I finally got everything set up to make rennet cheeses at home (previously only been able to do it at my father's house on the other side of the planet). I wanted something just to eat now, so figured just to make a queso fresco and after looking around at different recipes, I figured that "queso fresco" must mean "make cheese however I want to and eat it fresh". I was a bit intrigued by Caldwell's tomme recipe and decided to give it a go (using only 3 litres of milk!) Interestingly, it does *not* have a curd washing stage.
- MA 4000
- only ripen for 30 minutes or so (I forget the target pH)
- 3.5 X flocc time for total rennet rest (~45 min in her estimation) @ 32 C
- cut 1cm curds and stir bringing up to 38 C over 30 minutes
- stir a final 30 minutes
- form into a ball in the whey and transfer to the mould
- let drain into cheese cloth for 15 minutes
- flip and press with 50% weight of the cheese for 30 minute
- flip and press with 100% weight of the cheese for 1 hour
- continue pressing for 4-8 hours (I chose 4, flipping every hour)
Of course things did not got to plan. My curds were *not* ready to cut after 45 minutes. Even at 1 hour they were a bit sloppy, but I cut them anyway. Then my wife phoned from the bus station and asked me to pick her up... Great timing :-) 20 minutes later, I started stirring, raised the temp for 30 min and held for 30 minutes as per the recipe. I figured that my pH might be a bit low (I don't have a meter), but given the slow speed of the set, I figured it might be OK (i.e. maybe the milk was buffering a bit anyway).
I balled up the curds (which was much less difficult than I thought it would be). I put them in the cheese cloth lined mould and... Oh... you know what? If your follower is *just* the right size for your mould, it is *too big* if you have cheese cloth coming up the side. Lots of swearing. and then went and sanded off the follower (by hand mind you). So I got the first flip right. Then the second flip I did with no weight. Third flip I finally got the follower the right size, but... Hey... the cheese has formed perfectly well. How about that? I just put it in the mould without the cheese cloth. I have a really basic press which is essentially a big screw. I screwed it down *very* lightly -- just so that I got some beads of liquid coming out from the mould but no more. I decided to press it for the 4 hours from there. After 3 hours the rind looked closed to me, but the cheese felt a bit delicate (I don't know how to explain), so I cranked up the tension a bit higher -- but again no more than having a few beads of whey showing from the mould.
The resultant cheese was 400 grams (from only 3 litres of milk), which surprised me. I brined it for 3 hours in slightly less than full strength brine (I seem to have discarded my previous brine... or more likely my wife did... and I didn't quite have enough salt.... sigh...) I dried it overnight and it was quite dry by morning. Had a bite of it around lunch and it was marvelous! I couldn't believe how good it was. Interestingly it was completely closed with no mechanical holes. The texture was very nice and smooth with a good amount of resistance. It was also very squeaky. The flavour was surprisingly good (no ageing) and was considerably more acidic than I expected with such a short pressing.
So, as far as I'm concerned, a huge success! I post a pic tomorrow. Next to make one to age for a while. I need to travel for work in the next while so I won't be able to age it as a true tomme, but I'm looking forward to making many of the same thing and seeing how the flavour changes as it ages.
Congratulations, a cheese for you!
In her book Caldwell says something along the lines of "you'll never get every step completely right, but you must at least try to get every step right or you will have some problems"...this is a good example! You did your best, and got an edible cheese.
Well done, AC4U!
Here's a pic:
(https://i.imgur.com/WmnOpqJ.jpg)
You can see that it is quite small (4.5" across). I'm a little bit confused by my yield though. Caldwell suggests that 1.63 * protein content * fat content ~= yield %. According to the label, my milk is 3.3% protein and 3.7% fat, for a total of 7% * 1.63 = 11.41%. Of course that's an estimate, but as I got almost exactly 13.3% it would imply that the protein + fat was on the order of 8%. That seems a bit unlikely to me. It seems more likely that I'm retaining a bit too much whey in the curd. Any ideas?
Answering my own question :-) I realised that I'm approaching the question incorrectly. What I *want* to achieve is a protein/fat/water composition that is similar to a Tomme de Savoi. So if the fat content is 3.7g per 100g and 3l of milk weighs 3090 grams (sd of 1.030), then I have a potential of 114.33g of fat in my 397 g cheese (minus losses to whey). Similarly if the protein content is 3.3g per 100g, then I have a potential of 101.97g of protein (minus losses to whey). I made 397g of cheese, which means that I had 2693g of whey. From the USDA nutritional database, sweet whey has 0.85g of protein and 0.36g of fat per 100g of whey. So that's a total of 22.89g of protein and 9.69 g of fat. So the theoretical total for my cheese is 79.08g protein and 104.61g fat. This corresponds to 20% protein and 26.3% fat.
This is pre-ageing and there will be some water loss via ageing. I'm not sure how much... I did some googling around and there was a nutritional analysis of a Tomme de Savoi that came in at 25% protein and 30% fat. If my cheese was 30% fat, then the total weight would have to be 348.7. This would result in a protein content of 22.7% fat, so one can see that I'm on the high side in fat, which is to be expected I think. I'm thinking that the 12% moisture loss in ageing is probably not unrealistic, but to get me up to 25% protein I'd have to get down to 316g total which would be a 20% loss in moisture, which is completely unreasonable, I think.
If, I had had a 11.4% yield as predicted by Caldwell, then I would have ended up with 352g of cheese and to get down to 25% protein, I would only need a 10% loss in moisture. This seems much more reasonable, which means that probably I'm retaining too much moisture in my curds (probably not cutting them small enough).
Ha ha! I wrote a book there. Sorry if it's boring, but I enjoy that kind of thinking :-)
Well, I made another one today with the same recipe except 4 liters instead of 3. I tried to be a bit more consistent cutting the curd and I think it had a better curd going into the mould. But 551g pre-brine and assuming it looses a bit of whey there, I think I'm looking at *exactly* the same yield. So at least I'm consistent :-) Things went pretty well today. I'm quite happy except for the really long flocc time. I ended up waiting 95 minutes before I cut the curd. This time it was not sloppy at all and everything went very well. It will be interesting to compare the resultant cheese. I'm thinking next time I may use a whisk to cut the curd in order to get it smaller.
On Saturday when I was making version 2, my neighbour came over. He asked me what I was doing and after I said "Making cheese" he mentioned that he wouldn't mind giving it a try. I told him I wanted to age this one a week, but that I had another one which he could try. Now, my neighbour is a fairly elderly gentlemen and is very much on the skin-and-bones side. I think he told me he weighs 55 kg (121 lbs). I cut him a fairly generous piece since I'm always worried about him eating properly.
"Mike san", he said. "I can't eat anything as big as that." Just have a taste, I said. If you don't like it, I'll finish it off. He took a bite and thought about it for a bit. "Hmm... not bad. Is this the kind of thing you might eat while you are drinking?", he asked. Japanese people don't generally eat cheese. Most elderly people have only eaten Kraft cream cheese in their lifetime. So I said, yes, people frequently eat cheese while drinking. "That sounds pretty good", he said.
We got to talking and decided he should come over for dinner the next night. He doesn't really like the concept of dinner. Night time is for drinking and the food just gets in the way of that (which might explain his slight build). That's not really a Japanese trait -- it's his peculiarity. Normally he has a bite or two to be polite, 2 gou of nihonsu (about 360 ml of Japanese sake) and then goes back to his place to sleep. Anyway, I had just over half the wheel of cheese left (about 200g) so I put that out so he could munch on it with his sake.
Well, long story short, he scarfed the lot! I managed to wrest a thin slice for myself just to see how the flavour was coming along. He loved the stuff. You can imagine how I felt, though, as I was looking at the empty plate. I *will* need that tomme mould after all!
Here's a pic of #2:
(https://i.imgur.com/6GXYE8N.jpg)
You'll notice that the rind isn't quite closed. I backed off a bit on the pressing weight, but I think it either needs a bit more time or a bit more pressure just to close it off. #1 had no mechanical holes in it, and I'm trying to get some this time -- we'll see. I'll be ageing this one for only a week (which is a week more than #1). As I mentioned earlier, by 1 week in, #1 was surprisingly delicious. Right off the bat is was very buttery and creamy but by the end of the week the mesophilic culture was starting to impart that cheddar like flavour. Really nice eating cheese, though it won't impress on a cheese platter (far too mild in comparison to the other cheeses). It will be interesting to see if how #2 develops in the second week.
Looks great, Mike, and I enjoyed the story about your neighbor. :) Keep finding ways to feed him cheese!
Rich
Tomme #2 is 16 days old and I'm going to cut it today (in keeping with my "eat it fresh and learn stuff" approach). It has considerably more mould on it than I would have expected at this point. Here's a picture:
(https://i.imgur.com/3f8nNXA.jpg)
Sorry for the poor lighting. I have Tomme #4 drying in the front room and decided not to move this one into the same area because I want to try a different rind treatment with #4.
I had quite a few problems with #2. First, I did not dry it off properly before it went into the cave. Not really being experienced with rennet cheeses, I thought, "Oh this is dry enough" and then when it went through a bit of a slimey phase (which happens most of the time in my cave) I realised the rind wasn't formed well enough. The other problem was that my ripening box was too small. I have these "box in box" boxes, where the inner box is really just a plastic grate. I really like them, but as the cheese slumped a bit, it hit the sides of the inner box. Also the box was just too small to begin with (I think 700ml for a 500g cheese). I wondered if I could get away with it and the answer is a definitive "no". That's why you see all the marks on the sides. The ones on the top are from the bamboo mat (because the rind wasn't formed properly).
Lot's of learning :-)
I wasn't surprised that blue mold showed up on this cheese. My cave is full of it. However, I know from wonderful experience with my non-rennet cheeses that my wild blue is *really* nice (like, "OMG, this is the best cheese I ever ate" nice). So I decided to just go with the flow. Interestingly, though, I'm not actually sure this *is* my coveted blue mould. It doesn't smell like blue mould at all. It smells like mugwort (an herb that you probably have never heard of before -- in Japanese it is called "yomogi" and it is usually ground and put in sticky, sweet rice cakes).
And then I thought about it. In the same room where my cave is, my wife is fermenting miso -- the main ingredient being aspergillus oryzae mould (or kooji in Japanese). I'm really looking forward to seeing how this turns out. As you may remember the rind for this one wasn't *quite* closed, so it may be interesting. Tomme #3 has started to go the same way (although also has some brown mould, which makes me happy). I'm going to try to age #3 for a month if I can restrain my neighbour :-)
The other thing that might not be noticeable from the picture is the rind is full of geo. Apart from the marks on the rind, it's gone decidedly wrinkly :-) There have been occasional "white fuzzy bunny tails" on the rind as well -- not sure if that's a white mould or just the geo.
So as far as I'm concerned, it's all been tremendously fun. The proof of the pudding is in the eating though. I'm definitely curious. My neighbour is coming over to claim his share. I wonder if he'll eat it :-) He's a cheese novice so this *might* be a bridge too far... We'll see. I have no idea what I'm doing with natural rinds, but I'm enjoying the process. #4 I plan to get some b.linens going (I know from experience that it show up if I wash the rind regularly). I'm guessing that will keep the blue/kooji away for a while and then I'll dry it off and see what grows on it. Hopefully I'll be able to get something to grow before I have to go to the UK in the middle of May.
Nice work!
-you are very fortunate to have some delicious wild blue where you live...I certainly don't!
-it's awesome that your wife makes miso...i love fermenting and have always wanted to try that
-if your neighbor isn't into the mold, just slice of the rind and he should be happy!
Thanks cheesehead94!
I thought I'd post this because it gave me a chuckle: https://patents.google.com/patent/WO2015096445A1/en (https://patents.google.com/patent/WO2015096445A1/en) There is a patent for using kouji as a surface mold for ripening cheese! (BTW, US patent office, what the heck???) I didn't exactly follow the procedures in the patent, so I don't think the thought police will come to arrest me :-) But if it *is* kouji, then it apparently imparts a very nice flavour.
Edit: Here's another interesting paper: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/220036363_Microencapsulated_enzymes_from_Aspergillus_oryzae_accelerate_cheddar_cheese_ripening_and_enrich_biologically_active_peptide_profile (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/220036363_Microencapsulated_enzymes_from_Aspergillus_oryzae_accelerate_cheddar_cheese_ripening_and_enrich_biologically_active_peptide_profile). The abstract claims that kouji increases proteolisis. The money quote: "Aspergillus oryzae not only accelerated cheese ripening but has the potential to enrich the bioactive peptide profile in cheddar cheese"
Seriously thinking about intentionally innoculating some cheese with it (kouji is easy to buy in the supermarket here).
Well, my neighbour came over. I showed him the cheese and he said, "Oh that looks great. How did you make it get that colour?" Not deterred at all.
Here are some pics from opening it:
(https://i.imgur.com/FOHpF18.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/WQF7p9J.jpg)
Massively successful. Half the wheel gone in about 10 minutes. I really need to get a proper tomme mould... As you can see, there were some mechanical holes which is what I was going for. The paste is very soft and creamy. Too soft and creamy for a tomme, I think, but good grief it was good. Flavour was pretty similar to a havarti really. So much fat (again, not good for the style, but man it was delicious).
The second picture is a close up of a slice. Unfortunately it's bit blurry but you might be able to see a slight darkening of the colour near the rind. There was some softening of the paste there which I attribute to the mould. It certainly doesn't taste like a blue mould, so I'm sticking with the kouji theory for now. I'm a bit worried that the rind won't be stable long term, but I'm going to age #3 for a month (if I can handle the wait... so delicious....) I dried it out a bit better. I'm looking forward to getting some b.linens on #4, though still worried about about the rind.
Anyway, thanks for reading. Just super excited about how well it turned out!
Awesome, a cheese fornyou!
Congratulations! Another cheese 4U.
Your cheese looks great, congrats!
Thanks guys! I'm really happy with it. I'm pretty surprised that it picked up that much flavour in only 2 weeks. Looking forward to seeing what happens with #3 (which is scheduled for a month)
Congrats. AC4U
I have a Japanese neighbor who is lactose intolerant but he binges on my cheeses and says they are worth the aftermath. Haha. Glad he lives on the other side of the mountain
Just a quick update. The blue coloured mould on the outside of tomme #2 is *definitely* blue mould, in case anyone was curious :-). It's my nice wild blue mould and not offensive at all, but... I've come to the conclusion that it really is inappropriate on the rind of a tomme. It's just too strong flavoured. Even though it didn't penetrate into the paste, if you eat the rind all you taste is blue.
So, on #3 and #4 I've been trying to dissuade the blue. Unfortunately for #3, it had already gotten into the rind and then slowly softened it, so I think I'm stuck with it. #4 I've done a better job, but it's still really tricky. I don't have any enough moulds in my cave to provide competition. Lately #4 is growing white mould at a rate considerably higher than the blue mould, but in removing the blue mould, I'm knocking back most of the white. I think it will be a struggle until I can get some nice cultures growing. Affinage is hard :-)
This is the first time I've used bamboo mats as drainage mats. I was surprised at how much mould grows on them. When the blue gets into it, I boil them, but I think when I finally get a culture going that I like, this will be a handy innoculator. It's frustrating that I have to go to the UK this spring.... I'll have to abandon all this and probably start again in the summer :-(
I figured it's time for an update:
Here's tomme #3:
(https://i.imgur.com/8k3l2jR.jpg)
I was sure that I'd never get the blue off of it, but what do you know -- it's almost clean (the bottom as a few spots, but it seems dormant). It's not so obvious, but there is a bit of b.linens in there that helped to get rid of the blue. I was surprised at how effective my counter actions were: washing with brine and vinegar, spot cleaning with a toothpick, reducing the humidity a bit. It's got some geo and PC going on. Strong smell of broccoli. The paste is a bit soft, so it's going to be interesting. I was supposed to cut this yesterday, but various things happened and it's going to be next week instead. I wish I could age it longer, but I'll have a couple of kilos of cheese to get through in a month before going to the UK as it is...
Here's tomme #4:
(https://i.imgur.com/0vJ4BGB.jpg)
You can see the b. linens did it's thing! That was my intent with this one to begin with, but when I started having blue troubles with #3 I changed my mind. Obviously it was too late. I'm getting a bit of blue, which I'm a *bit* worried about, but I'm hoping to encourage the PC that's forming a thick rind on the top. The bottom is still quite bare. We'll see how it goes. So far, the paste seems firm and it's dried off, so I'm not really worried about the b. linens making a washed rind cheese out of this. The smell is mostly gone now too.
So, I'm very much encouraged with them so far. Now that I'm getting them to this stage, I really want to age them for a few months, but I'll have to wait for cheeses in the summer to try that. It will be very interesting to try them.
Hope nobody minds more pics. I cut Tomme #3 today:
(https://i.imgur.com/Q2uPVLA.jpg)
In the left hand side you can see some softening of the paste near the rind. Here's a close up of a smaller piece:
(https://i.imgur.com/zrSONvP.jpg)
This is after about 5 weeks (March 5 to April 8). You can see some blue got back onto the rind, but despite my fears there is no indication of it anywhere in the paste. The PC/geo definitely started to soften the paste a bit, but it's not actually that noticeable. However, the cheese as a whole is too moist IMHO. As I suspected when I made it, I did not dry out the curds enough. #4 will mostly have that fixed, I think.
My only other slight quibble is that the paste is probably too acidic. I don't have a lot of experience eating tomme (probably only had it once in my life and it's possible not even that many times -- I only have a vague recollection). The fresh #1 had a lot of buttery notes. #2 started off with a nice havarti like flavour to start and then picked up some cheddar tones as I slowly ate it (there is still a small piece left). #3 starts with that cheddar tone and the butter is not so obvious. The paste is also a bit "short" and has a soft consistency, a bit like cream cheese. I think some of the problems will be solved with drier curds, but I wonder if I need to do a washed curd to limit the lactose.
Still, I'm *very* pleased. It's a definite step forward from #2. I've very curious at how #4 will turn out.
A cheese for you! That's n impressive looking cheese...i've only made Tomme once, but it was a small wheel aged for 6 months and as such was pretty dry. I've eaten real Tomme once too, and it definitely seemed closer to yours...it had some definite softening near the rind and a very mushroomy flavor.
Mike, AC4U, not just for the cheese, but for the systematic progress you are making in refining the cheese.!
Thanks guys! Learning is fun, so I'm having a blast trying to puzzle out this stuff. If I don't do it this way, I'll just get muddled. :-) One thing I learned when I was doing the non-rennet cheeses last year was that my favourite thing is affinage. It's so much fun to open the ripening boxes every day and be rewarded with a little change here or there, or a slightly different smell, or a different texture. But what I've found really rewarding with rennet cheeses is how dependent the affinage is on the make. Really tiny differences make huge differences later on. Of the 3 tomme style makes I've done so far, my wife is convinced that they are completely different cheeses. And yet it's more like I balanced a little more on my left foot for make #2 and breathed slightly differently for make #3. It's a bit like magic.
I'm in the UK now. Tomme #4 ended up in the regular fridge while I'm here. I'm hoping it's still OK when I get back. The sides have all curved inwards like a very tiny Beaufort. But the exciting news (for me anyway) is that I managed to find a Tomme Fleurie at shop in Clerkenwell in London. I was really surprised to find that Tomme #3 was really not far off the mark -- just a bit young. The texture was just about perfect. Firm, but still quite creamy under the tongue. The flavour surprised me as the thermophilic character *really* came through on the example that I had. It's a bit like if you had a creamy, young emental with just a hint of buttery notes underneath. I only picked up a little bit of cheddar flavour coming through, which was really interesting. The rind was complex. I had it in my bag a work and when I opened the bag, the smell of sweat socks was undeniable -- so it definitely has some b.linens going on. The rind for this example was also quite soft and much thinner than I was expecting. You can see some red underneath with tan dominating and just a hint of puffy white on top. It's not he typical mucor that you see in most pictures of Tomme de Savoie. However, it is very enjoyable and I'd be happy to get a rind like that (mine is fairly bitter and has a dry texture).
Today I'm picking up a reblochon. I'll update my washed rind post, but for those who want a spoiler, it went off :-( Outside of the cheese was super bitter with ammonia and polyphenols. :-(
Well I have been wondering just exactly what a "tomme" cheese is, and thanks to your investigations I now know! Yes please keep the updates coming...
Yesterday I went to Guilford in Surrey and ran across a cheese shop: https://partisan-deli.co.uk/ (https://partisan-deli.co.uk/). If you are ever in the area, I highly recommend it. It's only about a 30 minute train ride out of London and it's also a very interesting place, so great for sight seeing if you are a tourist. Anyway, they had a Tomme de Savoie there and they gave me a nibble. It's much closer to what I imagined a Tomme would taste like: more butter and and more firm than the Fleurie that I had last week. So this is where I'm going to aim my next attempts.
Anyway, I picked up quite a lot of cheese: an old natural rind Caerphilly (which was my #1 cheese to look for on this trip!), a Cornish Yarg, and then a semi hard goat's cheese and *very* old hard sheep's cheese (whose names I forget at the moment). We must have tasted at least 10 different cheeses while we were there. The shop was quite small and they didn't have a massive selection, but what they had was of really, really good quality. Like I said, if you are in the area, it's worth popping in.
How exciting!
Will you be in London only? If you like Brie style be sure to try Baron Bigod, you can get them in lots of cheese shop but I love going to Neal's Yard Dairy in Borough market, that is one tasty cheese. Also try some Appleby Cheshire and Montgomery Cheddar and of course the ever delisioso Stichelton. If you like washed rind like Reblochon, try David Jowett's Rollright. It is a pasteurised milk cheese but quite tasty. Have a wonderful travel!
Thank you for the suggestions! Yes, unfortunately I'm stuck in London (I'm working here for a month). I'm doing my best to sample as many cheeses as I can because cheese is extremely hard to come by and very expensive in Japan.
Here is a pick of Tomme #4, aged a little over 16 weeks:
(https://i.imgur.com/EC1yQTU.jpg)
If you remember, I experimented with letting b. linens go to town on the rind and it obliged. About 5 weeks of the 16 were actually done in the normal fridge because I was in the UK. The cheese is still fairly firm, though it has definitely softened a bit. The smell is pretty strong though! It will be very interesting to taste this, especially since my beer washed reblochon was a complete bust. The rind here is quite sticky and is flaking off (you can see the odd exposed area if you look hard). Will be opening this very soon (possibly even tonight).
That rind looks very nice AC4U!
I thought I would add a quick summary of how tomme #4 turned out. Very much like my non-Chimay/Reblochon misguided effort ( :-) ) it was very bitter after cutting it. I didn't like it. My wife, however, loved it. After it was cut for a few days, I think some of the ammonia left and the taste was a little better. A couple of weeks later and it's actually quite good -- although *very* strong.
So I think there are a couple of things here. First, after the b. linens took hold I aged it for too long. There wasn't anything to be done, though -- I was off to the UK for a month and we just couldn't eat that much cheese. But I think there are a couple of other issues which can be resolved. First, I think the salt level was just a tad low. Also, I probably should have washed/rubbed the geotrichum off the rind at some point. Looking at Boofer's bitterness links, I notice that letting geo go too far is potential cause of bitterness. But I think, similar to my intentially washed rind, it's just a matter of controlling the degradation of proteins. Linuxboy mentioned that beta casein can break down into very bitter peptides and I think this is likely the cause of my problem in this cheese -- given that the bitterness is now almost gone. Possibly a little higher salt content would have helped. I'm starting to wonder if moving the cheese in and out of my normal fridge is causing part of this problem. The temp swings may have prevented the enzymes from breaking down the proteins in an orderly fashion. I've decided since my "cave" is a picnic cooler, I'll take it to my mother in law's when I go and visit and luckily I don't have any travel planned (at the moment) until mid October. But maybe I'll need to get a cheese fridge...
What a dedicated cheese maker you are, to consider bringing your cheese with you when you travel, LOL!
I do think you would be happier with a cheese frig...I did the picnic cooler thing for just under a year, because I wasn't sure if I'd be truly hooked on cheese making and did not want to spend a lot of money on equipment that until I was. ( I don't think that is an issue with you, you seem like you've been hooked for awhile now, no?)
Now that I have a frig, it's amazing how much "time" I have on my hands, not switching out ice, or having to have a mental timer clicking in my head, to be checking on it twice a day. I do check my thermostat regularly, but since it's stabilized I don't have to fuss with it at all.