Reblochon failure

[Lancer99]

All seemed to be going well:



But after a month in the vault, the cheese was very firm, not like I expected, so . . . one month later.

Despite the dry rind (let's not talk about that), seemed promising:





But this was horrible, both bitter and ammoniacal, completely inedible.

I'm pretty sure why it was so bitter.  When I started making cheeses, I used a commercial CaCl solution, but my thrifty self rebelled against paying 100 times more than what CaCl costs just for some added water, so I bought some "pickling spice," and here is where chemistry abandoned me and my inexplicable stupidity starts, started using dry CaCl volume for volume against the standard 32% CaCl solution.

In my defense, I wish cheese recipes would say "calcium chloride 32% solution," not just "calcium chloride."

I know some cheeses go through bitterness, but this is far beyond recoverable.

As for ammoniacal, I should start paying more attention to the advice as to when a cheese is "done," and relying less when I think it's properly soft.

-L

[mikekchar]

Oh, I know this *so* well!  Reblochon is my nemesis cheese (which is why I'm documenting the aging of mine -- failure in the public eye: the best kind of failure ;-) ).

While it may very well be the CaCl, the reblochons that I have made that look like that, taste *exactly* as you have described.  The problem, as far as I can tell it letting the b. linens grow too fast.  I did some experimenting with washing sever butterkase, letting the b. linens go and then putting them in the normal fridge at different times.  By far the best one was the one I put in almost comically early -- it was *just* starting to show a flush.  A reblochon is especially a *mixed rind* cheese.  The ones from the Savoie that I've tasted are nothing like a typical washed rind.  They are buttery, with just a hint of the washed rind flavour.  The rind is pink, with a dusting of geo.

There are a couple of things that I think are important.  First, the ratio of the surface area to the thickness of the cheese.  It has to be quite thin.  For a 12 cm diameter cheese, I think you ideally want to aim at about 2-3 cm in thickness.  If you have a much bigger cheese, you can make it thicker because it's the surface area on the faces that are producing the ammonia.  Getting that balance right is crucial, I think.

Secondly, like a Camembert or Brie (but potentially more so), you need a very cold maturation.  Jim Wallace (my cheese hero ;-) ) says that the famous reblochon affineur that he knows ripens at 3 C!!!  If you ripen faster, you get the ammonia trapped on the outside, but more that that, I think the b. linens rots the cheese.  It starts to turn brown from the outside in (and boy does it taste bad).  It's a super tricky cheese.  You want fairly warm to get the geo going, then you go to cave temps until the b.linens shows up and then after that, bang into the fridge as soon as possible.

Or at least, that's my current theory.  You can follow my thread to see if I'm right ;-)

[Lancer99]

Mike,
I've been following your "build" thread with much interest.  I think this is an excellent idea, and may copy you

I don't have enough experience with washed-rind cheeses to have observed whether or not the "speed of attack" of B. linens has any effect on bitterness.  My only observation is that in the few I've done, there hasn't been any change in bitterness.  My Limburgers are now almost three months old, and while pretty funky, haven't become bitter.

I think you're right about the cold maturation -- at least I'll find out.  I did a munster/ouleout, different cheese though, 9" and maybe 3 cm high ( sorry for the mixed measurements ) and put it in the fridge just after it started to show the B. linens flush.

So we'll see how that goes.

-L

[mikekchar]

Please do copy me :-)  There is so little information about affinage out there.  I think most traditional artisinal makers have their cellars and processes dialed in so much that from their perspective they do "nothing" and it works out :-)  It takes so much time to experiment and learn too, because each cheese takes months.  And then on top of that, if I just do the things myself, I'm in danger of falling into the same trap of dialing in my process for my environment and thinking, "Oh, this is how it works", while being completely wrong.