Ste-Maure, Cow vs Goat

Lancer99 · February 01, 2020, 02:35:55 AM

This was my first try at a Ste.-Maure-type cheese, and I was worried about the tall and skinny molds, which the site I took the recipe from (cheesemaking.com) made seem really scary and likely to fall over if you just looked sideways at them, not far from the truth:

And I've had some failures with lactic-coagulated cheeses - - think cheese soup.

Based on Caldwell's recipe, I used Aroma B and two skewer tips of Geo. candidum (but no Pen. candidum), and four drops of calf rennet. At 24 hours:

The curd was really soft. Just putting a spoon into the pot broke it:

It was obvious from the beginning that there was something wrong with the recipe, in terms of volume . . . a gallon of water is 231 cubic inches, and a 2" diameter X 8" in length mold holds about 25 cubic inches . . . a gallon of curd ain't gonna go into two molds, so I had to skewer/sanitize some plant pots:

Only by moving really slowly could I get the bent spoon into the pot without breaking the curds, then had to steady the mold with one finger while carefully pouring the curds from the spoon. Still, the curds sometimes broke, and escaped:

Even with the plant pots, there was far more than could fit into the molds. First lesson learned: I assumed that after 18-24 hours, lactic coagulation was done. But because it took like six hours until I could finally get the last of the curd into the molds, I found out that at the end (30 hours or so), the curd was much solider and easy to work with.

After 24 hours:

Boiled for 20 minutes then dried in the oven for 20 minutes, so the straws should be okay!

This post is already longer than I intended & I haven't even gotten to the goat!

The goat milk was raw, so I pasteurized it with the low temp method, then it was treated in the same way (temp/time) as the cow milk. The goat curd was smaller and more solid, and had drawn away from edges of the pot more:

And there was much more of a clean break:

Because the goat curd was smaller in terms of volume, it fit into the two molds, with just one extra plant pot. After 18 hours, here's one:

Nice goat logs!

Kept at about 50-52 degrees and 90-ish% humidity, three weeks after the cow milk (right) was done:

A little worried about the cow – some of that mold looks a little too moldy:

Now, one month after the cow, and three weeks after the goat:

Time to taste!

Goat (left) is unsurprisingly pretty firm. Cow (right) is pretty soft, and the paste near the rind is starting to goop out, so much so that after a few minutes I had to wrap it and put it in the fridge:

The cow was better than I expected. I'm not usually a fan of lactic (cow) cheeses, but this had a nice balance with something resembling depth. The goat was, well, goat — a nice tang, but not enough, and some chalkiness, but too much. I think that's just 'cause it's too young, and I expect it to get better. I'll try them both again in two weeks (less for the cow if it all falls out of the rind!)