Hello and greetings to all.
I have stumbled across this forum and been a lurker for some time, following the often brilliant advice in my own cheesemaking. I have however reached the point where I have a question of my own!
I have made a large (3.3kg) wheel of brew curd cheddar using the Karlin recipe. The ageing seems very short at approx 6 weeks, is this correct and because my cheese is a lot larger than in the recipe should I increase the ageing time?
First of all, nice looking cheese. Not bad if this is your first attempt, not bad at all!!!
My answer to your question is that for a cheddar, it would depend on how sharp of a flavor you want it to develop. The longer you let it go, the sharper the flavor will become. If this was my first attempt, I would be tempted to go with the six week recommendation to see how it's developing, and do a second cheese and let it go longer.
Quote from: MacGruff on September 02, 2020, 10:32:57 AM
First of all, nice looking cheese. Not bad if this is your first attempt, not bad at all!!!
My answer to your question is that for a cheddar, it would depend on how sharp of a flavor you want it to develop. The longer you let it go, the sharper the flavor will become. If this was my first attempt, I would be tempted to go with the six week recommendation to see how it's developing, and do a second cheese and let it go longer.
Thankyou. This is my 4th cheddar type cheese. I made two Cotswolds and a plain cheddar first. The first Cotswold wasn't pressed properly and took a long time to dry out before waxing. I quickly learnt to ignore all pressure settings in recipes as mould size makes a big difference. The last three I have made were pressed properly but are possibly too salty as I didn't have a scales that went over 2kg to accurately weigh the curds. It's been a learning curve.
I will taste it in 6 weeks then and see where it's at. I was thinking as my recipe was 'tripled' the ageing time may take longer too!
Larger cheeses definitely need a longer aging time, but it's not a straight function of cheese weight.
6 weeks sounds awfully short to me... I personally would wait for 6 months. Beautiful cheese!
Thank you.
I am struggling a bit to evenly dry out this cheese.
The surface started cracking after 2 days at room temperature so I placed it in my 80% cave, which didn't do anything so I wrapped it in a (boiled) wet cheesecloth. Tightened the cloth manually, clipped it and left for 24 hours turning once in my cave.
Hey presto all cracks (bar one small one) disappeared. It's now drying out at 80% minus the cloth so we'll see what happens. I intend to wax once dry.
A couple more pics. One before waxing and after a saturated brine/vinegar rub. Second pic after waxing.
Cheese has had 7 days to dry and I was a bit worried about surface cracking so am hoping the cheese moisture will now equalise under the wax! I use a 3lb loaf tin to dip the wheel and use natural coloured or semi transparent wax. Wax is heated to about 200f and cheese is held in wax for approx 10 secs to kill surface moulds.