monks cheese washed with calvados

[broombank]

I thought I would post on this here after a long thread in the wrong place which veered off the track into whisky ! I wanted to report for the record that my Monks Cheese ( cheesemaking.com) steeped in Calvados has been work in progress. I had three cheeses - the first I steeped in a Calvados solution diluted to 10% ABV as per instructions in Giaclinis Caldwell's book - 12 hours per side - 24 hours in all. It took on the flavour but was rather bitter and the cheese became slippery and soft. The second I did the same way but with the addition of honey to reduce the bitterness plus a teaspoon of Calcium Chloride and a tablespoon of vinegar as per instructions from Gavin Webber to prevent leaching of Calcium. It was a huge improvement but the concentration of Calvados was not as much as I would like. The third which I am yet to eat was neat Calvados with the honey/CaCl/vinegar additions. It is clear that the Calvados stains the paste right through. This whole process could be regarded as a great extravagance but I am trying to replicate an artisan cheese I had served to me in a hotel in Normandy 20 years ago and have never forgotten. It requires a container only slightly bigger than the cheese and about 100ml of Calvados. Cheap brands on sale in France are more than adequate.  After soaking it needs to be air dried until dry to the touch and then wrapped in cheese paper and returned to a cold fridge foe further maturation. Very pleased with the result so far. The other post on this subject was 8th June under Shropshire Blue in the Blue cheese postings

[broombank]

rather amazingly the extra strong Calvados mixture failed to enter the cheese pate despite being steeped in it for 24 hours. Does anyone have a possible explanation for that ? I wonder if the gradient is wrong and it actually needs to be 10% to penetrate. I have now steeped it in a lower concentration to see if that corrects it. The star of the show is the one which I steeped in 10% with added honey vinegar and CaCl3 - it is improving with more age but the flavour is great. Moral - stop when you're ahead.