I am contemplating using ginger to flavor and I was wondering if anyone has tried this. If so what is the best form of ginger to use? Powder? Fresh chopped? Crystalized? Thoughts on this?
I wouldn't use fresh, unless perhaps you boil it to sterilize it before adding to the cheese curd. And the sugar in the crystallized might cause some other issues, by adding sugar available for fermentation to the cultures in the cheese. (my guess)
When I want to experiment with adding ingredients to a cheese, I usually use a Queso Fresco---this is a fresh cheese, you can eat in a day or two----so you don't have to wait for months to find out if the idea is good or bad---it won't keep long---it's not to hard to make---I've come up with some good combos with this cheese---which I then incorporated into other types of cheese. New England has a recipe that works pretty good. http://www.cheesemaking.com/recipes/recipedetails.html (http://www.cheesemaking.com/recipes/recipedetails.html)
Qdog
Qdog, a great suggestion, and AC4U as a thank-you.
What about using Asian pickled ginger?
Thanks for the suggestions ya'll. I live in a country where I am not going to be able to find pickled ginger unfortunately.
Crystallised sounds fun.
You may get problems using fresh grated ginger. Yeast loves it and you'll probably end up with a wild yeast or two in your cheese.
Crystallised, washed in boiling water to remove the excess sugar and sterilise?
Alternatively, pickled ginger isn't all that difficult to make, if you can get your hands on fresh ginger and rice vinegar. There's an easy-to-follow how-to on YouTube, or you can google the recipe.
Fresh ginger will defiantly have a lot of yeast , they make ginger soda with it just by naturally fermenting it in sugar water.
My guess is that it would make a tastier rind rub , rather than mixed inside.