaZcQnJ7M7GxRBCu6u4ZRFybtla0HzABRWIypQvl91YSn7x5vOocc70Below is the article translated using google translate:
Blue cheeses
Until recently, the production world of blue cheeses was limited to limited areas linked to historical production and protected designations of origin (PDO). In recent years, however, we are witnessing the birth of several Blu, also produced by company dairies and small dairies. Obviously for us Italians the blue cheese par excellence has always been and remains Gorgonzola, one of the oldest cheeses of the Italian dairy culture and we have already had the opportunity to talk about this.
The blue cheeses par excellence are Roquefort and Blu d'Auvergne in France, Cabrales in Spain, Blue Stilton in England; Northern Europe also boasts various productions of blue cheeses. But what do all these products have in common? Clearly the marbling or, to say it in the all-Italian way in which it was born, the erborin (which in the Lombard dialect means parsley due to the characteristic green-bluish veins that all these cheeses have in common) despite the different production methods and different types of milk used.
Why speak today of this product confined mostly to companies specialized in these productions?
The reasons are many:
these are generally products with medium-high dairy yields;
in short ripening times they show an aromatic bouquet that is difficult to reach with other dairy products which therefore allow the dairy to present a larger cheese trolley without facing the massive costs of a long-standing capital;
they meet the interest of specialized shops and haute cuisine, thus giving the dairy more opportunities to emerge;
they are cheeses widely consumed by a large slice of the Italian and foreign market.
Let's try to understand what characterizes these products in the production phase. It is difficult to generalize because all the productions are different and therefore I will mainly refer to the production method of Gorgonzola, a production that for a couple of years we have included in the programs of the International Academy of Dairy Art, with variants that also allow its production in artisan dairies.
The most important feature is linked to the development of Penicillium roqueforti inside the paste.
Originally these molds, naturally present in the maturing environments, colonized the cheese by penetrating through the cracks in the crust, later the molds began to be inoculated starting from the mycelia that developed in the rye bread, belonging precisely to the same family, and finally to today, after long studies of reproduction, selection and toxicity analysis, they are distributed in saline or freeze-dried liquid form, with different possibilities of choice depending on the desired marbling color, the tolerance to salt by mold and the aromatic intensity final you want to achieve. You can ask your rennet, ferments and coagulants retailer who, as a rule, also sells all kinds of yeasts and molds with a dairy aptitude.
The selected molds are added both to the milk before adding the rennet, and to the curd before forming. However, in order to allow their development inside the cheese paste, which will begin to appear visible to the naked eye about 20 days after production, it is necessary to allow oxygen to enter the wheel.
To allow this, three paths can be followed:
the addition of heterofermentative lactic bacteria which, by developing gas inside the cheese paste, create holes;
the addition of yeasts that split the curd internally;
the mechanical breakage given by the holes in the cheese paste.
Consider that a form of Gorgonzola has about 200 holes that are drilled on one side between the 6th and 10th day of production and on the other between the 15th and 20th day. Given the difficulty in an artisan environment to keep these cracks open, the advice is to use both the fermentation and the mechanical action.
An image of the types of blue produced at the International Dairy Art Academy. Left, classic blue; right, saffron blue. Maturing for about two months. The photo is the property of the International Dairy Art Academy.
Let's now look at a possible recipe, created within the International Dairy Art Academy and used both during the courses and in my mountain products, but focusing on the concept of variables. During the lessons we focus a lot on this aspect, as in cheese, which is a living material especially if produced with raw milk, the generic recipe applied without the conception of variables will always give different products.
Raw milk heated to 34 ° C: already working with unhomogenized raw milk we introduce a first variable with respect to the world of Gorgonzola in which the milk, in addition to being pasteurized, is often homogenized in order to have a greater contact surface between the fat component and mold.
Inoculation of 1% lactograft with acidity equal to 25 SH / 50 ml and selected heterofermentative mesophilic lactic bacteria of the genus Leuconostoc.
Insemenzamento of freeze-dried molds.
Stop for 30 '.
Addition of rennet 20 ml / q tit. 1: 20 000 chymosin / pepsin ratio 80/20.
Stop for 30 '(socket x 3).
1st fishing cut to be made with knife or sword.
15 'stop.
2nd walnut cut always only with knife or sword.
This additional cut comes from an intuition of Carlo Piccoli, director of the Academy, with the aim of making the curd more manageable even by a small dairy. The end result is a slightly drier cheese than a spooned Gorgonzola which we consider too complicated to manage in a small dairy.
15 'stop.
Extraction with a trowel on drainage benches covered with special cloths and drainage channels. This step is very important because it allows the whey to drain from the curd, so that during the molding phase, a correct aeration of the dough is maintained, which will then allow a better development of molds.
Stop for 60 'keeping the curd warm in order to continue the acidification.
Forming. The shaping must be carried out considering that the curd will continue to drain. Therefore molds with a high heel or with the help of an overmould must be used. In addition, we prefer to insert a canvas inside the mold that allows us to carry out the turning over more easily.
Stewing up to pH 4.8 or 18/22 SH / 50 ml with turning over every 30 '.
At this point the cheese is kept in the mold but placed in a cold environment in order to fix the water and therefore the subsequent final humidity. After 24 hours in a cold environment (4-6 ° C), the cheese is transferred to a warm environment (18-22 ° C) called purgatory where it will rest for 24 hours. This step is important both in the case of using yeasts, which in this phase will break a paste that has lost its elasticity following plastering, and in the case of using heterofermentative mesophilic lactic bacteria which will develop cracks and holes. At the end of this phase, the cheese can be removed from the mold, dry salted and left to mature in an environment with a temperature close to 6 ° C and 85/90% R.H. Starting from the eighth day you can proceed with the punctures on one face, to be carried out on the other side after another 10 days.
Attention: cold ripening is not secondary because, if aged in a warmer environment, as soon as the molds begin to carry out their enzymatic action of lipolysis, proteolysis and demineralization of calcium salts, the mass will begin to cremate, obstructing the holes. that allow the entry of oxygen and therefore the optimal development of molds. The minimum maturation is two months in these conditions and can be considered completed as soon as the cheese is completely cremated, as it no longer presents areas of chalk. An unripe cheese will show bitter and metallic hints, while an overripe product tends to give soapy hints.
