My first belper knolle, Aged for 2 months but we have been eating it along the way to taste the difference in aging time. My 12 year old daughter prefers it younger (4-5 weeks old), I like it older. I made 2 batches, 1 with garlic and 1 without. The ones with garlic definitely taste so much better.
Here's how I made them, adapted from the recipe on new england cheese making website.
1 gallon of whole milk
Cacl
60 ml Yogurt for the culture. (On the original recipe it calls for chevre culture packet)
A little rennet
1.5 tsp. Himalyan Pink Salt
3 garlic cloves
2 Tbs. Black Peppercorns, toasted and ground.
After adding the cacl, heat the milk to 30C, add yogurt. Mix it up and rest for 30 minutes. Add rennet, rest for 12 hours.
Drain into butter muslin, until it resemble a bread dough consistency. Add salt and garlic. Formed into balls by hand and coat with ground peppercorns. Dry and aged for at least 1 month. I aged mine for 2 months.
Delicious looking. I've though of making these myself. Is there much work required to age these besides sticking them in the cheese cave for a month or two?
No work at all. Just stick it in the fridge and forget about them. Today I saw them as I was taking out my other cheeses. I think this is easiest to make. No hassle, just goodness.
I started a batch of Belper Knolle last evening following the recipe (https://www.cheesemaking.com/BKnolle.html)on the New England Cheese website. Milk was 1 gallon of P&H milk and modifications included using 1/16 tsp of Flora Danica along with 30 grams of lactose. Four drops of single strength rennet were used. The lactose and FD are most likely the ingredients of NEC's chevre (http://www.cheesemaking.com/shop/chevre-ds-culture-5-pack.html) culture. The rennet quantity came from Caldwell's Mastering Artisan Cheese Making recipe for Lactic-set Bloomy Rind Cheese (page 186).
In about 4 hours the milk appeared to be set but I waited overnight for a total of 14 hours (per NEC) before loading the cloth-lined colander. I expected the gelled curd to be firm like the photos shown in the NEC recipe but found that the structure fell apart on the way from the pot to the colander. The consistency is like a mushy ricotta and the draining has gone slowly as one would expect. Perhaps I can save it.
Some Internet research revealed this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZor1-wJGZs) showing the product being made in Switzerland. It is worth watching if you are interested in learning more about this cheese. Some obvious differences jump out:
The cheese is made with raw milk.
Enough rennet is used to make a curd that can be cut. (Is it really a lactic set cheese as the NEC recipe suggests?)
The curd is fully drained and placed in a mixer where it is coarsely mashed.
The salt/garlic mix is added the the mixer.
The salt does not appear to be Himalayan pink salt.
The above mix is pumped onto sheets in little "massed potato" mounds
The mounds are allowed to dry to firm up and only then is the cracked pepper added.
I will be modifying the NEC/Caldwell recipe and switching to a vat pasteurized, non-homogenized cream top milk for my next attempt and will post the results in several days.
When I made mine a year ago, I used some leftover "chevre" style from cow milk - worked great. I forgot about them for many months in my house frig. They were still tasty, but rather chalky.
Loved the video, especially where he starts the siphon with his mouth, and the dog is down there licking up the whey! Can you imagine here in the USA?
I noted the dog also. The dog's behavior hints at something significant in the way the cheese was made in the video. Namely, that the whey pH was not to low at the first draining. In other words it may have been sweet rather than sour and thus pleasant to the dog. This would indicate that the major draining occurred at a pH in the high fives or low sixes. At the time of draining the curds had been cut into cubes. Looked to me like the cubes were large, perhaps an inch on a side. It also appeared that the major portion of the whey was drained at the time the dog slurped it and then the curds were allowed to steep in the remaining whey for a period before being transferred to the cloth lined draining vat. My guess is that this was done to drop the whey (and curd) pH down into the 4.6 range. By this time the curds had lost more whey and firmed up and so were easily drained and loaded into the mixing vat at the right pH for the garlic and salt. I liked how the moisture was checked on the little mounds with the laser device. The point was to make sure the mounds could be "snowballed" without sticking to the gloved hands.
Contrast this with the NEC recipe I followed: After 14 hours of gelling the whey pH was 4.40. I don't think that the dog would have liked this! It was quite sour. I didn't load any curd in the draining cloth as it turned to mush as soon as I lifted it. I've drained enough water to be able to add the salt and garlic. At this point it is way too soft to try to roll it in pepper. A photo of its current condition is attached. I'm hoping that the salt and air exposure will firm it up enough to roll in the pepper. More later.
It looks a little bit like mascarpone, I hope it will firm up with a little time. I put mine in the fridge in a colander (our room temp here around 30C/86F without aircon), and in the morning it firmed up. I think I want to make this again with raw milk with your suggested cultures.
Anyway, you are quiet the detective Kern! Useful information from that dog.
I've viewed the above referenced video several times more trying to glean additional information. It looks like the milk is cultured and coagulated in the larger of the two polypropylene bins wheeled into the draining room (the small upper bin simply is used to transport the siphon hose). This likely means that this cheese is not heated at all and is made from the warm raw milk coming directly from the cows. (One heats metal vats but not PP vats). The curds appear to be cut into columns and left an appreciable time in the vat after cutting. This allows them to dispel whey, firm up and drop in pH while bathed in the relatively warm whey (cow temperature cooled slightly by time). Initial draining (dog slurp portion) likely drains the whey to a couple of inches above the curds. The vat was wheeled into the drain room after this for final draining through synthetic cheese cloth. Following this the curds from several vats were combined (to preserve warmth??) and the curds were allowed to achieve their final pH (by tasting in the video but should be around 4.6) and then dumped into the mixer. It appears that garlic cloves were cut into the salt by chopping until a smooth paste was achieved. Using a mortar and pestle will grind the garlic but leave larger bits of "skin" (my experience).
The seasoned curd is pumped onto stainless steel cookie sheets that are wheeled into a separate room. Based upon AnnDee's comment above I'd guess that this is a cool room to firm the mounds up prior to their being formed and peppered.
Quite a thorough observation there Kern, this discussion makes me want to make it again soon.
whatever I made before was quite a hit addition for salads and pastas, I just have to make sure we don't keep it too long, as Susan said on her comment it gets chalky after a while.
I think with addition of the flora danica this can only get better (hopefully). I will post my make here, I have all the ingredients ready to go.
One thing I can say is that our dog loves kefir when it is a day old , so we'll into the 4 s in ph but if it is 2 to 3 days old he won't eat it .
If your interested I can check the ph when I return in a week or so .
Though I suspect you are in the correct ball park on ph with out the " dog taste test "
The 24 hours in the cold fridge did the trick! ;D The white, gooey plops firmed up enough to be able to "snowball" them and roll them in toasted, cracked pepper corns. The photo below shows the results. :) I took a hint from the above video and toasted and ground enough peppercorns (about a half cup, 240ml) to be able to put them in a SS bowl and roll the balls around to evenly coat them. They are currently in my 60F, 70% RH garage with a fan on them to help start the drying process.
In the meantime I've got a second batch going using some vat pasteurized cream top milk using a recipe based upon the aforementioned video. I'll start a new thread on this make in a couple of days. Thanks again AnnDee for your helpful suggestions.
Kern
They all look great!! Have to try this one!! AC4 both of U!! ;D Okay, I just watched the video. If they are shaving this stuff with a Truffle Shaver and with Truffles I'm betting it cost a ton and the flavor is intense. I can only think it's due to the aging which must be quite a while to get that crust hard enough to knock on. Still, this is a must try for me.
Thanks for the cheese. I've got a second batch going based upon the procedure that seems to be used in the video. I used Twin Brooks cream line milk for this one. Right now the 1" cut curds are in their 4th hour of steeping in all the whey they are expelling and I am closely monitoring the pH to come up with the draining procedure. I should have the recipe with some cheese porn posted Monday or Tuesday.
Yay, they are looking great! I'm also making more with your suggested cultures Kern, anymore pointers?
A cheese for you Kern.
Thanks for the cheese Al Lewis!
Yep, a cheese for your successful redemption of the sagging curds!
So ... what does this cheese taste like? I'm guessing it is a pretty intense flavor -- ??
To me the taste of this cheese is nutty, right amount of saltiness, the garlic taste is subtle but then again I love garlic. In japanese food this is like the kombu, it has that umami taste and also this cheese reminds me of parmesan, flaky with very very slight tang.
A little shaving goes a long way.
This is all really interesting. The other day came across genuine Belper Knolle in a local grocery store. Would have loved to try it, but thought that $19 each was a little steep :o. I might have to try making my own.
Susan
Wow, 19 bucks for 1 piece is much steep for me! It costed me less to make 1 batch, you definitely get more than a piece out of it too.
The biggest challenge I've got in understanding this cheese is what the pH is at the time of salting. Maybe Susan could take a clean Extech pH meter to the shop and for a could of dollars get the pH. :) Seriously, I'm torn between whether this is a lactic curd cheese which implies a pH down in the 4.6 range or whether it is a rennet coagulated cheese with a pH in the low 5 range. To me the video supports the rennet theory but an in an e-mail exchange with Jim Wallace at New England Cheese, the lactic curd route was supported. It may be possible to go the lactic curd route with raw milk and have the make steps look like the video but I am skeptical. :o
I'll stay with this thread a bit as I'm researching Belper Knolle and formulating a strategy to come up a more correct recipe than the one on the New England Cheese website. There are lots of links in my posts above and I'll not repeat them here. I did come up with a proposed recipe and made some BK using this procedure, which I've outlined below and posted a couple of photos of my efforts. Here is the short version of my Belper Knolle #2 make:
1. One gallon of Twin Brooks vatpat whole cream top milk heated to 86F.
2. Add 30 grams of lactose, 1/4 tsp CaCl, 1/16 tsp Flora Danica, 1/8 tsp rennet.
3. Cover pot with towels to preserve heat. Cut curd to 1-inch cubes at 75 minutes.
4. Rest in pot with occasional lifting to whey pH = 5.8 (This took 5 hours)
5. Drain to curd level, load cloth lined colander, drain and place drained curd in SS bowl (picture below).
6. Ripen in bowl to curd pH of 5.2. This took 90 minutes.
7. Transfer to Cuisinart to mix curd and mix in garlic and salt.
8. Make balls and place on cutting board in cold fridge to firm up. Took four hours.
9. Roll balls in toasted cracked pepper and place on mat under fan (picture below)
10. Into cave when dry on outside. Took 24 hours.
This recipe has several problems. First, the curds should have been drained when the whey pH was about 6.4 (about 90 minutes after cutting). Then they should have been ripened in the bowl to the target pH. The above recipe produced a drained curd that resisted kneading and sticking together. I only overcame this when I cut the curds to a paste in the Cuisinart then they more or less stuck together but could be broken apart even after chilling. I worked around this and they stabilized once they had been dried for a bit. I think that I would have avoided this had I drained the curds at a higher pH and placed them in a bowl to ripen to the goal pH.
I have no idea what the BK pH should be. This current batch was salted at a pH of 5.2. The first batch described above was salted at a pH of 4.6. Only a taste test in several weeks is going to reveal which might be better. I see no reason why both batches won't dry.
What went well: While more expensive than the P&H milk used in my first batch (over twice as much) this milk performed exquisitely better. I started this batch at 11:00am and rolled it in pepper about eleven hours later. The P&H lactic batch took almost 48 hours to go the same distance due to problems with draining poorly formed curd.
Steps necessary to make this cheese: In addition to the above there are two critical steps I got from the video. Both worked extremely well. The first is to put the formed balls in the cold fridge and allow them to firm up. I put them on a cutting board. They slumped a bit and I simply cut them off the board and reformed them. After about 4 hours they no longer slumped and I could roll them cold in the cracked pepper. The second step was to place the peppered balls as shown in the second photo and put a fan on them. They were in my 60F garage with an RH of about 60%. I left them under the fan for about 24 hours before putting them in the normal 55/85 cave. The balls seemed damp after a day in the cave so I pulled them out and put them under the fan for another 16 hours then back in the cave where they are currently dry. It is possible that I might have to do this again in a couple of days as in inner moisture migrates to the rind. This will greatly speed up the desired drying of this cheese and help prevent any mold growth.
Tasting notes to follow in several weeks. :)
I have been waiting for this and I am saving your recipe for my future make.
Question:
1. How do I get lactose and what is the function (particularly on making BK)?
2. What do you think of adding cream to the milk? Maybe it will change the taste entirely and make it a different cheese altogether, right?
It will be interesting to find out the final taste of your make.
I've exchanged a couple of e-mails with Jim Wallace of New England Cheese. Jim is convinced that Belper Knolle is modeled after a cream cheese recipe where a couple of cheeses aging on a wood shelf were inadvertently left to dry. This, in Jim's mind makes it a lactic cheese. Here is a quote from one of his e-mails:
"Now lactic cheese can be a moving target going from pure lactic with no rennet addition to the point where it become predominantly enzymatic or rennet based. The character of the curd is very different as it moves along the scale from lactic to enzymatic. This cheese is definitely to the lactic side of things. From what I have been able to pick up this is somewhere between a fromage blanc and a cream cheese. I would guess closer to a fromage blanc judging by how brittle the final cheese is."
My contention is that the video looks like a make coagulated with rennet: cut curds, easily drained, not hung in bags, etc. This engendered the following exchange:
Kern: "Perhaps it is possible to cut lactic curds as nicely as the ones in the video if one uses raw milk."
Jim's response: "lactic curds can be quite firm and can be cut and drained .. you just can not stir them without them breaking up"
He further added this piece of information he got during a visit to the Belper Knolle maker (Peter Glauser) in Belp:
"Forgot to add another bit of info I got from them...
The cream cheese variant thereof has been around for 23 years
This was the original cheese that dried down becomes BK.. cream cheese is definitely a lactic cheese"
So, here is what I now think:
Originally, Belper Knolle was made using a cream cheese recipe (https://www.cheesemaking.com/CreamChz.html)with very little added rennet using raw cow's milk. It was a traditional lactic make: 12+ hours of ripening time combined with bag draining to the proper moisture level followed by mixing to smooth out the make and add the salt and garlic. The product was made into balls that were chilled to firm them and then rolled in pepper. The makers discovered that putting a fan on them immediately after the pepper step helped keep them firm and dry out the rind, thus keeping the round shape and helping to keep mold in check. This is a start to finish make of something like 24+ hours and lends itself to "occasional makes".
The problem with the above method is that the cheese became wildly successful in Europe. Peter Glauser along with several others created the Jimi group to help market it and it is a very popular cheese available all over Europe. There is no way the traditional lactic process (little or no added rennet) could keep up with demand. You can't contract with dairymen for large amounts of milk on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and tell them to dump it on the other four days of the week! You need to have a process timed to lactation and make the cheese every day. To do this with BK you need to modify the lactic process to fit the time constraints and you do it by adding just enough rennet so that you produce cuttable, easily drained curd. Since crud occupies a small fraction of the volume of the original milk and is much more biologically stable, you can store the unfinished curd allowing the pH to drop to the former levels it would have achieved through a more pure long-drained lactic process.
This suggests something like the recipe I proposed above but with the curd cut at the proper time to achieve proper moisture content and good draining ability. Raw milk really helps in this. The drained curd is then accumulated in a non-draining vat and allowed to drop to the proper pH (whatever that is but I'll bet it is in the 4.6-4.8 range). The reason the curd is moved in the video from the draining vat to the "accumulation vat" is so that there is no more moisture lost to the whole. Any whey that drains in the accumulation vat is mixed into the cheese paste when the salt and garlic are added. Moisture content at this point is critical as it allows one to form stable balls: too much and they will be sloppy and slump, too little and the balls won't hold together.
Now to your specific questions:
I added lactose (purchase on Amazon) to the P&H milk as I've found in making Camemberts with P&H milk that I can't get to a pH of 4.6 without adding it. I left it in on the second batch simply to eliminate a possible variable when taste comparing the two later. I've made Cams with this milk and get to 4.6 without added lactose.
Try making it with added cream. It might affect the drying and should give the taste more "mouth feel". I doubt that it will be as hard.
As I said before, you are quite a cheese detective. A cheese for you for all the effort.
I am making adjustment notes on your recipe based on this new findings and as today my supply of raw jersey milk is on the way, I will make another batch.
I've never known cheese making can be this exciting, thank you!
Kern, I am convinced that this is a predominantly lactic cheese, and it's absolutely common that a little bit of rennet is added to lactic cheeses. To me the interior looks typical for a dried lactic cheese. Wouldn't the cheese turn yellow after a while with a purly rennet based curd? Your doubts seem to be mostly because of the logistics of milk supply, but wouldn't it be possible that they have found a way to get the supply they need?
It seems clear that the original was a lactic cream cheese. (And note that in the Germanic realm this this is referred to as "Frischkäse" that usually does not use additional cream). I can not imagine that in order to recreate this cheese the inventors would change something as fundamental as the basic type of coagulation.
Coincidentially I came across an Austrian Belper Knolle clone a few weeks ago that I am sure was lactic, but I have not tried the original yet. Currently I am ripening an experimental batch of a standard lactic curd that I drained and shaped into balls. They were still rather soft when I coated them (not with pepper, I used paprika and herbs because I don't like peppery cheese very much). But now, one week after making them, they come along niceley. I am confident that the cheeses will turn out nicely, and I did not measure pH since I don't own a pH meter. I would think that tweaking pH is only the second step once the basic procedure has been established.
Upon reflection I think that Belper Knolle is most likely a semi-lactic cheese. That is, it uses a little rennet in the recipe. Remember that it is a raw milk cheese and according to this (https://cheeseforum.org/articles/wiki-cheese-milk-coagulation/), raw milk does not form a curd firm enough to be cut and manipulated as shown in the video using a pure lactic (no rennet) process . I have yet to experimentally establish this but plan to do so as follows:
1 gallon of raw milk
1/8 tsp Flora Danica ripen for 30 minutes @ 86F
6 drops of SS Calf's rennet
Cut into 1-inch cubes when firm (75-90 minutes)
Allow to settle until curds expel enough whey to sink
Drain to curd level, ladle into cloth lined draining vat
Remove from vat when most "free" whey has drained and place into non draining tub.
Allow to mat and ripen to a pH of 4.8, spooning off and retaining expelled whey.
Mix to uniform consistency in Kitchenaid mixer and add mashed up garlic and salt. Add back reserved whey to mixer if necessary to form a "balling non-sagging paste".
Form balls and place on plastic cutting board or SS cookie sheet and put in cold fridge to firm up.
Roll firmed balls in toasted and ground pepper to thoroughly coat.
Immediately put coated balls on drying rack with fan blowing air on them. 60F+/- and 70%RH +/- is ideal. Time should be 24 to 48 hours and rind should be hard.
Put in cave @ 55F, 85%RH for 2-8 weeks or more.
I'll adjust the rennet from the above starting point and refine other parameters as per olikli's suggestions.
What I really like about making this cheese is that experimentation can be done with a small batch. I don't have to haul out my large vat, heating try, controllers, etc. to have a little cheese making fun. The "thrill" of chasing down a good procedure adds to the excitement. ;D
Quote from: Kern on February 04, 2016, 11:30:23 PM
Upon reflection I think that Belper Knolle is most likely a semi-lactic cheese. That is, it uses a little rennet in the recipe.
Yes, I believe that too. I should have written semi-lactic in the first place, but then again the term semi-lactic is slightly misleading because adding just a little rennet does not change the character too much. Overall a "semi"-lactic cheese is much closer to a full lactic one than to a full rennet one.
Sometimes I don't see the forest for the trees! :( Revelation time:
One clue I overlooked in the video was the large scraggly diamond shaped white scum floating on the liquid on top of the vat containing the now sinking cut curds. I have never seen this on any rennet coagulated cheese I've ever made. The whey is usually clear with a yellow cast. The only time I've ever seen white scum is when I once made ricotta cheese from drained whey made by adding acetic acid to 190F whey. Obviously, the diamond shape comes from cutting the curds and white scum from the gelatinous mass prior to cutting. The scum had to be loosely attached to the mass or it could not have been cut as appears in the video.
All this got me thinking about the difference between a lactic and rennet cheese. To be a lactic cheese the milk has to have a pH of about 4.5 or less and it is the lactic cultures that get it there. The reason is that the pH has to be at least this low for the whey proteins to precipitate and the cheese is not a lactic cheese unless they do. If you cut the curd at a higher pH the whey proteins stay dissolved in the separating whey and you have not made a lactic cheese. There really is no such thing as a semi-lactic cheese. It is, as Olikli points out, a mid-leading term. You either hit the pH that precipitates the whey proteins and have a lactic cheese or you don't and won't have one. Added rennet does not change this in any meaningful way. It may make the gelling mass firmer (maybe better for draining, eh?) but if the mass pH drops below 4.5 or so you have a lactic cheese regardless.
So, why add the rennet to the raw milk Belper Knolle cheese? As referenced above raw milk does not form a firm enough curd when used to make a lactic cheese. Add the rennet and it will form a firm curd as the pH is dropping to the 4.5 range. Likewise, P&H milk even with added rennet will not form a firm enough curd to be cut and processed as in the video. If you want to make BK cheese with P&H milk then use drain and bag technique in the recipe on the New England Cheese website (linked to above). If you are making a BK cheese with either raw or vat pasteurized (non-homoginized) milk then you can add about half the rennet as normal for a rennet coagulated cheese but you don't cut the curd until the mass has reached a pH of 4.5 or lower so that you capture the whey proteins. Once cut you can handle the curds as in the video. Here is the modified procedure taking all this into account:
1 gallon of raw milk
1/8 tsp Flora Danica ripen for 60 minutes @ 86F
6 drops of SS Calf's rennet. Stir and set aside for 14-24 hours.
Cut into 1-inch cubes when the pH has dropped to 4.5 or below for at least two hours.
Allow to settle until curds expel enough whey to sink
Drain to curd level, ladle into cloth lined draining vat
Remove from vat when most "free" whey has drained and place into non draining tub.
Mix to uniform consistency in Kitchenaid mixer and add mashed up garlic and salt. Add back reserved whey to mixer if necessary to form a "balling non-sagging paste".
Form balls and place on plastic cutting board or SS cookie sheet and put in cold fridge to firm up.
Roll firmed balls in toasted and ground pepper to thoroughly coat.
Immediately put coated balls on drying rack with fan blowing air on them. 60F+/- and 70%RH +/- is ideal. Time should be 24 to 48 hours and rind should be hard.
Put in cave @ 55F, 85%RH for 2-8 weeks or more.
Kern, thanks for all your work on this; I hope to give it a try this weekend. A couple of questions (which may have been answered elsewhere, and I just haven't looked hard enough) -- how much garlic, and how much salt? Is anything done to "sterilize" the garlic? And finally, how long do you age?
One other question -- I'm wondering if Flora Danica is the best option for the culture. I find that FD doesn't want to get all the way down to the 4.5 pH range, or at least the package I am currently using doesn't seem to. If I get a chance to try it this weekend, I think I'll go with MA011, maybe with some MD088 thrown in -- essentially the same cultures as in the FD, but much faster acidifying ...
I used fresh garlic. So do the Belper Knoll makers (see above referenced video). There should be no issues with this as the pH of the cheese is in the 4.6 range. Use about 3 cloves per gallon of milk. Mince it finally and then grind in about 1.5 teaspoons of Himalayan pick salt per gallon. Add to the cheese in a mixer after it has reached the goal pH and then proceed as above. Two key points: After the salt/garlic form the cheese into ball (or plops) and put in cold fridge. You can cut the cheese off the cutting board after it begins to set and "re-ball" it. Toast the whole black pepper in a oil less frying pan, cool and then coarse grind. Use a half cup or so. I put my pepper in a SS bowl and rolled the firmed cheese in it. It will latch onto what pepper it can and then no more. Immediately put peppered ball under a fan as in my photo above. Leave it like this for 24-48 hours and then the standard cave. Age for 2-6 weeks or more.
I added 30 grams of lactose per gallon for my two batches and had no problem getting to a whey pH of 4.2-4.4 on the first batch (P&H milk, 24 hours draining). The cheese had a pH of 4.6 immediately before salting. I see no reason not to try MA 011 with some MD 088. Let us know how it works as we need to build a body of trial (and error) on this cheese. It is a hot seller in Europe but largely unavailable in the US likely because of the strong market in Europe plus the restrictive regulations in the US regarding the import of raw milk cheese.
Thanks, Kern, very helpful. Any thoughts about the Himalayan pink salt vs. regular cheese salt? I read a few articles on line about the former, but most of them sounded, at least to my non-chemist/biologist ears, a bit too much like a late-night TV commercial. :(
Just ordered 5 pounds of Himalayan pink salt and some chevre packets to try this one. ;D
Quote from: awakephd on February 05, 2016, 07:51:18 PM
Thanks, Kern, very helpful. Any thoughts about the Himalayan pink salt vs. regular cheese salt? I read a few articles on line about the former, but most of them sounded, at least to my non-chemist/biologist ears, a bit too much like a late-night TV commercial. :(
The folks in Belp use the pink salt. Does it make a difference? Who knows. I've used pink salt in a grinder for years and I've never noticed a difference.
I think the taste of the pink salt is slightly different to kosher salt. I notice it when I sprinkle on eggs, I can't really describe it but as kosher salt taste is plain, himalayan pink salt has more notes to it.
All natural salts taste slightly different beause of their different mineral composition. I don't thnk there is a natural salt that is 100% NaCl. But any mystical properties attributed to the Himalayan salt have no scientific backing.
I would guess the difference in taste of the final product is largely outweighed by the differences in process. As long as we have to guess how exactly the original Belper Knolle is made it does not make much sense to me to stick to Himalayan salt. And even if we knew. I for one don't want to produce 100% clones. I want to make my own personal cheeses.
Quote from: olikli on February 06, 2016, 06:20:27 PM
I for one don't want to produce 100% clones. I want to make my own personal cheeses.
My feelings exactly 8)
Quote from: H-K-J on February 06, 2016, 09:47:38 PM
Quote from: olikli on February 06, 2016, 06:20:27 PM
I for one don't want to produce 100% clones. I want to make my own personal cheeses.
My feelings exactly 8)
Me too :)
Susan
No argument from me either. You can learn a lot about how certain things are made by trying to clone them. For example, I really didn't know what essential element had to be part of a lactic cheese in order for it to be a lactic cheese. Caldwell is a bit foggy on this. Besides that, if you are making your own "personal cheese" how will you know that it is your own and not simply a clone if you don't know how the cheese you are trying to emulate is made?
Well I ordered 5 pounds of the stuff! LOL You can actually buy small bottles in Trader Joes and Costco I'm told. The color of different salts is dependent upon the trace minerals left in the salt during processing. Hawaiian salt exhibits the same properties. The official stance is.."Himalayan salt is predominantly sodium chloride (95-98%), contaminated with 2–3% polyhalite and small amounts of ten other minerals. The pink color is due to the presence of iron oxide." We have a lamp made of the stuff. A really big hollowed out lump with a light bulb in it. According to the nurse that gave it to us it's supposed to have beneficial properties. All I know is it's not very bright. The reason I bought it to make the cheese is that, if I never make, or taste, the real stuff, how do I know how my clone compares? I've eaten plenty of Stilton, Stitchleton, Brie, Camembert, Regianno Parmesan, and others too varied to mention, in their countries of origin, but I've never eaten this cheese. Failing buying the cheese from Switzerland my best bet is to create what the experts say is the cheese, or as close as they can get. Therefore, as with the Epoisse (https://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,10901.45.html), Tallegio (https://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,11539.0.html), and Vacherin Mont D'Or (https://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,13797.15.html) I made, or attempted, I have ordered the exact ingredients called for to try and get the exact result. If, after that, I want to do my own knockoff I can knowing the subtleties in the taste differences. Besides, Himalayan Pink Salt (http://www.amazon.com/Sherpa-Pink-Himalayan-Extra-Fine-Incredible/dp/B00IZL255O/ref=sr_1_1/189-2024052-4569430?ie=UTF8&qid=1454862333&sr=8-1-spons&keywords=pink+himalayan+salt&psc=1) is darn near the same price as Kosher Salt and almost as easy to get. One suggestion, it comes in three grinds. Extra fine, Fine, and coarse. The coarse, in this case, is too big and for grinders. The extra fine would be akin to table salt so I ordered the "Fine". It should be approximate to coarse kosher salt, or at least I hope it is. A very important factor when measuring for recipes.
I must be physic. No sooner did I finish that last post than the USPS knocks on the door and delivers my salt. The grains are smaller than coarse kosher salt. The biggest difference I see is that the pink salt doesn't seem as uniform in the grind. Usually these types of things are passed through a screen to size them. It could also be a result of shipping and the grains rubbing together. Taste, to my untrained taste buds, seems to be the same with the possible exception of the pink salt leaning a touch towards iodized but without the strong iodine taste. May just be a case of the "Emperors Clothes."
We are heading up to Vancouver soon
I'll stop at trader Joe's and buy some just to check it out.
Then I'll just have to try it in a cheese (http://www.z4-forum.com/forum/images/smilies/smilie_thumbsup.gif)
Quote from: H-K-J on February 07, 2016, 05:10:07 PM
We are heading up to Vancouver soon
I'll stop at trader Joe's and buy some just to check it out.
Then I'll just have to try it in a cheese (http://www.z4-forum.com/forum/images/smilies/smilie_thumbsup.gif)
Hell, swing by and I'll give ya a pound!! LOL Do it on a long weekend and we can sprinkle some over some cowboy ribeyes!
Yesiree!!! Buddy! :P (http://www.z4-forum.com/forum/images/smilies/smilie_thumbsup.gif)(http://www.z4-forum.com/forum/images/smilies/smilie_thumbsup.gif)(http://www.z4-forum.com/forum/images/smilies/smilie_thumbsup.gif)
Quote from: Al Lewis on February 07, 2016, 05:24:59 PM
Hell, swing by and I'll give ya a pound!! LOL Do it on a long weekend and we can sprinkle some over some cowboy ribeyes!
Al, I noticed three steaks on the grill. One for you, one for H-K-J and I suppose one for me. What time and date? I'll bring my own pink salt!
Kern
PS: I like mine very rare. ;)
That'll be up to H-K-J!! LOL
There's room on that grill for another steak, right? :)
I very much agree on both points with regard to cloning -- on the one hand, I do try to emulate the original as best I can first, before venturing out into my own variations. On the other hand ... I am quite confident that even my closest efforts are still quite unique to me. :)
I will say that one area where I have NOT been eager to achieve "the original" is with camemberts -- thus far, every commercial cam I've tasted, including one in France, fell short of my "Malembert" makes in both taste and texture. Of course, it doesn't help that I haven't really splurged on an expensive version of a commercial cam, so I'm guessing I still don't know what it is "supposed" to taste like ...
I never splurged either. I just ate them while I was in the country of origin. They were cheap there. Twenty years in the Air Force will take you a lot of places. ;D
Indeed! But, as I said, I did try some camembert while I was in France, and was, frankly, disappointed. It was in a small cafe, so I have no idea if they were serving me "real" camembert or something they got from a tin ... but it was not very soft / not the least bit gooey, and had little flavor. :( Next time, if there is a next time, I will go to a cheesery (or whatever the proper term is) and see if I can try some that purports to be the real thing.
Quote from: awakephd on February 09, 2016, 06:36:28 PM
Indeed! But, as I said, I did try some camembert while I was in France, and was, frankly, disappointed. It was in a small cafe, so I have no idea if they were serving me "real" camembert or something they got from a tin ... but it was not very soft / not the least bit gooey, and had little flavor. :( Next time, if there is a next time, I will go to a cheesery (or whatever the proper term is) and see if I can try some that purports to be the real thing.
That was the worst you could do, and I hope you didn't take this experience as "proof" that French camembert is crap. Many French cafés buy the cheapest possible stuff to save on costs. You don't go to these places for the culinary experience (there are of course exeptions). Not every small town has a proper cheese shop, but the larger supermarkets will always have a decent selection and you should find some raw milk cheeses there. And If you happen to be there on a market day, you're saved ;)
No, not at all -- I assume there is much better French camembert available, and for that matter much better US-origin camembert-like cheese -- hence the intention, next time, to go to a shop where I really should be able to expect to find "the real thing." I admit that I did cherish the romantic notion that perhaps the cheese one gets in an "affordable" cafe in France would be markedly better than the cheese one gets in an "affordable" restaurant in the US, but alas, at least in this one particular case, it was not so ... :( On the flip side, I bought some Parmesan in one of the the gas station/cafe/rest stops on the highway in Italy; it was incredibly cheap ... and I worried that I was throwing my money away, considering the source ... but it was incredibly good. :)
At the risk of steering the subject a little bit back on course, I made a one gallon Belper Knolle batch starting late yesterday and finishing today using the following method:
1 gallon of whole cream top milk with 1/4 tsp calcium chloride and 30 grams of lactose.
1/8 tsp Flora Danica ripen for 60 minutes @ 86F
6 drops of SS Calf's rennet. Stir and set aside for 16 hours. The towel wrapped pot was 80F in the morning.
Cut into 1-inch cubes when the pH has dropped to 4.6 or below.
Allow to settle until curds expel enough whey to sink
Drain to curd level, ladle into cloth lined draining vat
Remove from vat when most "free" whey has drained and place into non draining tub.
Hand mixed to uniform consistency and added mashed up garlic and salt.
Form balls and place on plastic cutting board or SS cookie sheet and put in cold fridge to firm up.
Roll firmed balls in toasted and ground pepper to thoroughly coat.
Immediately put coated balls on drying rack with fan blowing air on them. 60F+/- and 70%RH +/- is ideal. Time should be 24 to 48 hours and rind should be hard.
Put in cave @ 55F, 85%RH for 2-8 weeks or more.
My goal was to get to a "moldable" consistency like that in the video with an acceptably short enough drain time.
I don't know if the lactose is necessary. I used it because I wanted to make sure I could get the pH down below 4.6 where the whey proteins should precipitate.
At 16 hours quite a bit of whey had separated and the curd lump seemed firm and had reached a pH of 4.55.
The curd was cut but was too soft and some shattering occurred. Apparently, the large lump seemed firm because a lot of the separated whey came from the outer portions.
Final draining was in a cloth bag but went fairly well regardless.
All the whey was collected and heated to 190F to check for any whey protein precipitation. There was none so it all must have happened within the curd mass when the pH got down into the 4.6-4.7 range.
The balls were easily formed, held their shape and the consistency looked very similar to that of the pumped plops in the video. They weren't sticky.
The balls stiffened up very nicely in the cold fridge and held their shape much better than previous makes - very little slumping.
Next time I'll repeat the above but pump the rennet up to ten drops and let the pH drop to 4.5. Cutting the hopefully firmer curds and allowing more "bathing time" prior to draining should allow for draining without a bag as was done in the video.
Very glad you did Kern. I finally received my Chèvre from New England Cheese making and plan on picking up a gallon of raw milk today to start this. Apologies to AnnDee for hijacking her thread. Sometimes things just get a little carried away. Anyway, she has inspired me to make this gorgeous cheese so bless her little heart and a cheese to her! She can feel free to hijack my threads anytime she likes. AC4U!! I'll do a separate thread for the one I make.;D
My apologies for posting in such an old thread, but this thread is amazing!!
I just started making cheese a few weeks ago, starting with 30 min mozzarella, moving on to cheese curds, then a batch of halloumi last weekend. I want to venture into Belper Knolle next and found this thread. WOW what great information!!
I have a question about the drying portion of the make. A 60 degree drying room isn't an option for me right now with the equipment I have accumulated so far... and this is April in Texas (highs in the mid 80s)! I have two options:
1. Place in my thermostat-controlled mini-fridge at 60 degrees with not much air circulation
2. Place in my spare room at about 74 degrees with a fan blowing on the BK
Which option do you all think is best for this cheese? After drying, I plan on putting it in my mini-fridge for aging at the proper temperature and hopefully close to the right humidity (I have a hygrometer now). This will be my first attempt at aging a cheese so I think my humidity will be trial and error at the beginning to see what works best for my setup. Any advice is GREATLY appreciated!
Thanks everyone!
With the given options I'd go for initial drying with the fan. This starts out as a very wet lactic cheese and it is important to get the skin dried enough to hold its round shape. Try drying for a couple of days at 74F and then go to the mini-fridge and back to the fan if the surface starts to feel damp.
Good advice kern I too would choose the fan over the cooler temp.
And thanks for the idea that lactic cheese is not lactic if the whey is cut before 4.6. Never really made that connection , that the proteins would leave the curd into the whey.
A cheese for you
Thanks guys!!