My First Butterkase

[JeffHamm]

Hi,

Ok, after some discussion on Butterkase and hunting around for recipies, I put one together (i.e. stole ideas from other people! ) and made it today.  It's just out of the press and now soaking in water for 20 minutes, and then will go into a brine until I get up (probably be in the brine for about 8 hours). 

Here's the make notes and the cheese:

Butterkase (mine): March 19th, 2011
9L homebrand standard milk
1L homebrand cream
¼ tsp CaCl
0.7 ml Rennet

Start time: 12:45
1)   Warm to 35 C ( hit 35.5 at 1:17)
2)   Add 2 ice cubes Meso (FD) and 1 ice cube thermo
3)   Ripen 20 minutes (target time 1:37 actual time 1:37)
4)   Raise temperature to 40 C (reached at 1:38 actual temp: 40.2) (added CaCl here)
5)   Add 0.7 ml rennet (1:42)
6)   Floc time = 11m 30s  3.5 * floc = 40m 15s min until cut
7)   Cut at 2:18:15 (oops! 4 min short, so this was only 3.1x) into 3 cm cubes wait 5 then cut into 1 cm cubes (curd very soft)
8 )   Curds settle 5 minutes, then removed approx 2 litres of whey
9)   Curds were breaking up when stirring (next time use more starter; 6:3 cubes)
10)   add 60C water until you reach 42C
11)   stir 45 minutes
12)   move to mold
13)   press lightly (5 kg) 6 hours (flipped after 1 hour)
14)   20 minutes water
15)   Brine (saturated 9-10 hours)

- Jeff

[JeffHamm]

Oh yah, this cheese weighed in at 1.832 kg!  I suspect it has retained a lot of fluid as this cheese released the most moisture during the press of any of the cheeses I've made.  It is still the heaviest cheese out of the press that I've made though.

- Jeff

[JeffHamm]

Hi,

This cheese is quietly draining away over a bowl, on a sushi mat placed over a layer of plastic chopsticks.  It's still too soft to omit the sushi mat.  This morning there was a puddle of water/whey in the bowl, which I've moved.  Also, because it was quite tall, it's now sagging and becoming more barrel shaped as time passes; hmm as is the cheesemaker, so goes the cheese!  Anyway, it is still very wet to the touch morning and evening when I flip it, so this will take longer than most to air dry I suspect.

Part of the issue of retaining fluid was due, I think, to the exceptionally soft curd set that I had.  After cutting the curds really were quite mushy, which I've not had before.  It's been softish before, but not like this.  I think I used too little starter.  The Mesophilic starter wouldn't do much at the temperatures of the make, and it has been suggested these are primarily for when it ages.  That means, for the most part, the make was based mostly upon the 1 ice cube of thermo.  I wasn't thinking when I put things together and where I normally use 3 or 4 ice cubes, this seemed ok., but of course 2 of them were the meso (flora danica).  Next time I'll go for 4:21 or 6:3 It hink.

- Jeff

[Scarlet Runner]

That's a lovely looking cheese.  How long will you age it?  I'd love to hear your tasting notes. 

[JeffHamm]

Thanks ScarletRunner!  I've improved on my cheesecloth control.  My previous cheeses had a lot of issues with the folds creasing the cheese.  This one came up much smoother overall. 

This is supposed to be eatable in about 4 weeks, though like most, it improves up to 3 months.  However, since I put this recipe together from a collection of others I can't say for sure what would be optimum.  But, in the interests of knowing if I need to tweak it or not, I'm going to cut it at 4 weeks.  I'll probably save 1/2 to try again at the 2 month mark. 

Will post the results when I have them.

- Jeff

P.S. Just noticed the photo has the year at 2010!  Must be ready now!

[Scarlet Runner]

The cheese looks nice and smooth.  What are the divots on the top of the cheese from?

I've noticed that my cheesecloth after pressing a few hard cheeses ends up "stretching" somehow to accommodate being pulled up around the sides of the cheese.  Wouldn't have thought it would do that...  I also started just putting the follower on top of the cheese, without putting a layer of cheesecloth below the follower.  Haven't had any problems with that yet, and seems to help eliminate creases and divots on the top of the cheese.

Looking forward to the tasting of the Butterkase.  With a name like "butter-cheese", how could you go wrong?!! Two of my favorite foods...

[JeffHamm]

Hi ScarletRunner,

The divots are from bits of curd.  When I flipped it after 1 hour, there were a few small bits of curd that squished up by the follower.  I picked them off and put them on the cheese hoping they would get pressed into the curd and be gone.  They didn't, and they ended up just denting the curd, as you can see.   With this one, I pulled the cheese cloth up, and folded one layer over the top, placed the follower, then put the rest of the cloth on top of the follower.  This has eliminated most of my crease distasters, or at least in this case it worked.

I'll have to post a picture of the cheese as it now looks, as it's much more barrel shaped.  I'm just hoping it doesn't sag so much as to split!

- Jeff

[JeffHamm]

Here's it is after sagging and forming more of a barrel shape.  There appears to be a small spot of mold on the top, but it's not mold but a raised bit that's caught the light. 

- Jeff

[pliezar (Ian)]

If you are worried about too much sagging, I watched a program on Gouda making in the Netherlands this one producer tied a cloth around the circumference of the cheese to help it keep its shape.  Kind of a cheese Girdle if you will.

Looks good  Jeff

[JeffHamm]

Thanks for the tip pliezar.  I think it's now stabalised, but if it continues I'll probably girdle it up.

- Jeff

[JeffHamm]

Hi,

Ok, I thought I would post another photo of this cheese because it's starting to develop an orangish rind on it.  This is interesting to me because I've not seen this colour develop before.  This uses both a meso and thermo starter, and also it has required a much longer drying period before moving to the cave (although it did spend a few days there already).

- Jeff

[JeffHamm]

This morning it was starting to sprout a fuzzy white mold.  I'm assuming this is from the starter cultures as I've not added anything like P.Cad. to it.  I've wiped it down with brine though, as I don't think it should be growing fuzzies so it could be wild spores.

- Jeff

[JeffHamm]

Hi,

Well, this one has now dried to the touch after about 10 days or so and I've moved it into the cave.   It's down to 1432g, so it's lost  400g exactly since it was made.  This cheese has had a very different feel to it than any of the other hard cheeses I've made.  The curds were very soft when I made it, and so to recover them I just poured everything through a cheesecloth lined colendar.  This, I think, trapped a lot of whey with the curds, which drained but with the low pressing weights, probably meant it was still quite wet.  This is why it has taken a long time to dry out (my guess, not stated as known fact), and perhaps why it had a "sticky" or "tacky" feel to the sides.  Anyway, it has a great aroma and I'm really looking forward to finding out how it tastes.  That, unfortunately, is still a few weeks away, and possibly longer. 

- Jeff

[Scarlet Runner]

I'm drooling with anticipation, esp. since I have no cheeses of my own to drool over right now. I like the chopsticks idea.  Gonna have to try that out. Where'd you buy them?

[JeffHamm]

Hi Scarlet Runner,

I just picked up the chopsticks at Tai Ping's, a local Asian Grocery.  They're the plastic "fake ivory" ones, which are easy to clean and don't soak up molds like the bamboo ones do.

- Jeff