Today I got my girls to help washing and oiling some cheeses, it was kind of special since three of them are failures-in-waiting koji experiments, and the rest were either getting their last coat ever or switching from daily to weekly or weekly to monthly. Also special since we woke up to a flooded house from a pipe burst in Dec31 (2020 was not a good year), and the contractors tore down everything in the house except the bedrooms and the garage. No kitchen no cheese-making, and my farmer had decided to dry her cows anyway. But the weekly cheese-making seems to be too much of a tradition in my house so we habilitated part of the garage and found another source of raw milk so we only lost one week :)
(https://i.imgur.com/ej7F82c.jpg)
Top, clockwise from top left corner: 191 day Alpkäse (last wash for this one), 51-day Tête de Moine (I'll cut it in half so it fits my girolle), 8-day Koji-infused-milk Alpkäse, 30-day Alpkäse, 72-day Appenzeller, Amazake-washed Alpkäse (straight from the brine)
Bottom, same order: 64-day Saint Paulin, 204-day ewe-milk Manchego, 86-day Mahón, 21-day Manchego, 16-day Emmentaler with Shio Koji bandage, 93-day Alpkäse
Very nice! Good to hear you are making it a family affair. My kids help a bit with chores, skimming milk, and sometimes stirring cheese, but they still find it hard to get a 5 gallon pot stirred!
Rachel
Oh no, that sounds like such a PITA, the pipe and huge repair. It is good to hear of your girls shaping up to be second generation cheesemakers. They must know so much already.
Hi,
these cheese look delicious, a very impressive collection!
Kind regards,
JD