Tomme Cheese Making Recipe

[Boofer]

Very nice, Paul! I wish I had been that successful with my first cheese, or second...or third! Certainly one to be proud of. The rind looks to have quite a bit of character too.

I hope my cheeses that were assisted by my ExStick turn out half as good looking.

-Boofer-

[ArnaudForestier]

Well, thanks, Boof!  Baby-stepped through this by Pav and Francois, so they're really owed some serious cheese.  (I mean the real kind, not just the accolades, here). 

Oh, and can patience be taught?  It feels like the morning after, and humpty-dumpty's wheel can't be put back together again.

[ArnaudForestier]

Pav, don't know if you're around, but I know you talked of a "trick" somewhere, which was a means to effectively seal a tomme rind, to forestall openings and unwanted mold developments.  Sorry, can't recall if this was a post, or a PM. 

My 2nd tomme, so far, seems to be my golden child.  Everything looks really good, and just brushing back once a week. 

The first tomme was too acidic, too early, and though it's "OK," lessons learned there.

As of this morning, the 3rd tomme has seen the return of several, albeit tiny, patches of blue - all of them, deeply buried in the tight, nether regions of existing openings, or in openings I've carved, to excise former blue infestations.  I took a more radical excision approach to an area where the blue was once before, as I suspect I didn't rid it of sporulation on the first attempt. 

The good is that the "sample" I tried is out of this world, and that's at a mere month.  Far different from the wheel already tapped, exactly what I'm hoping for in a tomme, in taste and texture.  So, I'm bummed to have to beat up the wheel, with so much micro-carving of what is a beautifully developing rind. 

C'est la vie.  Just some data points for others, if it's useful.

And a circuitous way back to asking, would you mind either posting once again the warming "trick" you mentioned, to seal the tomme rind and make it smooth at the conclusion of the make, or pointing, if you recall, where you made the post? 

Thanks, Pav.

Paul

[linuxboy]

Yes, the trick is to create a temp gradient, or outright warm the curd when you're forming it. After you pack it under whey, and plop the entire curd chunk in your cloth-lined mold, it should have all sorts of surface pits and imperfections.

Take the mold, fold the cloth over, put the follower on top, and put the entire thing in hot whey, or hot water. About 110-115F hot. You want it to be hot enough to really create curd fusion, but not so hot that you dehydrate the curd excessively. The temp gradient will also create a slight moisture gradient - the outer layer will be more dry. Not a huge deal unless you really hold it in the water for a long time. It actually helps a little with rind formation when done right.

Anyway, you plop the entire mold in the hot water or whey, and then pour more hot water into the recesses of the mold follower, on top. Press by hand, press really firmly. You can even press unevenly, one corner at a time, making 1/8 turns. Press down and squeeze and really embed the cloth into the surface. Unwrap, flip, repeat, unwrap, flip, repeat, until it looks done. Make sure you soak the cloth in whey beforehand.

What you're doing here is a hybrid technique. It's the approach used for large comte and alpine styles, but they use a huge screw press, and really hot curd, and a huge wheel. Here, wheel is smaller, and needs less weight. But, the curd isn't really hot enough to do it properly, so you have to warm it up some. But not warm it up enough to dry it too much or lose fat. As soon as you have the impression of the cloth, wrap it in cloth one more time, and put a slight weight on the mold (10 lbs or so). Should be good to go, you'll get a great cheese. Even if the edges will have wrinkles, it'll be OK because there are no fractures to the inside, so if something like a blue grows, you can rub and scrape it off. The worst is when you have fractures inside, and the mold gets into the crevices, and it's a blue mold.

The other option is to keep all the surface imperfections, but use a rind blend that gives you a full, candidum, or thick geo mat in 1-3 days after the make. That will protect against unwanted molds through competition. If you do this, keep humidity 95-98, and high O2 exchange, then cut the humidity back to 80-85 to slow things down, and then knock back the growth and start layering morge on top of the mycelium mat. This type is a very tricky rind to do, have seen many commercial makers fail at it, would not recommend for beginners. But great when done right.

[ArnaudForestier]

Great, thanks Pav. 

The worst is when you have fractures inside, and the mold gets into the crevices, and it's a blue mold.

This is where some have showed up - some of the openings are like funnels or conical shapes, ending in tight fissures or pinpoint holes; and it's here where some of the blue has shown up.  To really get it out and make a smooth "crater", I had to make a pretty substantial divot, this time.  Lessons learned. 

...use a rind blend that gives you a full, candidum, or thick geo mat in 1-3 days after the make.

Are you distinguishing p. candidum from geo, here? In other words, blend in some p. candidum or geo, to get the thick mat? 

Something I'm intrigued by (somewhere in the Dixon journals, I think) is the idea of doing an orderly succession of flora, myself, as opposed to inoculating everything at once in the make-milk, and in the wash blend, and just letting them fight it out.  In other words, trying a succession of DH or KL, then Geo, then P. candidum (as I understand the geo can keep the P. candidum in check), then the corynebacteria. 

[linuxboy]

depends on the strain of geo and candidum. Can use both or alone. Point is to create a growth, a physical mat that is dug into the cheese, then kill that off or slow it down, then wash over that, and then manage the rind.

too much work for me to micromanage rinds by inoculating and reinoculating. I wash over, let them figure it out the succession. Different ways about it. Often, harder to micromanage than making small adjustments and seeing the result of the adjustment. There's usually a lag period of 2-5 days between doing something and seeing any outcome.

[ArnaudForestier]

Thanks, Pav.  So basically allow the mat and brush back, or hit with a higher-salt (6-10%?) brine, to die-back, then hit with your normal wash and washing routine (say, go back to the 3% PLA/Myco.)?

Hear you on the micro-work, and my instincts tell me that not only will it be very hard to manage, but will likely lead to a lesser result - so often, it seems, the gap between the desired micro-management and the ability to truly do it means nature itself proves Occam's razor (which I think is what you're saying).  I think I'd like to try it sometime, just as a sacrificial experiment, to really look at stages, if I could achieve something like "stages" in any realistic way.

[linuxboy]

I like humidity controls better than salt here. I like the mat to dry out and be stuck to the cheese. Think of it like paint. Instead of painting the cheese like you do for dutch types (PVA paint with nat), you let nature do the painting and grow a second skin everywhere. Then when you have the skin, do what you need. Rather tricky to do.

[Boofer]

Another excellent, practical tip to file in the techniques folder.

Thanks, linuxboy.

-Boofer-

[ArnaudForestier]

OK, great.  I know you're slammed, so will let this go until you get a chance as I know you're busy and I think I'm going to try for a patterned, but sealed rind (folks, I'm thinking of something like Consider Bardwell's tommes, 2:20 on).

However - if and when you get the chance, Pav - when I think of trying to control geo with humidity, I think of upping the RH to allow linens to take hold, not drying it out; unless we're talking literally about a physical drying out process, dropping the RH down to 70-75-80% (?) for a period, so you now have a mycelia-"rooted" mat, anchored well into the cheese, but then one no longer flying along at an optimal clip.  Is this what you mean?  Get your bloomy or geo mat, then dry it out for a period of days at, say, 75%RH, then begin regular washing routine?

[linuxboy]

Is this what you mean?

Yes, it is. Second skin. Possible to do it the other way you mentioned, too, but that's even more tricky to time the cascades of growth. If you don't dry it out, what you have is a poor bond of the mycelium to the cheese, and then if you layer morge on top of it, you'll get slip skin. Really do not recommend anyone try this until you master at least a basic PLA wash and understand how your specific strains work together.

Also, the closed rind approach I detailed works for many cheeses, not just tomme/toma styles. I've said here maybe a dozen times that you don't need a cheese press for most cheeses when making cheese, and that's one way you can achieve an excellent appearance and proper rind without a press.

[ArnaudForestier]

Thanks very much, Pav. 

Everyone, heading out of town for a week, and doing a tomme with these thoughts and techniques in mind on my return.  Just wanted to thank Pav for all his help, and otherwise say to everyone, have a great week.

Paul

[ArnaudForestier]

Just wanted to add something else, and I guess as Iratherfly and I were discussing milk earlier, this is as good a place to mention it as elsewhere.

A neighbor highly recommended Castle Rock organic milk, a creamline.  She said that whenever she gets it, it's actually so fresh that the cream hasn't separated out.  Just called our local carrier.  They said they place their order Sunday, the cows are milked Monday, and the milk comes in on Wednesday.  They're available in Minn., WI and Ill. (sorry, for non Midwesterners).  FYI.

[iratherfly]

That sounds great Paul! Also getting the milk within 48 hours when there are still about 12 days of freshness left on it is great. You will see what difference it makes!

By the way, the cream separation and floating to the top happens because the milk is cooled down below the cow body temp and fat just flows and becomes harder in cooler temperature.  In homogenized milk it doesn't happen because the fat have been crushed down and emulsified into the milk, kind of like egg, vinegar and oil making mayonnaise -never to part ways again.

[OudeKaas]

I finally tried the goat's milk cheese I posted about earlier in this thread. It's so different than I anticipated that I almost wonder if I ought to put this somewhere else! Anyhow, it's about 90 days old now, and I had washed the rind with a slurry made from some different cheeses, including some stinky ones. I didn't start washing until about 2 weeks in and the rind was very slow to come up and never covered the whole cheese. From early on I was concerned it would be too dry.

Well, as you can see, that is in fact the case. Texture-wise it's more like an Italian-style hard cheese and it is too dry and brittle to even slice easily. It tastes alright - neutral and a little waxy with increasing goatiness into the finish and some salt. I wouldn't think there was anything off about it if I ate it and did not know what had been intended. The thin orangy-brown rind is probably the most interesting part of the cheese, with a nutty/savory quality to it and some more complexity.

Anyhow, so this was my first effort using the tomme recipe. I have some more variants coming down the pipeline after this too.