Hiya, everyone!
Novice cheesemaker here. I got my start by watching Gavin Webber's channel on You Tube, not realizing that he made it look so easy, and managed to produce a couple of decent cheeses.
I did a Butterkase, and it turned out pretty good. At least, it got eaten up in about four days. So it must have been okay. Easy to follow recipes, and nicely-made videos to accompany them to give an idea of what it's supposed to look like as it goes.
Next, I tried Havarti, but something went wrong and it ended up smelling like it was made out of ammonia after about a week in the cheese fridge. Tossed it.
I decided to get a little more ambitious, and I made the one he calls "Petit Blue", and not only did it go exactly like the video, the cheese itself was superb. It turned out so well that I had a friend (who got 1/8th of it) ask me to make a whole one for him, and I have. It is looking really good. 9 days in and it's getting a light dusting of blue on the exterior over about 1/4 of the total surface area. So far, so good. The only difference between Gavin's recipe and what I'm doing is that I don't have four small Camembert molds. I only have one 2000g cylindrical one. (It's about 7" in diameter and in height) The problem is the other one I decided to make for myself. Gavin's recipe calls for one gallon, and the first one, and the one I made for my friend were both one gallon cheeses. The one I am making for myself was supposed to be a doubling of that recipe. The problem is, when I was dishing out the curds into the mold, I started thinking "Dang, this is a lot of curd!" and realized that I had only used the Mesophilic blend and Blue cultures for a one gallon recipe, but with two gallons of milk!!
Here's my question: After 9 days in the fridge (at 52°F) it's positively covered with a rind of blue mold. I mean total, 100% coverage. I don't have enough experience or knowledge to know why it's not acting like the other cheese that's in the exact same fridge, and was made on the exact same day, with the exact same milks, and the right amount of cultures. Since it's only got effectively half, shouldn't it be acting differently? What is going to happen with this cheese? Why is it molding so fast? How is it going to ripen and age? (Okay, I know this is five questions and not one, but...)
Anyone with more experience than I, willing to offer their opinion?
I'm assuming Gavin's recepie is a time based not pH based recepie so with half the culture the cheese didn't get as acidic before salting. This will let the blue (which is more forgiving in the half dose amount you used) to grow more quickly and take over the cheese more. The final taste and texture will likely be different because the blue came in faster and fuller and the pH was not as low. You could possibly age it at a cooler temp to help slow the mold a bit but the final cheese will likely not be the same.
Quote from: River Bottom Farm on July 22, 2018, 03:53:26 AM
I'm assuming Gavin's recepie is a time based not pH based recepie so with half the culture the cheese didn't get as acidic before salting. This will let the blue (which is more forgiving in the half dose amount you used) to grow more quickly and take over the cheese more. The final taste and texture will likely be different because the blue came in faster and fuller and the pH was not as low. You could possibly age it at a cooler temp to help slow the mold a bit but the final cheese will likely not be the same.
Well, I only followed part of that, so I'm only "sort of" feeling a little better. I don't know anything about Ph, acidity, or anything else. All I know is, add X amount of Mesophilic, let it rest 5 minutes to rehydrate the powder, stir it in for 2 minutes, cover and let it ripen for 45 minutes. So, you're right, it is a time-based recipe. I think that if it had been a "Ph based" thing, I would never have attempted it, because it's too much like chemistry class, and I had horrible experiences in chemistry class. When the professor calls you "stupid" in lab, you somehow get the feeling you're not going to enjoy the course. ???
As I said, I'm a novice at this, and not having to worry about all the big complexities like Ph and that sort of thing makes it more enjoyable for me. In fact, almost all of the recipes I've ever seen (including most of the ones I've looked at here) don't really focus on chemistry details and requirements. They all are "time-based" as you put it. Perhaps when I get a little more experience, I'll find a way to enjoy having to deal with those kinds of details.
I don't really want to lower the temp in the cheese fridge too much, because that other "on-recipe" cheese is in the same fridge, but I might drop it one or two degrees to try to help it a little. I may have to let it age a little longer than the 28-30 days it calls for. All I can do at this point is monitor closely.
Thanks for your reply! I'm sorry I don't know a lot about the scientific things of doing this, and feel even more guilty that I don't like that kind of thing, and don't want to ever know about it, but it is nice to know that I have a place to come to where I'm not looked down on for feeling like this, nor am I ridiculed for not being an expert already. I'm just a simple guy, wanting to do simple things in simple ways. If I wanted the kinds of complexities that scientific cheesemaking requires, I'd be a coin or stamp collector!! :o
I do intend to keep good notes on the development, in case it turns out to be as good or better than the first one was, so that I can try to replicate it in the future! If it doesn't turn out well, I can always pay better attention to the recipe next time. ;)
Much appreciated!
You don't need to do chemistry to make cheese at all. Using timed recepies works well for a lot of people. It is very important to follow the recepie closely though. I find monitoring ph just alows me to get more consistent results with ever changing (seasonally) milk
If it helps, here's a different way to think about pH. Imagine that your milk is like the old game pac man -- it's full of yellow dots (milk sugar, or lactose). You put a pac man (starter culture) in the milk and it zooms around eating the dots. Only this pac man is a bit different than the game -- it poops out pink dots (milk acid, or lactic acid). Over time, you can imagine that all the yellow dots will become pink dots -- or your milk goes from being "yellow" to being "pink". But it's a *really big* pac man game, so it's going to take a long time for our pac man to eat all the yellow dots. Also, there are ghosts (bad bacteria, or moulds) that are also eating the yellow dots (ok -- it's a bit different than the game) and pooping out black dots (I just made that up, but we can think of it as "funky flavours"). We don't like that.
Luckily some things are in our favour. Most of the ghosts don't like pink dots (too much acid -- or the pH is too low). If we manage to get most of the yellow dots turned into pink dots, then we can make the ghosts go to sleep (hmmm... it's getting further away from the real game, isn't it... but I kind of like this game better, anyway). Also, if we eat most of the yellow dots, there there isn't any food for the ghosts and they will go to to sleep as well. So what we really want to do is to eat up those dots.
The other thing is that we can add many pac men -- and in fact, different kinds of pac men. Some pac men like it hot and zoom around faster when it's hot (we call those thermophilic -- thermo means "hot"). Others like it when it is kind of a middle temperature and slow down (or stop) if it get's too hot (we call those mesophilic -- meso means middle). What's even nicer is that if the pac men eat lots of yellow dots and have the temperature they like, they split down the middle and become 2 pac men. Over time they increase in numbers! Unfortunately, so do the ghosts -- so we need to be sure to add lots of pac men at the beginning so that there are always a lot more pac men than ghosts.
We have one slight difficulty. If we just let the pac men zoom around and eat up all the yellow dots, at a certain point we don't have milk any more -- it becomes yogurt. That's too many pink dots (too much acid, or the pH is too low)! In order to make cheese, we need just the right amount of pink dots (how many pink dots you want depends on the type of cheese). There are a couple of ways of doing this. First, we can add *exactly* the right amount of pac men to the milk to begin with. Then we can set the temperature to *exactly* the right level so that the pac men zoom around and eat the yellow dots. Then we can hope that they don't split too often or too little (because they are ornery suckers and they like to do things in their own time). Then we can wait for a certain amount of time so that hopefully we have *exactly* the number of pink dots that help us make cheese.
The other way, is we can buy a machine that counts the number of pink dots in the milk. As you can imagine, the second one is easier :-) But a good machine costs about $200 and are admittedly a little fiddly (you have to set it up every once in a while so that it counts the pink dots properly). You can buy some papers that change colour when there are more or less pink dots, but they are also fiddly because you have to match the colours properly.
It's definitely not bad to use the first method (that's how cheese was made for thousands of years before we had machines that could count pink dots). However, the second method is just so much easier and takes all of the guess work away. You can see why many people prefer that method.
As you get more involved in cheese making, you will discover that knowing the number of pink dots becomes more and more important. For example, cheese only stretches when you have a certain number of pink dots, so if you make mozarella, or other "pasta filata" cheeses, where you have to stretch the curds, then it can be frustrating when your timing doesn't work out (you can watch as Gavin gets frustrated in some of his videos ;-) ). To improve your cheeses, too, it can be important how many yellow dots you carry on into the next process. For example, Parmasan style cheeses apparently attempt to use up *all* of the yellow dots before they salt the cheese (salting slows down, or can even stop your pac men). So it can get a bit complicated.
I hope that helps you visualise the process without flashbacks of your chemistry classes. My father was a chemistry professor. Above all, I didn't want to learn chemistry when I was young (well, because, when you are young you want to do your own thing). So I never did well in chemistry. When I started brewing beer (pretty much as soon as I legally could), I started bumping in to chemistry quite a lot. I eventually made friends with it because it helps you visualise what's going on under the hood. It also allows you to reason about your processes and guess that "If I do X, then my beer will be like Y". Over time, I took this into my cooking and various other things. Just remember that chemistry (like all science) is just a model and the model is there to help you to understand -- not to obstruct your understanding. My Pac Man model above is not the best model by any stretch of the imagination, but if it helps you understand and to predict what will happen when you change things, then it is a good (enough) model. That's science too. Hope that helps!
I really hope that you aren't offended, but as soon as you made a video game reference, you lost me completely. :o
Not only have I never played Pac Man, but I generally avoid video games as much as possible. Not nearly enough hand-eye coordination to do anything but get destroyed in the first 15 seconds.
And please forgive my total stupidity, but I just don't see what any of that has to do with putting in half as much of the culture. Maybe if I understood better what the culture does to the milk for that 45 minutes, it would make more sense. But knowing me, if I knew too many details about it, I'd lose interest.
Thank you for going to the trouble and effort to try to explain in such great detail, but I really feel like you were casting pearls before swine. I really appreciate it, and it gave me a warm fuzzy to know that people out there want others to be successful, but I just don't have the kind of mind to deal with what seems to me to be minutiae. I know it isn't, and I know how important it is to have a working knowledge of this kind of factor, but I just can't do it. A case in point: My dad played golf for his college, and really wanted me to take up the sport (to follow in his footsteps, I suppose) but he had an innate understanding of everything going on during any point during the swing, and could practically write out the physics equations of what happens at impact with the ball, and all I knew (or cared about) was that whenever I hit a ball, it didn't go where I was aiming, or where I wanted it to go. He could see that stuff in his head, and rattle off the details without thinking. I can't.
All I know is, I made a really good Butterkase, I did a Havarti that smelled like carpet cleaner, and I managed to turn out a really good blue. Good to the point that I had someone offer to buy the milk for me to make him one. I got ambitious, tried to double a recipe, and missed a detail. That's a learning experience in my book, and those are gold. To quote Prince Humperdinck, "It is a mistake I don't intend to duplicate."
So again, in all sincerity, thanks for trying to explain it to me.
Ha ha! Don't worry. I write because I like to write (and as you can see, I really like to write). If it helps, then that's great. If not, then I don't mind.
But it does provide a dilemma for answering the question. I guess RBF's advice is the best. You have to follow the instructions *exactly*. If you don't, you'll make a completely different cheese. I'm still learning here, but this is one of the cool things about cheese making from my point of view. Very small changes in procedure or ingredients make very large changes in the cheese. It's absolutely no problem to just wing it if you want, but you've got to be flexible in accepting what comes as a result :-) I'm not sure anybody will be able to answer the question "why", unfortunately, because the devil is in the details.
Edit: OK. I thought about it and one more try. This time with less explanation ;D
Your starter culture (minus the blue mold) eats natural milk sugar and poops our natural milk acid. The more starter culture you use, the faster it eats sugar. The longer you wait before you add the rennet, the more the starter culture will eat milk sugar. When you press the curds, and especially when you *salt* the cheese, the starter culture really slows down eating the milk sugar. The starter culture doesn't really like salt.
The blue mould, on the other hand, eats natural milk sugar and produces other things (I'm not actually sure, what, but not really very much acid). The blue mould will be growing in the milk in your pot, but actually it grows more later using the left over milk sugar in the cheese. Crucially, blue mould *likes* salt and it doesn't really slow down at all, when it meets salt.
If you add too little starter culture (and/or you wait too short of a time before you press and salt the cheese) then the starter culture won't eat very much of the sugar in the milk. When you make the cheese, some of the left over sugar will be left in the cheese. After you salt the cheese, only the blue mould will eat the sugar -- so you will get a lot of blue mould. If there was less sugar in the cheese, you would get less mould (like in your original cheese).
When you are making the cheese, you can measure the amount of acid in the milk by measuring the "pH" (that's all pH means -- the amount of acid that's dissolved in a liquid... err... slight simplification... must avoid unnecessary explanations... arghhh... this is hard for me... I *love* unnecessary explanations!!!) Remember that the starter culture is eating sugar and pooping acid. So, the more acid in the milk, the less sugar that is left. Again, you can depend on the recipe and the amount of time, but it's literally tons easier to measure the pH and if pH meters weren't so expensive, I think *everyone* would use one. That's literally what we're doing when we are waiting while the milk and curds are in the pot: just waiting for the acid level to be right. Guessing how long to wait is harder than just waiting until a meter shows a particular number -- it's a bit like waiting for your milk to get to a specific temperature without having a thermometer.
Hopefully that will be easier to digest. The explanation is slightly misleading and wrong, but I think it answers your question :)
The purpose of the starter culture (bacteria) is to break down the milk and in doing so create flavor compunds and lactic acid. The lactic acid that is created by the starter acidifies the milk and the resulting cheese which effects aging, texture of the cheese, and mold growth rates (among a few others)
In adding half the starter culture the recepie calls for you created a lag or delay in the rate the milk and resulting cheese would be broken down and acidified had you realized this while making the cheese you could have lengthened the amount of time the milk ripened before renneting and waited a bit longer in the press before salting(salt slows down and almost stops the starter culture bacteria from doing their job so the cheese doesn't get too acidic and become dry and chalk like).
Don't worry if you don't understand it right now but thru experimenting and getting good and bad results (like you already are doing) you will figure it out (at least that's been my experience)
Quote from: mikekchar on July 23, 2018, 04:08:22 AM
Ha ha! Don't worry. I write because I like to write (and as you can see, I really like to write). If it helps, then that's great. If not, then I don't mind.
But it does provide a dilemma for answering the question. I guess RBF's advice is the best. You have to follow the instructions *exactly*. If you don't, you'll make a completely different cheese. I'm still learning here, but this is one of the cool things about cheese making from my point of view. Very small changes in procedure or ingredients make very large changes in the cheese. It's absolutely no problem to just wing it if you want, but you've got to be flexible in accepting what comes as a result :-) I'm not sure anybody will be able to answer the question "why", unfortunately, because the devil is in the details.
Edit: OK. I thought about it and one more try. This time with less explanation ;D
Your starter culture (minus the blue mold) eats natural milk sugar and poops our natural milk acid. The more starter culture you use, the faster it eats sugar. The longer you wait before you add the rennet, the more the starter culture will eat milk sugar. When you press the curds, and especially when you *salt* the cheese, the starter culture really slows down eating the milk sugar. The starter culture doesn't really like salt.
The blue mould, on the other hand, eats natural milk sugar and produces other things (I'm not actually sure, what, but not really very much acid). The blue mould will be growing in the milk in your pot, but actually it grows more later using the left over milk sugar in the cheese. Crucially, blue mould *likes* salt and it doesn't really slow down at all, when it meets salt.
If you add too little starter culture (and/or you wait too short of a time before you press and salt the cheese) then the starter culture won't eat very much of the sugar in the milk. When you make the cheese, some of the left over sugar will be left in the cheese. After you salt the cheese, only the blue mould will eat the sugar -- so you will get a lot of blue mould. If there was less sugar in the cheese, you would get less mould (like in your original cheese).
When you are making the cheese, you can measure the amount of acid in the milk by measuring the "pH" (that's all pH means -- the amount of acid that's dissolved in a liquid... err... slight simplification... must avoid unnecessary explanations... arghhh... this is hard for me... I *love* unnecessary explanations!!!) Remember that the starter culture is eating sugar and pooping acid. So, the more acid in the milk, the less sugar that is left. Again, you can depend on the recipe and the amount of time, but it's literally tons easier to measure the pH and if pH meters weren't so expensive, I think *everyone* would use one. That's literally what we're doing when we are waiting while the milk and curds are in the pot: just waiting for the acid level to be right. Guessing how long to wait is harder than just waiting until a meter shows a particular number -- it's a bit like waiting for your milk to get to a specific temperature without having a thermometer.
Hopefully that will be easier to digest. The explanation is slightly misleading and wrong, but I think it answers your question :)
Well, dang! I actually followed that one! Impressive, mate!
Now that I have an idea, I think that I still don't know what I'm doing, but I am much less worried that I'll end up with something that won't be what I expected. I think that based on all the fantastic responses I've gotten so far, that all I really have to do is just let it sit a little longer in the cheese fridge at 52-53 degrees. Oh, and the instructions I have state that one has to scrape off the blue mold from the surface about 20 days in.
This is getting very interesting. Making cheese is the most complicated hobby I've ever tried. That says a lot, considering that I change hobbies faster than brownies disappear at a weight loss meeting.
About the only thing I really can do is wait it out. Oh, and pay better attention the next time.
Thanks!!
Quote from: River Bottom Farm on July 23, 2018, 04:37:28 AM
The purpose of the starter culture (bacteria) is to break down the milk and in doing so create flavor compunds and lactic acid. The lactic acid that is created by the starter acidifies the milk and the resulting cheese which effects aging, texture of the cheese, and mold growth rates (among a few others)
In adding half the starter culture the recepie calls for you created a lag or delay in the rate the milk and resulting cheese would be broken down and acidified had you realized this while making the cheese you could have lengthened the amount of time the milk ripened before renneting and waited a bit longer in the press before salting(salt slows down and almost stops the starter culture bacteria from doing their job so the cheese doesn't get too acidic and become dry and chalk like).
Don't worry if you don't understand it right now but thru experimenting and getting good and bad results (like you already are doing) you will figure it out (at least that's been my experience)
Well, that is a darn good explanation too...
It also explains why I should pay better attention to the process when I'm doing it. My problem is that I want to watch everything happening, and keep forgetting to look at the recipe. Thus, I lose my place on the paper, and forget what I've just done. My memory is so bad that sometimes, I think I could plan my own surprise party...
Much obliged!
As much as it scares me to do this, I think I might actually post some photos of these two that are in process... Maybe someone will see something I don't know anything about, and will see that everything's all right.
Everyone will be able to immediately note which is which... ::)
Just keep making cheeses ..... and pay attention to what you see and smell and taste when your making it .
Make the same cheese multiple times to get the feel for it
Notes certainly help, but they are not mandatory
Well, I'm feeling a little better about the cheeses, and am not so worried that they'll not turn out.
I pierced them the other day, and the little crumbs that stick to the stainless steel barbeque skewer I used don't have a funny smell, and didn't taste bad either. You can tell they're supposed to be bleu cheese, but they're not quite there yet. So, all's well.
I took some pictures, and if you'll all forgive my embarrassment, here they are:
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(https://preview.ibb.co/c1Layo/blue_072318_03.png) (https://ibb.co/dJUDjT)
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(https://preview.ibb.co/cVovyo/blue_072318_02.png) (https://ibb.co/gDZqW8)
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(https://preview.ibb.co/h97AW8/blue_072318_01.png) (https://ibb.co/fUpePT)
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And here's one of the little one I'm doing for my friend. I didn't have another round mold, so this one got made in the rectangle basket mold I have.
(https://preview.ibb.co/gtkmM8/mblue_072318_001.png) (https://ibb.co/mXF8ZT)
I hope these things turn out okay!!
Thanks everyone, for all your advice and help! I'll keep everyone posted on what's going on until they get opened up.
Nice job Curdlessness. That one is sure blue. Glad it is tasting good.
Thanks!
I'll keep everyone posted on the progress of the Big Boy. The little rectangle should be ready on August 11 or so.
I'm going to let the big one go another two or three weeks at minimum.
And then, maybe another Butterkase, or a Havarti, or even a Colby.
That looks awesome! I'm sure it will be great :-)
Quote from: mikekchar on July 28, 2018, 08:21:38 AM
That looks awesome! I'm sure it will be great :-)
Man, I hope you're right!