I've made this once before, and it was fabulous. Have no idea why I've not made this more often. Anyway, it's a really quick and easy cheese. I've done it a few times with mould from camembert and it's good that way too.
Jeff's Experimental Semi-Lactic Blue Sunday, Jun 5, 2016 (overcast, 20-22 C)
2 L Anchor creamline milk (4.1% fat; 3.8 g/100ml protein)
1 ice cube MW3
Scrapings of mold from blue Cheese (??? Creamy blue)
10 drops Renco in 1 tbls water
salt
1) Add ice cube of start to the milk (9:00 am ish)
2) Place scrapings of mold directly in milk; make sure it's fine
3) Warm milk to 25 C
4) Cover, and place in hot water cupboard (time: 12:25)
5) After 6-8 hours add rennet (time: 4:30 ish)
6) Wait until curd forms and separates from whey (12-24 hours)
7) Ladle curd into mold (8:30 - 1:00? Took a long time, had to flip to get it in next day: temp ??.?)
8) Drain, flipping every 2-3 of hours or so until night, then drain overnight (flipped @ ?:?? am ??:?? and continue to drain and flip for 2 days – didn't record flip times, just do it when you can; 554g next morning).
9) Salt each face of the cheese (Thursday, June 09, 2016, 6:00; weight ???g; didn't weigh)
10) After 3 days place in cave (still draining Friday, day 5 10 C 6:05 pm, weight 420g; -must be wrong first signs of mould), flip daily, until mould covers the cheese. Pierce top to bottom after 7-10 days (Sunday, June 12th, 440g this is right), and again to keep the holes open before wrapping.
11) Wrap and age 2 – 4 weeks. (Wrapped June 16, 2016; 442g and moved to regular fridge. Was left out on counter one day and mould had grown rapidly, and feels like slip skin :( )
Hey Jeff,
Interesting recipe! Do you have any pics / taste reports from the previous times you've made it?
What is MW3?
If I use PR, how much do I need?
I have extra 4 liters of raw milk waiting to be made into cheese, I think I will make this tomorrow.
Hi Awake,
It produces a really nice creamy textured blue cheese. Vanessa never liked blue, after I made this, she loves it! My 3 or 4 year old daughter (at the time) loved it too.
Ann, Mad Millie's MW3 : Lactococcus lactis subsp. cremoris and Lactococcus lactis subsp. lactis. YOu could use buttermilk too, basically any fairly general meso starter should be fine. I just add blue by scraping from a bought cheese, but if you're adding dried PR, you wouldn't need much as this is a small cheese (554g after a day draining).
Quote from: JeffHamm on June 06, 2016, 07:10:14 AM
11) Wrap and age 2 – 4 weeks.
>>>> 12) After ?? weeks, savour the flavour...! ???
How long has it taken for blue to be a factor? This cheese isn't pierced so how effective is the blue innoculation?
-Boofer-
Hi Boofer,
Ooops! I've fogotten to indicate that it does get pierced. Thanks I'll update the notes.
First signs of blue mould. Cheese salted yesterday (1 tsp spread over outside), and moved to fridge today. Had a taste of some of the bits on the mould and coming along nicely. :)
Looks good , but you got me at #4 , "place in hot water cupboard".
What is a hot water cupboard ?
Local vernacular :P Most hot water cylinders in NZ are built into a cupboard/closet. Nice and warm in there.
A lot of people store linen in there as well. A good place to dry seeds, grow cultures etc.
Quote from: ezabel on June 10, 2016, 05:08:32 PM
Local vernacular :P Most hot water cylinders in NZ are built into a cupboard/closet. Nice and warm in there.
A lot of people store linen in there as well. A good place to dry seeds, grow cultures etc.
Thank you , now it makes sense.
I'm learning to speak New Zealish. ;D
Learning to speak New Zealish - just be careful. Some of the expressions are a bit Auk-ward.
:)
Interesting! Jeff, does it form blue within, apart from the piercing holes?
Hope this doesn't show twice, anyway, yes the hot water cupboard (closet) is where the hot water cylinder is. Perfect temp for semi-lactic makes. Anyway, the paste is very dense, so it doesn't form lots of internal blue except along the piercings - doesn't vein through the paste, for example. But, the tang of the semi-lactic make goes really nice with the mild blue flavour that results; at least it did the one other time I made it. :) Anyway, pierced it today, weighed in at 440g, so I must have mis-recorded the weight last time as it can't have gained 20g. oops.
Looks really creamy...like a cream cheese frosted cake. :P
-Boofer-
Yes, it does make for a very creamy cheese. Works if you use white mould too, though it won't ripen through and you'll get slip skin if you age too long.
I made this last week, my oh my it took time to drain!
I put a little cream in that I collected (too little to be made into butter), and I used raw milk.
What do you think if I spray PC on it now? Will it become camblue type cheese?
Hi Ann,
Yes, it can take days to drain! I was still getting whey puddling on the plate 4 or 5 days after putting it in the mould. If you've got some blue going, and you've pierced it to get the blue inside, then you could spray some PC on as well and see how it goes. You want the PC to grow very slowly, though, or it will develop slip skin, so once the PC is established you probably want to move to quite a cold environment; regular fridge but keep humidity up let's say.
Maybe start a thread on your version. Would love to see your notes and photos to see how it turns out. Should be a neat experiment.
This got left out when I was airing it one morning, so it sat on the counter all day. This resulted in too rapid growth of the mould, and it feels like slip skin has developed. Sigh. Anyway, have wrapped it and moved to the regular fridge to slow things down. As you can see, the faces haven't quite developed mould yet as the cheese sits on them. Hopefully, though, the blue will develop in the holes over the next couple weeks and, after draining the liquid blanket, the rest will be tasty.