Naughty Doggies

[mcbethenstein]

Sometime today, either my parents dog, Buddy, or my Brother's dog, Serena....got into my cheese. A 7 gallon batch of Gruyere. My question to the experts...Should I salvage this or chuck it. Take a look at the damage. Sorry the photos are so bad, they're from my iphone... it was the only camera close by. As of right now, I wiped the cheese down with vinegar/salt solution and cut off the parts the dog got to. Should I chuck the rest?
Tomorrow I'm taking a furlough day off, I think I'll make another big batch anyway, but I'm still mad at the dogs...they were both guilty looking.

[Sailor Con Queso]

If it hasn't developed much of a rind yet, I would just try to re-press and see what happens.

[linuxboy]

Oh my goodness.. the exact same thing happened to me last week, with two out of three wheels I made. Well, I just cut off the damage, doused the cheeses in alcohol, and then lit the alcohol for good measure. I figure that should have killed any contaminants on the surface.

I think you'll be okay with a vinegar/salt solution, too. I'd keep and let age.

[mcbethenstein]

Thanks guys.
It was only from Friday, so it was still drying, they snatched it off a table in the basement and tried to carry it upstairs, but it was too heavy, so I found it at the bottom of the stairs. I did cut off the damage, and rubbed cheese salt onto the new cuts, AND put it up high to dry! I'm just so disappointed that now I have a lopsided cheese! Oh well, I was looking on here at others Gruyere posts and I see the p. shermanii is in a few of the recipes. It wasn't in the recipe I tried from 200 easy Homemade Cheeses.  I think tomorrows attempt will include it.

[linuxboy]

I posted a gruyere recipe on here, and Francois schooled me and pointed out that a small amount of shermanii was added to makes done in the traditional style. I've started to incorporate it, too, but have to age longer to tell what difference it's made in the final cheese.

Good luck!

Check out https://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,1376.0.html for a pic of similar hijinks involving a dog .

[mcbethenstein]

It would appear that Buddy was the culprit and has developed a taste for freshly pressed cheese. Friday I made a 3 gallon batch of yellow cheddar, a 4 gal batch of white cheddar and a 7 gallon Colby Jack, and it appears as though buddy tried to pull the cheeses out of the press! There are bite marks on the dowels...and the cheesecloth is ripped a little. Good thing there was 120lbs on the Colby jack and 90 on each of the Cheddar's. Although the yellow cheddar is pretty lopsided...maybe from me not centering well enough or from buddy pulling it off center!

[wharris]

Somehow when I press, there is never any whey left in the pan.........

[DeejayDebi]

Oh my! Cheese thieves! You may have to find a higher place to press your cheeses from now on. Looks like buddy has found out what's inside the presses!

[linuxboy]

I think I inadvertently gave my dog a taste for cheese by giving her fresh whey. I figured the fresh bacteria and protein remnants would be tasty. Apparently, they were really tasty .

I have another dog story for you. My dog has almost never stolen food, she's really well behaved. One time, we all left at the house and nobody fed her in the morning. We also left a covered plate of muffins out, because, well, she never steals, right?

We came back, and all the muffins were gone, and the dog was nowhere to be found. We looked around and found a guilty-looking dog curled up in a corner of the living room. Then we came back to the kitchen and saw the butter was also completely gone. She went for broke. I mean, what are muffins without some butter?

[DeejayDebi]

Aw poor staving baby. She knew she did wrong and was ashamed. Good dog!

[MrsKK]

I sorted laundry, and left the whites (along with some used cheesecloth) in the basket while I took another load to the basement to wash.  when I came back upstairs, my dachshund took off running, leaving behind a cheesecloth with a roughly six inch hole in it.

I squirted peroxide down his throat to get him to bring it back up, as I was really worried about what all that fabric would do to his digestive system.

I now keep the cheesecloth way up high after I've used it, too.

[mtncheesemaker]

My Jack Russell, Betsey, got into a ripening box that I left on a low table, and ate a whole camembert. She left the other 3 on the floor but I pitched them out. They were molding perfectly, too.

[handyface]

My 2 cats Toast & Marmite managed to consume about a kilo of curds which were draining for a camenbert before I noticed!

I have to take extra precautions now whenever i'm making cheese, as they seem to think the smell of curds & whey (especially boiling whey) means food time!