P'Tit Basque Pur Brebis recipe sought

[hippycrunchy]

We just tried an excellet Sheep Cheese and we would like to find a recipe to make this cheese our self, the cheese is called
P'Tit Basque Pur Brebis; This is a Basque Cheese from the French Pyrenees. We are interested in making this cheese here in Colorado.
Can anyone help us? we could use the help we are a small homestead that is just getting started and could use some of help.

[linuxboy]

Do you have access to sheep milk?

[hippycrunchy]

Yes we just purchased 3 Clun Forest ewes, and a ram

[linuxboy]

Oh, then just use my tomme recipe. It's the general, all-purpose starting point for several hundred commercial cheeses.

https://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,1591

Except it is a higher moisture cheese than many tommes (they are selling water with less aging), so start at 95F and do not cook the curds, and also for the culture, add 1/16 tsp thermo C or similar (ST+LH or straight LH adjunct) per gallon in addition to the 4001. It's made like a commercial manchego using pasteurized milk and thermo+meso culture, but not aged for very long, maybe 70 days. The taste is very mild; it's supposed to be an introduction to sheep cheese for people who don't like aged flavor. You can control the moisture content by not cooking the curds and by cutting the curds to a bigger size.

[hippycrunchy]

Thank you

[CheeseSnipe]

Hippy, I too just discovered this cheese today. It was awesome. Did you have any luck making a clone? What part of Colorado are you in?

[ArnaudForestier]

...add 1/16 tsp thermo C or similar (ST+LH or straight LH adjunct) per gallon in addition to the 4001.

Pav, asked about this in a reblochon thread, as well.  Don't suspect it's for stabilization; what's the specific role of this thermo/thermo blend in a meso make - peptide breakdown? 

[linuxboy]

OK, so in terms of all the thermo mixes:

- ST adds body, acidification, and some flavor
- LH adds protein breakdown, bitterness control, and flavor

This is a predominantly meso make. You're selling water with fat for flavor, adjuncted with proteases designed to make the young cheese tolerable. That's the point of the blend, to make the young cheese sellable, similar to pasteurized manchego.

Goal is to mirror a raw milk make by using cultures for flavor.

[ArnaudForestier]

OK, so in lieu of the LH, with just meso cocci, in a young cheese, you'd tend to end up with more "offending" peptide intermediates, and thus tend to more bitterness, as one issue, yes, and LH can help with this, by its aminopeptidase action? 

[linuxboy]

With most commercial cultures, yes. They're designed for acidification (most of them), not for flavor. If you use raw milk, it tends to take care of the flavor formation through NSLAB. Honestly, it's a case by case basis, but overall, what you said is true in terms of a general trend.

[Tomer1]

How would one convert the tomme recipe for raw milk?  Follow acidity development "check points" ?

[ArnaudForestier]

With most commercial cultures, yes. They're designed for acidification (most of them), not for flavor. If you use raw milk, it tends to take care of the flavor formation through NSLAB. Honestly, it's a case by case basis, but overall, what you said is true in terms of a general trend.

Fantastic, thanks, Pav.  I was wondering why one would want Thermo C in a reblochon, but that clears it up.  I have to find a source for raw milk....

[linuxboy]

No huge conversion necessary (in terms of pH), unless you want to use native strains. If you do use native strains, the recipe stands, but the inoculation differs. You either use no inoculant, and rely on chance (difficult to do, but easier in summer), use whey backsplashes (prone to phage and other issues), or use autochthonous culture (what most DOP/AOC producers do), or, adjust the pitch rate based on your milk.

The biggest thing is in terms of inoculation rate. With raw milk, you have to know your milk. If your raw milk is really clean, you need to inoculate at the same rate as pasteurized because it will have little bacteria. If not, then adjust the pitch rate to accommodate the flora. Hard for me to tell what you should do. In general, my milk is clean, so for raw milk, I pitch at 0.5-0.75% bulk equivalent. Milk that has more lactic bacteria needs less.

[linuxboy]

Reblochon is special. It's kind of a cross between a hard cheese and a mold ripened cheese. You get good proteolysis (and flavor), and yet less water than a cam, so more stability. ST adds stabilization in a reblochon. Water content and rind has a LOT to do with final flavor and the way culture works.  And in reblochon, LH is mostly for bitterness control, because you have really rapid proteolysis from the rind, so the LH helps.

[ArnaudForestier]

Thanks, Pav.  Should have said, when I first read about it in the reblochon thread, had no idea on the stabilization properties of strep in a meso make, but even as of today, though I've skimmed the proteolytic props of LH, etc, hadn't yet put 2 and 2 together in terms of LH furthering the peptide breakdown for young cheeses.  Thanks again, really interesting.