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Brinza Cheese Making Recipe

Started by giacommo, August 29, 2008, 01:57:17 PM

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giacommo

does anyone have a recipe for making Brinza cheese. The Romanian way.
Thanks

Tea

Good morning Giacommo, and welcome to the board.  I have never heard of brinza, or seen a recipe for it.  Would it have another name perhaps that we might be more familiar with?  What does it look like.
Hope someone can help you.

Cheese Head

Morning giacommo and welcome to this forum, I've never heard of this cheese, had a quick search on www:

  • This site says it's a sheep's milk based cheese also spelt as Brynza which is similar to feta but less salty.
  • This site has a short discussion with people saying it's basically a feta type cheese.
  • This site also calls it Zefatit Cheese.
  • This site has a very expensive book on making different Feta type cheeses including Brinza.
From my quick look I think Brinza is the Romanian word for Cheese, as it's very similar to feta you could try one of those recipes and play with it including use a lighter brine or less salting until you get the flavour and texture you want. There are several Feta recipes posted in this forum and several pictures from Tea who makes a beautiful Feta Cheese.

Let us know how it turns out!

Tea

Thanks Ch for that information.  It probably would need to be made from sheep milk to retain the original flavour, but the addition of lipase is supposed to recreate something of those flavours.
The recipe that I use allows for a variant of between 12-15% brine solution.  If lowering further I wonder what the keeping time of it would be?

giacommo

thanks, but there is a big difference un the texture of feta and brinza cheeses. Brinza contains many air holes it it while Feta is a solid piece of cheese.

Cheese Head

giacommo, took a picture of Brinza in local store here in Houston yesterday, shows holes . . .

DeejayDebi

Dall'animale ai suoi prodotti il passaggio di denominazione è facile e Alessio (1968) ha segnalato che la denominazione originaria di cervo (bre) è connessa con il nome di formaggi tipo sbrinz (lombardo), brenza (italiano antico), brinza (rumeno), Primsen (tedesco) evidentemente prodotti, all'origine, con latte di cerva.

One of my recent translations

Alessio (1968) has marked that the original denomination of red deer (bre) is connected with the cheese name type sbrinz (Lombardic), brenza (Italian ancient), brinza (Rumanian), Primsen (German) evidently produced, to the origin, with latte of cerva.

Branzi Cheese
is part of the family of derived from Emmenthal (Swiss) and having the same characteristics of other Alpine cheeses like "Britto Valtellinese", "Fontina from Val Of Aosta", "Montasio" from the northeast region of Friuli, and "Swiss Sbrinz -  a cheese between antichi and typical of the Orobie

Ingredients:
whole or partially skimmed cow's milk. In previous times, goat or sheep milk was also added.
TA 61
Proprionibacteria 50
Calf Rennet

Procedure:
Warm milk to 95-98.6 °F.
Add cultures and ripen for 30 minutes.
Add rennet wait 34 to 45 minutes for clean break then cut into 1/4 inch pieces - rest for 10 minutes.
Using a whisk cut up into rice like pieces.
Slowly raise the temperature to  113 °F over a 25 minutes period stirring to prevent matting.
Allow the curds to settle to the bottom for about 5 minutes.
Drain and place curds into cheesecloth lined molds. Traditionally made of wood.
Lightly press cheeses with 2 pounds of weight for 15 minutes, flip cheese and press again. Increase weight to 10 pounds, press for 1 hour flip and press overnight.
Remove from molds and allow to air dry at room temperature for 1 hour.
Brine cheese in 1 gallon water to 1 pound of cheese for 24 hours.
Allow cheeses to air dry until dry to the touch. Age at 50° and 85 to 90% humidity.
Cheese must be washed and brushed in brine and turned frequently to develop a nice brownish rind.
Age for 1 to 2 months for a soft delicate cheese, 6 to 7 months for a slight picante' cheese or more than a year for a really  dry cheese.
"Cheese to semicooked paste, of cylindrical form.
Diameter: 15-19 inches.
Weight: varied from the 20 to 24 pounds.
Barefoot: lateral to "V" slightly concave, it is high 3.5 inches.
Crust: it smooths down, thin and elastic of vanished yellow color.
Paste: soft of color yellow paglierino.
Occhiatura: thin, regular and driven in.
Sapore: delicate cake and; with the aging he turns out marked, tending to the piccante.
Aroma: characterized from the essences present vegetables in forages."



In order to produce this cheese the coagulation of the latte ones to the temperature of 95-98.6 °F is necessary with the addition of liquid rennet of year-old calf, for a duration of 30-35 minutes. I coagulate obtained must then be broken, obtaining caseosi lumps of small dimensions.
Successively the curd must be made to scaldare to a temperature of 113 °F. In order to obtain a good result it is necessary to stir the product with the traditional small wheel or agitators.
Once that I coagulate has been deposited on the bottom, it is passed to the extraction of the curd, to deposit successively in the appropriate containers of wood.
In order to complete the working generally carried out procedure for pickling brine is passed to the pressatura and the salt out of the completed product

"Cheese to semicooked paste, of cylindrical form.
Diameter: 15-19 inches.
Weight: varied from the 20 to 24 pounds.
Barefoot: lateral to "V" slightly concave, it is high 3.5 inches.
Crust: it smooths down, thin and elastic of vanished yellow color.
Paste: soft of color yellow paglierino.
Occhiatura: thin, regular and driven in.
Sapore: delicate cake and; with the aging he turns out marked, tending to the piccante.
Aroma: characterized from the essences present vegetables in forages."

"The maturation is fundamental for the quality of the cheese and happens in climatizzati atmospheres, with temperature and humidity controlled. The forms come rivoltate weekly, cleaned up with brushes and rasps and dealt in order protect the crust.

Time of stagionatura: 60 days for the fresh product, from 6 to 7 months for that seasoned one till more than a year for the stravecchio.
Maturation: atmosphere with temperature between the 46 and 48°F approximately and humidity 90%.
"

Cheese Head

Debi, the procedure you posted for making Branzi cheese looks great but has the cheese being brine salted and then dried and turned while aging to develop a brown rind. This site shows a cheese similar to your recipe.

The picture above had no rind and was in a brine package located amongst the Feta Cheeses which fits with the links in my post above saying that it is a brine preserved cheese similar to the more globally popular Feta.

Alex

Branzi cheese has nothing to do with Brinza. John, the cheese in your pics is the rellevant one, I was born in Roumania.

DeejayDebi

Sorry I tried. This recipe claims they are all the same.

Cheese Head

No problemo, keep them coming, interesting recipe, too mnay cheeses not enough time ;D.

DeejayDebi


DeejayDebi

One of the guys I work with is married to a Romanian gal. Her Mom and Dad were just here for a month and brought with them home made Brinza cheese. He brought me in a chunk. Sour with a texture similar to mozzarella. I didn't care for it but I did get some instructions for making it.

To make it you have to take a baby goat as soon as it finishes feeding from the mommy goat and kill it. You take the milk it just ate and use it to make the cheese. You put the baby goat on a spit and roast it while the milk you just collected gets put into a pail with new milk. Heat the milk to about 32 degrees for 1 hour. Apparrently this will acidify and coagulate the milk in about 1 hour. Then cut the curds to baout walnut size, and cook for 1/2 hour. He didn't say how l warm. Then you twist the bag and hang the curds in a bag until it stops dripping and chill.


I don't think I will be making this any time soon.

Here's the cheese.

Alex

This should be an early and primitive way of making this cheese. I'll guess that the reason to feed and kill the kid for useing the freshly eaten milk is, as rennet is extracted from a kid's stomach, this is some shortcut to have rennetted milk LOL.

DeejayDebi

Poor baby goat ....  :'(

Apparently from what I gather these people live in the middle of nowhere and they live in an area where it's like the 1950's. They are farmers of some sort and very primitive but very nice and very hard working.