Wanted: French Comte Recipe

[Gürkan Yeniçeri]

After my wife tried this cheese she turned to me and said, why don't you make cheeses like this? Its sweet taste and aroma is still lingering in my nose and now that I have the WAF I shall at least try this cheese.

I understand on a small scale production say 35L it is hard to de-scale this recipe given that I don't even have a recipe on hand. I am searching the forum for the last hour and also googled it but there isn't any sort of recipe. I found little info on the forum from LB about the fat levels only.

I am guessing it is like Swiss Emmenthaler without the P. Shermanii and may be washed curd for its sweet characteristic taste and looks like brine bathed and aged naked with B.Linens??? Can I use a shop bought comte rind for rind development? What thermo cultures needed?

Can someone please post a recipe that I can start with?

[linuxboy]

it is like Swiss Emmenthaler without the P. Shermanii

Same family, so yes, similar. But not exactly emmentaler without shermanii. It actually usually has shermanii. Diff temp schedule.

and may be washed curd

No, it is not.

looks like brine bathed and aged naked with B.Linens???

It is washed with a morge like the rest of the gruyeres.

Can I use a shop bought comte rind for rind development?

Very hard, not as is. You would need to take the rind and isolate is cultures first. Easier to mix up your own morge.

What thermo cultures needed?

helveticus and delbrueckii types.

post a recipe that I can start with?

French comte, right?

Culture:
S salivarius thermophilus: 20 DCU per 100 liters
Helveticus: 5 DCU per 100 liters (strain important)
Propionic: per usual, something like 0.05 - .1 unit per 100 liters. Just a bit
LD or O type: 10 DCU per 100 liters.

Milk, at 91F, add culture.  PF is 1.2. This is almost parmesan-like.
ripen 30-34 mins.
Add rennet (time to floc 12 mins. Multiplier 2-3x)
Cut, heal 5-10 mins, cut size is about 4 mm.
Stir is a bit to make sure there are no huge curd bits
Then scald from 91F or so, all the way to 125F ish
scald 122 to 135F for the next 45 mins
Hold at that temp and stir, targetting about 6.3 pH.
let settle, press under whey, put into final size molds and press 10-15 PSI until you get to 5.4 pH


dry salt 2% w/w, should do over several applications
cold room ripen at 50-55F, 3-4 weeks
then move to warm room at 62-66F (about) for 6 weeks, maybe 8. Start smearing with morge here.
Then move to cold ripening at 52F and keep smearing with morge, but not so regularly, about 1x/week. Age out for a year or more

Going from memory here. That's the basic comte make.

[Gürkan Yeniçeri]

Thanks LB.

LD or O type: 10 DCU per 100 liters.

Can you eloborate this please.
Is this the morge or B. Linens is enough for morge?

[linuxboy]

Can you eloborate this please.

What do you want to know? There's quite a bit of info you can find by searching,

Is this the morge or B. Linens is enough for morge?

No, morge is morge. O culture is O culture. Not sure what you need to know. B linens is definitely NOT enough for morge. You need a classic morge succession, which includes micrococci.

[Gürkan Yeniçeri]

I mean if I am going to order cultures, what I need to order for LD and O-Type


For Morge mixture, what cultures, yeasts exactly do I need?

[linuxboy]

Here, you are getting to the nuances of very complex microbiology. The answer is "it depends". What you're asking is how do I go about replicating French comte? My answer to you is to go to the Jura and get the milk, natural starters, natural morge, and make it. Anything else, you are driving forward the final cheese type, and it's difficult to predict how the final product will come out because you are creating a custom cheese.

What should you order? These are a half dozen suppliers of cultures. And comte is made with none of them.  O type is normal  cheddar culture. LD is something like Flora Danica. Morges are made by combining multiple strains of b linens and micrococci, and letting ambient yeasts and molds do their work.

[Gürkan Yeniçeri]

Thanks LB, I think I have enough info to tackle this recipe.

Getting a ticket to Jura now to get milk, It will be difficult in the customs though,, naah I will pass and use what ever is available in the market.  :o

Thanks again.

[linuxboy]

Yeah, use whatever you can. If you can only get 1 b linens, then start with that. This is such a nuanced milk, and everything matters in the make, but hopefully you can improvise.

Read over Paul's (arnaudforestier) threads where he covers beaufort and tomme makes. Good info there.

[dttorun]

Gurkan,
I used Mycodore once, it works. It went wild after some point but the paste was good.
Tan

[MrsKK]

Gurkan, did you ever come up with a recipe?  I just tried this cheese this week and am in love!

[Boofer]

I'd echo what linuxboy said about Beaufort....

Seems like they would share similar technique and characteristics.

Just came across this:
"About Beaufort: Beaufort was already known in the time of the Romans and is named after a small rural town in the French Alps. Beaufort cheeses come in three versions, Beaufort, Beaufort d'été (summer Beaufort) and Beaufort d'Alpage (in the Alps mountains). The latest is made with milk from Tarine (or Tarentaise) cows. They live in the mountains and graze exclusively on natural pastures. It is said that tasters can feel the grass and flowers of the mountain when eating a piece of Beaufort!

Beaufort making: It takes about 500 litres (130 gallons) of milk to make a Beaufort of 45 kg (99 lb). Beaufort needs to age between 4 to 6 months or even more, in a mountain cellar that maintain a cool temperature throughout the year.

Tasting Beaufort: Beaufort is a giant cheese. A whole wheel weights over 36 kg (80 lb) but more generally 45 kg (99lb). Beaufort is richer and creamier than other mountain cheeses such as Gruyere, Comté or Emmental. Beaufort has a nice scent of milk, butter and honey. The supple paste has flowery and herbs aromas."

-Boofer-

[Gürkan Yeniçeri]

Gurkan, did you ever come up with a recipe?  I just tried this cheese this week and am in love!

MrsKK, I am still gathering cultures and writing the detailed recipe. I am planning to tackle this recipe in the next couple of weeks, time permits.

Seems like they would share similar technique and characteristics.

.
Thanks Boofer, I think I read pretty much everything in the forum about comte and beaufort, my eyes hurt.

I used Mycodore once, it works. It went wild after some point but the paste was good.

Thanks Tan, I am planning to experiment with kefir and added B. Linens as  a morge on one of the wheels.

[max1]

Same family, so yes, similar. But not exactly emmentaler without shermanii. It actually usually has shermanii. Diff temp schedule.

Diff temps schedule when cooking?  Would temperature during aging affect it as well?

[linuxboy]

Not cooking, aging. They're all cooked about the same. I thought we covered comte before in terms of the salt, culture, and affinage differences between all the gruyere and emmentaler variants? Maybe not, might be in my head. Gurkan, post your recipe when you have created it and I'll take a look.

[Gürkan Yeniçeri]

Comte Recipe – metric

MILK
20 litres of skimmed cow's milk, store bought
CaCl2 is required as the milk is pasteurised

CULTURES
Option 1
Streptococcus Salivarius Thermophilus (20 DCU - per 100 litres) (TA60)

Lactobacillus Helveticus (5 DCU - per 100 litres) (LH100 from Danisco but one more different bacteria comes in with it which actually might help as it is Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. lactis which you (LB) listed at first reply)

Propionibacterium freudenreichii subsp. shermanii (0,05 – 0,1 unit - per 100 litres)

And LD Type starter, that is Flora Danica

Option 2 – LD Type and PS
Danisco Choozit Feta B LYO
And add Propionibacterium freudenreichii subsp. Shermanii

Option 3 – O Type and PS
Danisco Choozit ALP LYO
And add Propionibacterium freudenreichii subsp. shermanii

MORGE
First with PLA or maybe LAF3
And later with B. Linens

MAKE
Add CaCl2 and mix in well.
Heat milk to 32°C to 33°C. Add the cultures. Wait till pH drops 0.1.
Add rennet, mix well. Place the floc bowl.
Target flocculation is 12 minutes. Multiply this 2 or 3 to find the cutting time.
Cut to 4mm pieces (or rice size), rest and heal 10 min.
Stir and find the big pieces of curd, cut them. They may create whey-wells on the surface during aging!
Increase the temp from 32°C to 51°C (Is this in half an hour or as quickly as possible?)
Increase the temp from 51°C to 57°C in 45 minutes.
Keep the temp at 57°C and stir from time to time till the pH reaches to 6.3.
When pH is 6.3 let the curd settle at the bottom. Press under whey to make PS work better.
Transfer the curds in to press and press with 10-15 psi till the pH becomes 5.4.
Remove from the press and dry salt with %2 salt 5 or 6 times. How many days? Till dry?
Take it to cave at 10°C to 13°C for 3 to 4 weeks
Increase the temp to 16°C to 19°C for 6 to 8 weeks and smear at teh same time. Smear everday for 2 weeks and every second day then on.
Once a  healthy skin produced, take it to 11°C cave with 85% humidity for a year or so. What about humidity here? Is 85% enough? Continue smearing once a week.