The Reblochon AOC Cheesemaking Recipe + Tips + Fun Facts!

[FRANCOIS]

If you are doing this on a commercial, or even farmstead scale, it's best to homogenise cows milk for cheeses like this.  You can buy really small and simple homogenisers that would suit a farmstead scale.

[Oude Kaas]

culturing rather low, to 6.0-6.1

Thanks Pav, for correcting me. Not only did I have the pH wrong, in retrospect I realize that I was using Ayrshire and Holstein milk. Full fat capture is probably near impossible to achieve with lactic coagulation using non-homogized Jersey milk.

[iratherfly]

Jos, yes, I know this trick with pre-ripening and then adding a tad more rennet than normal semi-lactic so that it coagulates hard and fast.  They do this in Chaource manufacturing and there they can go as far up as 75°F.  Works well when the globules are smaller or you add cream such as Delice De Cremier cheese (72% FDM), but floating islands of butterfat in mile with temperature that isn't enough to melt them into the liquid phase - that's problematic...

Francois, so instead of doing that I just switched to those Dutch Belted cows, where milk is close to natural-homogenization. by the way, they can go as high as 5.5% butterfat, not to shabby! (though I must admit I don't have any accurate specs on this milk).

[FRANCOIS]

You can stir the milk very briskly during ripenening, it keeps the fat suspended and then just stop when you rennet.  I never used to stor while ripneing before coming to NZ, but it's the standard way here because there's so much fat in the milk.

[max1]

Just wanted to add this.  On the Montgomery farm, they use a multiplier of 1.7 only and a aim for a flocc time of 18-20 min.  They use Holstein milk and so far, it seems do being working quite well for them!  Is there a reason behind that?

[iratherfly]

Are you using it straight from the cow? Or are you chilling it first and put it in a bulk tank? Makes a difference.

Also, if your flock is that long, your acidification period must be a lot shorter.  I have seen two schools of thoughts with Reblochon; one says to acidify the milk a lot and then flocculate it short, the other is to hardly acidify it but flocculate long so it builds the acidity while rennetting. At the end of the day, both methods take roughly the same amount of time and reach the same acidity at moulding. Their texture will be different though.  The balance in the recipe I posted here seems to work for me very well with both pasteurized and raw milk that has been chilled (meaning not directly from cow to vat. Bottled and refrigerated first).  Are you targeting it based on sensory? Or pH targets?

[max1]

Actually, to clarify, even though they're working on a Vacherin Mont d'Or recipe, I'm talking about a cheddar make.  Probably not the best place to ask this question, but I thought I'd ask since you were talking about flocc times.

The milk is a mix of the previous evening's milk (refrigerated) and the morning's milking straight from the cow's.  About 1.5% bulk starter with a 30min ripening time.  18-20 min flocc (fairly long) multiplied by 1.7 so a total of 30-34min.  It seems to be working well for them since they keep on winning awards.  I'm intrigued by the small multiplier.  The smallest i've seen is around 2 for parmesan and alpine.

Tell me if I should start up a new question.

[iratherfly]

Probably best to start a new thread as it has veered off-subject for a couple of pages.

...but on your question, the small multiplier makes sense if you are using fresh raw milk and have enough acidity for the cheese target.

Has anyone out there tried this Reblochon recipe yet?

[Boofer]

Has anyone out there tried this Reblochon recipe yet?

I made an effort.

-Boofer-

[iratherfly]

Very cool!
That reminds me that I totally forgot to post the photos I promised of my Reblotin prototype. To recap, this is a cross between Reblochon and Chevrotin. It came out beautiful, milky and herbaceous, supple and gooey.

It is actually a bit more gooey than what I wanted, so my next batch round will include 1/3 less meso and 1/3 more thermo. Amazingly, this is all you need to change the texture. Fabrication and aging remains exactly the same. Cool, huh?

[sorry for the terrible photo quality of the iPhone, can't find my camera charger. Ignore the other cheese in the background on the cheese board, it's some unrelated Tomme I made.]

[Boofer]

I like it the way it looks now. Recipe? Proprietary, huh? I'd promise not to share it.

I find I have a gallon of creamline and a gallon of raw milk that I picked up today...and I'm not sure what to do with it. I'm already using two gallons of creamline with an added pint of raw cream to make my faux Fourme d'Ambert with blueberries tomorrow.

I already have two Reblochon makes in process at the moment so that's kind of out. Any suggestions?

-Boofer-

[iratherfly]

This is not a production candidate so the whole point of showing it here is because it was done with the recipe posted on this thread! ...tThink of it as an open source cheese  ^-^

The only major difference is that it is a mix of 50/50 goat/cow milk (raw). A slight play with culture and aging.  This cheese is all about milk quality -so the most difficult thing to replicate would be ...my milk.

[Boofer]

Alright, thanks! An Open Source cheese....

I'll have to bend my will to conform more closely to your published record.  :)

-Boofer-

[iratherfly]

haha... try it as prescribed as your starting point. Make your changes thereafter to make it to your liking. Heck you will even get this fancy hi-tech Microcrystalline wrapping paper I use in a few days. Envelope is on its way!

[Boofer]

Thanks. That's good, I'll need the wrapping paper pretty soon for my Reb #4.

-Boofer-