Hi All,
I'm a new cheese around here...
I tasted a Mutschli today, the initial taste was very creamy and pleasant, but the after-taste was bitter and rather unpleasant. I am not experienced with cheese, but it just seemed like it shouldn't taste that way... how should Mutschli taste??
Thanks a lot,
;D
Welcome to the Forum. An Internet search turns up the following:
Mutschli is a traditional semi-hard Swiss cheese, characterized by a smooth texture and nutty flavor.
Now you can find a local version of this Scandanavian treat – a sweet, nutty farmstead raw cow's milk cheese from Pleasant Valley Dairy, where artisan cheese makers make a limited supply (roughly 130 lbs) of cheeses per year. The cheese has a flaky, delicate texture that makes it great for melting and crumbling over salad.
Lots of times you can search for information about a cheese right here. It did and here is what I turned up:
https://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,11416.0.html
(https://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,11416.0.html)
He is a picture of this cheese: http://www.fribourgregion.ch/en/le-mutschli.html (http://www.fribourgregion.ch/en/le-mutschli.html)
I'd say based upon the above and your description that you got some bad cheese. It should finish with a sweet, nutty taste. :-[
Hi and thanks for your reply!
Yes, I did those same searches before posting and did find that exact description actually. The forum posts I found about Mutschli didn't provide any in depth insight about the taste. It's just that I truly am inexperienced when it comes to cheese tasting. I thought maybe it's like coffee and you have to acquire a taste for it?? But the initial taste and mouth feel were very good, so the bitterness was surprising. The rind is reddish/golden, so I thought the bitterness might be from the mold or something.
I didn't see that forum link you found tho, thanks.
So, there should be no bitterness, what might that be caused by?
A forum entry I found said that bitterness can be caused by too much rennet, but that entry was not specifically about Mutschli. Any other potential reasons??
I would like to be able to analyze this flavor since I'd like to make it in the future, plus provide advise to the person who made it (who doesn't speak/read English).
Thanks again!
Too much rennet can cause bitterness. Too much acid (low pH) can cause sourness.
I'm curious. You are the first person I've seen on the Forum from Japan. I am a huge fan of Japanese cuisine but I can't ever remember seeing cheese or many milk based products associated with Japanese cuisine. What causes you to be interested in cheese? Your writing suggests that you might be an American living in Tokyo. So, tell us a little about yourself.
Your assertion is correct! I grew-up in Tacoma, Washington, moved to Portland, Oregon for college and moved to Tokyo after my Master's degree.
Japanese cuisine is certainly up there with the best, but dairy products are not in their recent history, although maaaaaany years back, cheese was probably made for the "elite."
Now days, cheese consumption is increasing, and the Japanese palette is becoming more and more willing to try new things when it comes to cheese. The ex-pat community is certainly always ready to eat cheese however ;)
Being American, the move to Tokyo proved to cause an immediate hole in our diet - cheese certainly is an important food (although my repertoire was very limited), unless you wanted to pay an arm, leg and liver for the imported varieties. After awhile, my husband, knowing the resourceful type that I am, asked if I could make cheese. So I decided to take it slow and see if I enjoyed it. And, that's the story of making cheese in Tokyo. I started out with mozzorella and cream cheese, with great results, then moved on to Butterkase because I'd never heard of it before, sounded delicious and it was classed in the Beginner cheeses at cheesemaking.com. I've got my 4th and 5th Butterkase in the "cellar" now - but I learned a ton about washed rind cheese from the forums yesterday (I was happy to confirm my habit of "smearing" - as I call it - as a good one - the directions on cheesemaking.com seemed to be saying to wash away the slime, but after my third cheese, I thought that can't be quite right, so I started smearing it around and was happy to read that in general, washed rinds are indeed cared for in this way). So I'll keep trying to master Butterkase for awhile (I've got some German families with their tastebuds peeled, and doing some taste testing), but hubbie is still waiting for the Cheddar, so that is on the very near horizon.
I recently bought a 6 gallon pot... that was exciting, haha ;D
But, I'm paying about $13/gal for low temp, pasteurized milk -- the US and Japan have some kind of not-so-great trade deal that shoots up the feed costs for cows in Japan -- little, by, little though, Artisan cheesemakers are sprouting up and some have their own cows in the mountains. I'm trying to meet other cheese-minded people where I can, although my Japanese isn't great yet.
So, thank you all for the copious amounts of information that I am silently gleaning - cheeses to you all, haha, although I haven't figured out how to do that yet ::)
And as I gain experience, of course I'd be happy to contribute to the community here as well!
Mutschli can have a variety of flavors, depending on who made it and how they aged it, etc.
Bitterness is most likely a result of the bacteria. Mutschli is made at fairly low temperatures, and so it is not outside of the realm of possibility for bitterness causing bacteria to populate it. I use a stronger rennet concentration than is customary in the US. All Swiss cheesemakers do. Thus I am highly skeptical of the claims of too much rennet causing bitterness.
Usually a mutschli will have a soft buttery taste with some similarities to cheddar, some similarities to a cheese like Gruyere.
Mutschli is NOT nutty. It is not aged long enough to develop this flavor. It is mildly sweet but mostly buttery. It's flavor is very mild, making it a good cheese to add flavors to through special washes, mixed in herbs, etc. Appenzeller is basically Mutschli, with a special wash treatment giving it its unique flavor.
Mutschli is really just a general classification of a soft low temperature cooked cheese in Switzerland. It's mostly a Bernese thing, but today is widespread throughout the country.
Also, Switzerland is not in Scandinavia. It's in Central Europe.
Thank you very much Alpkäserei ~~
I have to say that the bitterness was definitely stronger near the rind and the bitter smell would stay on my hands after handling the cheese - the bitter taste also stuck around - I'm really interested in figuring this out, since I'd like to pass on the advice to the maker and I can taste a very good cheese behind the bitterness - I hate to waste good cheese!
Any advice about controlling the unwanted bacteria? Is it visually identifiable? Or only by smell? Does this mean that the rind was not properly formed?
It looks like a nice cheese. Sometimes, if the humidity is a bit high some white moulds will ammoniate the cheese. If you get a whiff of ammonia, then that could be the source of the bitterness. Something near the rind, and sticks to your hands, suggests to me that the issue is related to that. As for too much rennet causing bitterness, I've read this too, but I think it tends to be with the vegetarian rennets, and my recollection of what I've read is that it happens after extended aging. I'm thinking that's not the cause.
Anyway, nice cheese and a cheese to you.
Thanks for the cheese Jeff - but, this is not my cheese!! haha
Anyways I found this paper about bitterness in cheese - specifically bitterness in cheddar and gouda
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00929271/document
I fall farther into the rabbit hole...
Basically, it's saying bitterness could be caused by several things, many of them interacting with one another.
-cow's feed, turnip tops in particular mentioned as a culprit (which is interested because the maker of this cheese does use turnip greens in the winter)
-the presence of psychrotrophic bacteria in the udder/milk, i.e. milk quality
-flash or over-pasteurized milk
-starter quality and strain type
-rennet concentration in relation to milk PH (low PH being positive for bitterness development)
-salt concentration (low salt being positive for bitterness development)
Thanks for your input guys, it definitely helped me in the right direction -- now I just have to decide how to tell the maker that the cheese was unacceptably bitter :'(
Here's (https://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,10901.msg83029.html#msg83029) the links to the Mutschli I did some time back. If your friend would like to do another and control the rind better the washed rind method I used, washed with cognac, worked great.
Thanks Al, that thread was Very helpful. I will also be trying Alps recipe!
A cheese for the input, and to everyone else thus far too! I finally figured out how to do that feature ::)
So, from the pictures above, and with your advice, are you saying that the rind was not properly formed??
One thing from the thread you linked that I found interesting was the aging time period. This cheese, compared to yours in the link, looks like it was aged longer. According to Alp's notes, that's a bad thing in the case of Mutschli. I'll have to find out the age of this cheese.
Quote from: cheesytokyo on July 18, 2015, 07:50:27 AM
Your assertion is correct! I grew-up in Tacoma, Washington, moved to Portland, Oregon for college and moved to Tokyo after my Master's degree.
So, thank you all for the copious amounts of information that I am silently gleaning - cheeses to you all, haha, although I haven't figured out how to do that yet ::)
And as I gain experience, of course I'd be happy to contribute to the community here as well!
I live in Enumclaw, Al is over in Port Orchard and Boofer (an awesome cheesemaker you may have seen on other threads) is down in Parkland, WA, about 10 miles ESE of Tacoma. Small world! ;) One earns cheeses by posting a cheese she has made along with recipes, pictures, etc. (so called cheese porn :o) and other participants are so bowled over and impressed that they click on the "thumbs up" button. Once in awhile someone posts something so earthshaking interesting that another member swoons and awards a cheese. Awarding cheeses are entirely at the discretion of the reader and generally used sparingly to keep their value high. There aren't like Facebook Likes, for example. :P
Actually, my husband grew-up in Enumclaw and his parents still live there, wow ;D
Thanks for the details! Will try to go sparingly on the cheeses - although I do feel so happy about this forum in general, my thanks might melt over sometimes, haha
This IS a great forum - full of tons of information and interesting men and women from all over the world. As you've likely seen by now it has all the aspects of a community. The truly awesome part is the search feature. I hope you've had a chance to try this. Enumclaw, huh? A small world indeed.
I wonder if the b linens on the out side could be the cause of the bitterness , I notice that the riind of my reblochons gets a sort of sharp bitter like taste when they are getting too old . Though I have never had a b linens cheese that is aged a long time I wonder if that bitterness type of flavor could move in towards the center of the cheese .
Maybe alp could answer this.
But I have to say that cheese sure looks good.
Also does the bitterness mellow if melted ?
It does look good!... that's why I'm so motivated to figure this out ;D
Yes, the bitterness does abate a bit when melted.