Raging Bitch

[Lancer99]

I hope this is the appropriate forum for this . . . curds soaked in beer, and cheeses wiped most days with ale brine.

The Bitch after a couple of weeks:



Daily washed with:



A couple of others that I tried, one with Rochefort and one with Guinness, now two months old:





Both good.  Both needed salt!  Both re-wrapped and I'll try them again in a few months.



Thanks,
-L

[MacGruff]

Those look fantastic!

Can I come over for some?   

AC4U!

[Lancer99]

Surely, Pittsy is only a few hours from DC.

And I have 4 or 5 cheeses ready for their first tasting.  You can be my first victim!

-L

[Lancer99]

After three months of aging, time to cut dat bitch (sorry, got a bit gangsta).

Looks promising:







The paste was very dense, almost crumbly, so impossible to get a clean cut.



But, you ask, how did it taste?

Excellent!  Very mild, but perfect balance of lactic and (finally!) salt, nice texture.  Very very happy with this - - I've had a lucky streak with my cheeses lately.  And, unless it's my imagination, you can taste the bitch.



-L

[mikekchar]

Wow.  Another beautiful looking cheese.  It's interesting that it was crumbly and yet the sides of the cheese are slightly slumped.  I guess you took it out of the mold and left it a while before salting?  That's the only thing I can think of because normally you have to have a fairly high pH to get that slumping and you need the low pH to get the crumbly.

[Lancer99]

I followed Ms. Karlin's recipe, with some minor changes ( and of couse, mistakes ).  It is washed-curd, so the pH didn't really go down from the initial 6.74.

I forgot to add the salt to the curds, so brined it instead.

I don't know if I described the paste well, it's not hard like a Parmesan, rather "springy, " if that makes sense.

As for the almost-crumbliness, at one point I accidentally heated the curds to 108 (instead of 100), so the curds didn't mat, and I had to press them at 20 pounds (instead of eight) to get a good knit.  Could that be the cause?

Thanks,
-L

[m4rek]

Congrats. Yummy looking cheese!