Sir OzzieCheese suggested we do a Raffine challenge in which I make Raffine and on the other side of the globe he makes it. Today was my cheese day so a I brought up the Raffine recipe from NE Cheesemaking. https://cheesemaking.com/products/raffine-cheese-making-recipe
I was first interested in this cheese because the picture on the NECheesmaking site make it look so darn pretty. It looks like a delicious dessert, though I am sure it wont taste like one.. and I suspect my version will not be as beautiful but I digress.
My ingredients:
2 gallons Natural by Nature Whole Milk. This milk is flash pasteurized.
1/4 tsp MA 4002 culture
1/32 tsp GEO13 GC. Recipe called for GEO17, but I dont have that.
1/64 tsp B Linens
3/4 tsp Single Strength Rennet
1/2 tsp CaCl2
1) Put milk in warm water bath and heated milk to 90F.
2) Added CaCl2 in 1/4 cup distilled water, mixed well.
3) Sprinkled on 1/4tsp MA4002 & 1/32 tsp GEO13. (I forgot BLines!). Let sit 3minutes to rehydrate
4) Mixed well. Temp=92 so removed from bath
5) set for 60min. 20min in when thinking of the delicious pink color.. I realized I forgot the BLinens!
6) Added 1/64 tsp BLinens, let hydrate and mixed in.
7) Allowed to sit 40minutres (total time 60minutes)
80 Add 3/4tsp rennet in 1/4 cup distilled water. Mixed for 30seconds, T=87F
9) at 5minutes, I had flocculation. Not knowing what the multiplier was to be, I cut curds after 25minutes.
10) Made one set of vertical cuts space 2" apart.
11) waited 3minutes
12) Made second set of vertical cuts perpendicular to first set and spaced 2" apart.
13) waited 5minutes
14) tried horizontal cuts. I can never get this right. I tried using the cheese ladle but I didn't like that. I Tried using a long knife, but didn't like that either. I may need to invest (or make) a cheeseharp.
15) Let rest 15minutes. Ladled off collected whey. Recipe says to not stir but gently separate curds. I tried but I don't think I was successful, curds still broke up anyway.
16) repeated this every 15minutes for 2 hours.
17) Ladled curds into my cheese mold. I didn't;t have the right molds so I used one regular basket mold, One small hard cheese mold, one homemade cheese mold (plastic ice cream container with holes in it). I chose these because they are roughly the same dimensions as the molds mentioned in the recipe. (The hard cheese mold has no bottom)
18). Sprinkled 1/2 tsp cheese salt on each cheese.
19). Allowed to sit until they shrank about 1/2 way. (~2.5 hours)
20) Cheeses were flipped and 1/2 tsp salt sprinkled on top again.
21) ~5 1/2 hours later the cheeses were removed from the molds and placed on bamboo mats. The are still very wet but can hold their shape.
22) Allowed to sit out ~65F and covered with butter muslin
The cheeses are supposed to spread considerable. We'll see in the morning! Stay Tuned. :-)
The next morning the cheeses did not appear that much different. I had expected them to spread a bit and have a lower profile.
ABout 6 days after the Raffine make and the cheeses are developing a pale orange hue and a covering of white molds. I've been giving it a wash every other day, letting it dry then recovering. Temp control is a bit tricky since the temp should be between 60-65. When I noticed the temps around 68, I moved to the cooler basement. Humidity is a problem now, too. After weeks of low humidity the past few days have been very humid here. The basement is a bit drier because we have a dehumidifier there. Another thing I noticed is these cheeses smell like pee! They just developed this odor. None of the cheeses I have made have smelled like pee before.. They have stunk to high heaven but not like urine. I know urine has urea which can degrade to ammonia but this doesn't smell like the ammonia right out of the bottle. Anyway, here's a pic of the cheeses!
One week in. Cheeses are developing a pale orange hue. I've been keeping them in the basement where it is a little bit cooler but with the heat wave we are having may be a bitt too warm. Humidity in basement is about 60%, I have a little partially on in hopes of creating a slightly moister environment. The basement smells like stinky feet. When smelling up close the cheeses smell like ammonia.
I've been washing every other day. But they felt a little drier this morning so I gave them a light wash.
Well, it is my turn today. Sorry but life happened and I couldn't start when I said. Just reviewing the recipe and I will adjust the the rennet. The original description said 3/4 tsp. or 3.5 mls. Which produces a an initial floc time of 10 to 15 minutes. And a cut time of 30 minutes. This is highly subjective is this depends on rennet strength, milk quality and culture strength resulting in pH after ripening time of 60 minutes. Using the rennet I have I will need about 2.5 mls to set with ten minutes and given that the total coagulation time could be as long as 45 minutes I would use a floc factor of 3.5 to 4. Seeing this is the first time making this cheese I will use initially 3.5 and check for a clean break and adjust from there.
Should be fun.
Images added
ooh Cannot wait to see your process and how your cheeses develop. :-)
Just waiting for the stainless gear to be sterilised. I'm making this on in hindsight of a few cheeses but mainly the comment of after a week the was a ammonia smell, something that indicates that it's maturing too fast. So to combat that without altering the cheeses character too much I will be adding 600ml of cream to stabilise the curd. It might not go so soft in such a rush. The rennet will be adjusted as per the notes above and I'll try to shown how I cut the sort of horizontal curd cuts. Apart from that it will be the same recipe as above.
But for now, the milk is calling me.
Yeah.. I though it might be maturing too fast, also.. I moved to a cooler spot... but may not be cool enough. It's hot here at the moment. My cheese fridge is at 53F (~11C) which is a bit too cool.. Maybe I should move it there anyway for this next week... Well, no matter... I will soldier on. I am glad I have not had any blue appear.... yet....
There is a few temperatures missing and I think that as in section 6 I would assume that 60DegF - 15 DegC is a bit high but I see that the recipe is setting up a fast rind ripen followed by 3 weeks at 7DegC. I've set up my fridge for 15 DegC for the first part. For the floc factor I added 3mls of rennet and a floc factor of 3. Which started to set at 11 minutes 30 secs which worked out at 28 minutes. Pretty close to the 30 minutes so, I'm happy with that.
I am up to the curd cutting point. I have stuck to the recipe (apart from the cream) timing and temperatures. At the cutting time I had a clean break and decided to cut the curd. The curds are very, very soft. The first cuts done and waiting for the second. Though it not always possible to get perfect cubes I find that running the curd knife at 45 degrees, turn the pot 1/2 turn and recut, turn 1/4 turn and recut, turn half turn and recut. It may sound a little excessive but the curds come out at around the same size. With this cheese it is very soft and cutting to much will end up losing to much milk into the whey. So, I'm going to leave the last set of cuts for a few more minutes.
Images Added
The curd at cutting was very fragile and the whey removal was very milky. In comparison with even my Malembert images there is a large amount of fat loss seeing in the whey.
For those interested I have been keeping a pH log.
The milk started at 6.67
After culture added and ripening for 60 minutes pH of 6.58
After rennet and curd cutting pH of 6.55
I'm reasonably confident of reaching a safe pH of anything under 5, 4.7 would be awesome.
Updated
The pH was tested in the morning and hit 5.08 - I'm happy with that.
Quote from: OzzieCheese on June 07, 2021, 01:23:24 AM
There is a few temperatures missing and I think that as in section 6 I would assume that 60DegF - 15 DegC is a bit high but I see that the recipe is setting up a fast rind ripen followed by 3 weeks at 7DegC.
I've done a few side by side tests of higher vs lower temps for this kind of rind. I err on the side of high. I actually prefer 16 C until I get geotrichum growing. However, a couple of asides: I no longer add geo to my milk and I think adding b. linens to the milk is a waste of time. If you add geo to the milk and rest it at 16 C, you'll get full coverage in a day or two. Similar to the description in the "Raffine Info" section (hard to find on the page, but find the title and click on it), I prefer using my bamboo mats from an old cheese to innoculate the cheese. If I don't have any old mats with appropriate residue, I just wait for geo to show up from the air/my cave. This seems to produce a better flavour. After the cheese gets slimy, I give it a good rub with my fingers (yay b. linens) and then set the cave to 13 C. To be honest, I frequently start my geotrichum rinds in the mid 20's which I prefer to starting them cold. If the house is significantly over 25 C and my fridge is full of cheese that needs a colder aging, I'll resort to starting them at 13 C, but it's not as good. The only real downside to high temp is that you really have to watch the humidity. This is normally not a problem for me since 25 C temps only happen just before the rainy season.
In terms of b. linens, it won't grow until the pH of the rind is about 5.8 (it depends on the variety and can show up anywhere from 5.5 to 6.0). Adding it to the milk makes no sense to me at all. Instead, add it to the wash if you want a particular strain to grow. It *will* show up from the wild, so it's not necessary at all to buy it. My wild b. linens (or equivalent) is a bit "hot", so I've got FR22 in the freezer (which is nice and mild). But I almost never use it. I put the cheeses in the normal fridge at 6 C once I get the sign that b. linens is going (rind darkening and the smell picking up). Long, cold aging is the key to nice b. linens flavour.
Bansidhe, one thing that's nice about washed rinds is that you *never* need to worry about blue. There is literally no downside to washing a washed rind (provided that you are using a light 3 or 5% brine). Once b. linens is actively growing, blue has very little chance and if it *does* show up, you can *always* wash it off.
Awesome! This is great stuff! Today I see my rind is more light orange (peach?). One of the cheeses, however, lost a part of the rind. The paste does look nice and creamy though and the part of the rind that came off has a delicate taste. I have also noted that the ammonia smell seems to have decreased somewhat. So, that's good. Not sure I should continue aging at this temp since it is higher than prescribed .. should I move it to 52degrees so so it down and then after a week move it to cooler 45F. Here's a pic of my cheeses... Note, one is beautiful. I used the small hard cheese mold for that one, the surface is nice and smooth. I like that. The others have a much bumpier surface.
Upon turning my cheese babies this afternoon, I felt they were a bit too dry. So I moved them to my cheese cave where upped the temp to 60. The Havarti that is there will do fine for a week at 60. I should have done this before but initially the temperatures were fine in the house.
I turned the cheeses at about 3 hours and the cheeses now were still very soft and didn't easily slide down in the molds. But, good ole gravity finally persuaded their eventual movement downwards. During the afternoon the smell of the lowering pH was evident. I left them in the molds until I retired for the evening as I knew they would still be very soft. My molds are closed so i couldn't salt the end until the evening. So, just be fore bed I removed the molds and salted the cheese and left them to do what they will overnight.
The next morning house temp dropped to 16 DegC overnight I was greeted with 4, only very slightly spread cheeses and measured the surface pH - on both sides - as 5.08. So, I'm pretty happy with that. The humidity will be a problem here in Brisbane at this time of year - nice cool days and nights but the humidity is very low. I have set up one of my fridges with a cave cube and it should be able to keep the humidity at 90% and temp at 16 DegC without too much trouble. If anything, It will be keeping the fridge that warm that will be interesting as I don't have a independent thermostat for the fridge.
Sorry there are no photos at the moment but I will address that today.
Images added
The temperature in my Kitchen during the day was quite cold so, I needed to wrap it up.
Nice update. Mine barely spread at all. I was kind of disappointed in that but somewhat relived yours didn't either. I don't check pH yet so I cannot comment on that. I may have to invest in pH meter if I keep this cheese thing ujp. :-)
Don't give up! I had a several failures through out my cheese journey. The info in this forum help me solve a lot of these failures. As far a pH meter I used paper pH strips for many, many cheeses. You can buy these in the US as well of order from Green living Australia
https://www.greenlivingaustralia.com.au/cheese-making/equipment-accessories/ph-strips/ (https://www.greenlivingaustralia.com.au/cheese-making/equipment-accessories/ph-strips/)
Very nice. So do you put the strips in the whey the has drained off or on the cheese itself?
In the morning the cheeses were a nice shape and the pH was tested to be in a very good range. But I would like to backtrack a little here and just comment on the whey draining phase as it was a good insight on the secret that removing the whey holds.
As you remove the whey you are actually pressing the curds in the pot and removing the whey. During this process it was necessary to gently lift and separate the curds after you remove whey - I was removing about
700mls at a time. The other aspect I think is the role temperature plays in this as well. Keeping temperature constant keeps the pH change going at a good clip in time for the hooping.
I cut about 3mm off the roll and used tweezers to either dip into the whey or take a sample of curd and press the strip into it and then compare the colours on the reference chart.
For those who have read the previous posts on this topic, I have added some images of my attempt. I will add the images of the aging process as this is where the cheese makes it's difference known.
Images Added
This is how I interpreted the aging setup.
Very nice. They look like mine did except square. :-). What are the dimensions of your molds?
The molds are just the standard 100mm square fetta molds. Nothing too fancy, just what I had on hand. How are your cheeses aging so far?
I asked about the mold because I only got three cheeses out of it. I think that's about right given the area of my circles vs your squares.. assuming height is approximately the same. Anyway, my rind got a bit too dry so on one of them it's flaking off a bit. The underlying paste sure looks nice though. I posted a pic yesterday of it. They are in the cheese cave at 60 degrees and 87% humidity. I should have done that at the very beginning but I left them at room temperature. I'll definitely be making this again knowing what I know now! How about your cheese babies?
Oh I would like to add that I like how you comment on everything during your process. That gives me ideas of the the sorts of things I should be observing and making note of. Thanks!
I would have achieved a slightly higher yield with the addition of the 600lms of cream. If you don't mind a comment here on your make notes, I noticed that your setting time was really fast. This makes for a very fragile curd. The flocculation factor is a sort of a indication of the casin structure being built in the cheese and the amount of moisture and fats it captures. Notice I didn't say soft but, fragile. They appear initially to be set but as soon as you cut or disturb the curd, the structure collapses and the internal moisture and fat escape into the whey. The description in the original recipe listed a 'thickening' in 10 to 15 minutes and a total coagulation time of 30 minutes. This indicates a floc factor of somewhere between two and three. And as we were not doing anything else to firm up the curds apart from the gradual draining of the whey, the curds are very fragile. I also have a standardised rennet that I know I can get a floc point with 3mls of rennet at 10-12 minutes (actually achieved 11.5 minutes) for 8 litres and then applied the original factor of three to give a total time before cutting of 34 minutes (rounded up). This floc factor is the first point of consistency, getting a correct cut for the cheese you are making. This is one of the reasons I write so much, so I don't forget what I did.
Quote from: OzzieCheese on June 09, 2021, 09:32:44 PM
I noticed that your setting time was really fast. This makes for a very fragile curd.
Just so I understand what you are getting at, are you saying that a faster flocculation time increases curd shattering, or that a shorter multiplier increases curd shattering? I assume the former. I've not heard that before, but it certainly makes some sense. I've been experimenting with homogenised milk (because it is cheaper and also because I'm stubborn and want to see if I can make decent cheese with it). Shattering is a huge problem. For hard cheeses, I've been cutting early (mutliplier of 2.0 - 2.5), but not stirring. This helps the curd drain a bit and make the curds less fragile when you get to a multiplier of 3.0 - 3.5. However, I did not consider the idea of slowing down the flocculation. In fact, someone on reddit gave me the idea that cutting back the amount of culture. Since you can't stir as vigorously, it takes longer to dry out the curds. This means that you need to acidify more slowly to hit your pH targets. If I *also* cut back on the ripening time (and potentially cut the temperature by 1-2 degrees C), I could slow down the flocculation time which *might* allow a more gentle capture of the whey... Hmmm... something to think about.
Yeah, I did notice the set time was REALLY fast. I was shocked. But the recipe said floc time between ten and 15 minutes but to cut at 30. Well, if the set time is 15 then that would be a cut time of 2. I waited to 25 minutes I think. Which is a multiplier of 5. Wouldn't that mean I'd have a lot of extra moisture ?
As I said, I will try this again. In fact, I have many these I want to do again. They've all been good but I dont know if they have been right.
There is a lot to unpack here and, please, I'm only going on what I read and seen. Faster Floc. times and applying the same floc factor to guage the cutting time will result in a much more open curd structure and will result in less moisture and fats being encapsulated within it. I am just paraphrasing my understanding of the process. The shorter multiplier, the mushier it will be and you wont achieve a clean break - it will have no supporting structure - minimal at best. I only have a rudimentary understanding of the curd formation process but the cleaving of the kappa protein from the casein minicule and when the enzyme in rennet cleaves the κ-Casein the net negative charge is reduced and they start clumping together. But the faster they do that the weaker the overall structure, it's a bit like over cooking concrete.
Yes you can make cheese from homogenized milk but the fat retention within the curd structure is not good. Homogenization, and it is totally a cosmetic thing, has several detrimental side effects for cheesemaking.
1. Homogenization is totally a cosmetic thing just to prevent the milk 'creaming', i.e. the fats slowly climbing together and rising to the top of the container.
2. The fat globules are literately squeezed through microscopic holes under immense pressure and are destroyed.
3. The natural carotene, that which make the cream appear yellowish is destroyed as well during pasteurization and lost.
4. Because the fat globules are now so very much smaller they are not as easily captured by the curd formation process.
5. Homogenized milks in the supermarket are nearly always adulterated with milks from vastly different batches and you have no idea how it was treated before being added to the product.
While we can repair some of the damage done by pasteurization -up to a point- by adding Calcium Chloride there is nothing we as cheesemakers can do with restoring the fats.
On the adding less culture, I don't definitively know but, the pH required to protect the cheese or setup for other moulds to do their thing probably wont be reached the culture is your flavor producing component as well as your acid producers.
This is a large topic I would like to continue at a greater depth.
You touched on the thing that confuses me with regard to the floc test and cutting time. In the recipes I am using , they always say to achieve a clean break .. For Brie, you wait until it's set !90 minutes), for this affine you wait until a clean break ~30 minutes, for
a mother cheese 45 minutes. Now, I get that one multiplies the floc time by some multiplier that is determined by the cheese one wishes to make. But why do these recipes always say when you get a clean break? I mean I could have gotten a clean break at an hour for the brie I just made, but I know I had to wait for 90 minutes.. How useful is this idea of a clean break then?
IMO the concept of a "clean break" is just to make sure you don't end up with a fragile curd that shatters easily.... There is no way that a Flocculation multiple of 2.0-2.5 results in a clean break, and in my (limited) experience even 3.0 can be a bit sloppy.... I would say that you need a Floc. multiple of 3.5-4.0 to get a clean break, at least that has been my experience, with a P/H milk and cream mix....
This doesn't mean you can't make a successful cheese with a Floc. multiple of 2.0, but that is because you will also be cutting the curds smaller anyways.... I have been trying to come up with a "formula" for curd size in relationship to the Floc. multiple, but the best I have been able to do so far is a range.... I find that a cheese that calls for a Floc. multiple of 2.0-2.5 is nearly always cut to 1/4", and ends up at Barley to Rice sized grains once cooked.... If the Floc. multiple is 3.0-3.5 the curd is usually cut to about 3/8", then after gentle stirring ends up bean sized, and once cooked about pea sized.... When the Floc. multiple is 3.5 to 4.0 the curd cut seems to be 1/2", with the curds starting out as hazelnut sized and ending up bean sized after cooking.... I haven't done anything that requires a Floc. multiple of 5-6, but what little I have read indicates that seems to be related to 3/4" to 1" curds, or ones that are just carefully ladled into the mold....
One thing I have started doing lately is cutting the curd in two stages.... I do the vertical cuts, resulting in columns, then rest 5 min. during which time I gently move the pot each minute to make the columns wave around and start losing whey.... I then do the horizontal cuts, resting another 5 min. during which time I move the pot each minute in different directions, including turning it.... This is in effect "stirring" the curds, but the only thing they touch is the whey and each other.... After this my wife takes over, she has just the right "touch" in turning over the curds gently with a slotted spoon, barely moving them around in the pot for the first 5 minutes, just bringing them carefully to the top.... After that, the curds are much less likely to shatter, and by the end of 15 min. of stirring (during which time we may or may not be raising the temperature, depending on the recipe), the curds are firm enough, and strong enough, that they don't shatter any more, unless you are being a brute....
We are trying to develop a "systematic" approach in our cheesemaking, where the steps are interrelated, and distinctly different depending on the results desired.... Yes, to be sure, some individual recipes seem outside the "norm", but trying to understand the basics of how the Floc. multiple and curd size relate to the finished dryness of the cheese seems to be important.... and something we are striving to understand.... Any comments, particularly if you can see a glaring problem with this approach, are welcomed....
Bob
Mostly "clean break" is a meaningless term as applied by most recipes. The main reason people continue to use it is because they don't understand that the firmness of the curd where you cut *should be different* depending on what kind of cheese you are making. It's a bit like baking bread and saying, "bake until golden brown". Absolutely useless instruction because it conveys no useful information.
"Clean break" is actually a technical term and it means something different than what most people think it means. When you cut the curd, whey will seep from the curd. As Mal said, the softer the curd (lower the multiplier you use), the more difficult it is for the curd to hold on to the fat globules. Think of the curd as really being a cage for fat and water. As you build the cage, there are gaps. The more gaps you have, the more fat and water can leak out.
You insert a knife into the curd and twist it so that the blade is horizontal. Then you lift up. This causes a crack to extend out from the cut point. This is the "break". It is important to extend the "break" like that, as you will see. You can use your finger to do the same thing and it makes a bit more sense. With a knife it is tempting to just slash the curd. That's wrong.
There are two slightly related conditions for a "clean break" that I know of. The first is that the "break", the crack that extended from the cut point, has smooth edges. As the curd gets firmer, the curd will tend to tear rather than shear. It gets raggedy. Because the break is not smooth, it has more surface area and therefore loses whey faster. So a "clean break" should have smooth edges.
Additionally, the earlier you cut the curd, the more fat will leak out. This causes the whey that fills in the break to be cloudy. At some point, the "cage" that traps the fat is very efficient and the whey that flows into the break is "clean". Hence a "clean break".
The irony about this is that most people have a completely different intuition about a clean break. A clean break usually happens a lot earlier than they imagine. They are waiting until the curd is essentially Jello and end up with curds that tear -- not a clean break. Similarly, there are plenty of cheeses where you definitely don't want a clean break. Parmesan (i.e. Grana cheeses) are a case in point. You want to cut *very* early because you literally want to leak fat. You want a very dry, low fat cheese. This is why the ricotta from some Parmesan producers is considered the best (because they have a very high fat content). At the other extreme, for a Camembert, you want to cut well past the clean break stage because you want to capture as much fat as possible, and drain whey (Camembert tends to come in at a surprisingly low 13% yield even though it is usually a higher fat milk from Normande cows).
I don't know where the flocculation and multiplier system came from, but I'm quite sure that it was made popular in our circles by Peter Dixon (whose recipes you will find floating around this forum in various places). It's just a much better way of explaining what you want to accomplish than "clean break".
More great stuff. Thank You both.. Mal, your trick of moving the pot is something I am doing as well. I swirl the pot back and forth and make the curds wiggle. :-)
I plan on attending the CheeseMaking workshop that NE CheeseMaking gives. I am hoping seeing and touching things with instruction will help.
Today the rind of the raffine seems a bit softer. It's almost time to move it to cold storage. The recipe mentions soaking the cheese in water for 24 hours. That's so strange. Have you ever done that before? Then it says to wrap the cheeses in muslin. How are you going to wrap them?
What an excellent description of what a clean break is! And the cage analogy as well helps visualise the mechanics. I think the floc factor history needs to be researched but, I do tend to agree that it was maybe a scale to help standardise for repeatability of recipe. For me I, use it as an indicator for when to test the clean break. My cheddars usually have a floc factor of 3 for the long aged ones and for Caerphilly I use 4 and 'Malemberts' 6.
The salting question - the brining at this late stage is indeed unusual. The small amounts initially sprinkled would help the B.Linens as they are halo tolerant (salt). I would think that the last salting stage is to help control any other wandering moulds and fungi. This is just an opinion as my adventures with B.linens has not been very successful. Though I would create a medium brine 8% (90 grams salt per litre of water) and be sure to add 4mls (32 % solution) calcium Chloride and 1 ml of vinegar (Acetic acid) per litre to the Brine otherwise the salt will leach calcium from the cheese and make the rind slimy.
Yet, in the recipe they do not describe it as Brining as they do oath other recipes but as a rehydration of the cheese. And the curds were already salted before molding, so I think this serves a different purpose. I am also a bit confused by the instructions of covering the cheese with 1/8-1/4 cup of water with a handful of salt. A handful of salt in 1.4 cup of water is A LOT. And 1.4 cup of water will not cover the cheeses. What am I missing here?
So, as I mentioned my cheeses did not spread after removing the mold as I expected. So I asked NE Cheesemaking why that might be. They said that would be do to over acid development. Mal mentioned a Ph of 5 or less. That's pretty acidic, no? What is the desired pH range for this cheese?
The pH wasn't on the make sheet but the removal of whey over the 2 hours reduces the acidic action and my pH goal was just a guess. Further reading would indicate that about pH of 5 might have been too low and that 5.5-5.6 might have been a better target as B.Linens won't make an appearance until around that pH. As the pH decreases the calcium is leached out at a faster rate though I think because you had an extremely fast gel setting time I would say that whey with the increased calcium lead to a firmer curd after draining. It's a complex thing, the balance of acid, calcium and moisture is partly what determines the final cheese. This is why making notes is so important, so that you correct for the next time. I'm checking the pH of mine this morning. The final salting I think is a misprint in the recipe or there is not enough information provided. I think the overall effect will be drying out of the cheese as that concentration of salt would cause osmosis resulting in drawing out moisture from the cheese - this is just an opinion - maybe go back and ask for verification of that phase and what the purpose is.
Yeah, I am anxiously awaiting their answer. I just put mine in the salt water soak they mention. It seems odd but I followed direction as I understood them. When I get a response from them (they've been really good at answering questions), I will make a note of it for next time. And there WILL be a next time. One of my cheeses looks nice.. it has a nice color the other two are barely orange. You're right it is a very complex thing. Oh.. am an anxiously awaiting my pH strip tape. I just need recipes with pH targets. :-). How do your cheeses look thus far? Do they smell at all?
FAIL! I looked at my rehydrating cheeses and they are a MESS! The rinds on all of them, including the one "nice" cheese came off. :-(. I should have trusted my instincts and foregone the rehydrating saline soak. I will still air dry these cheeses and continue the process but I think I can chalk this up to a colossal fail. I will write and ask them why they think this happened.
I wonder what is the point of soaking it in cold water with salt for 24 hours! What a strange thing to do. This is one of the reasons why I don't follow cheese making recipes.
It is! I've written asking about this step. I will share the answer once I receive it.
Bansidhe, not sure if you checked the q&a section for this recipe? You should always do that with NEC recipes, there are often editing mistakes in them (sometimes really problematic ones) that people ask about in the q&a's and corrected there, but never get fixed in the recipe itself. In that one there is a correction, below. That step still seems odd, so don't know if this will clarify anything, but here it is:
"Can you explain this part of instructions: ...For a batch of 3-4 cheese, start this final step by placing the cheese in a tray and covering it with 1/8-1/4 cup of cold water with a handful of salt stirred in... Do I have to overwhelm the cheese in water for 24 hours, pour water over it or just put a bowl with water beside the cheese?
Answers (1)
New England Cheesemaking Supply Company12/07/2020
Thank you for your inquiry. We apologize for the confusion, it appears there is a mistake in the recipe. It should have read to cover the cheese completely with water and add 1/8 to 1/4 cup salt.
Yeah... I did. And that is why I covered the cheese completely with water and then added the salt. SO, I did do as the "correction" mentioned. But my cheese rinds fell off. They got too moist, I guess. It could be because there was already a separation of rind to paste. I'm drying them now.. then I'll store them in the fridge for a week or two. I think they will be an ok cheese just not Raffine. I am going to try this again once they send me some pH goals... I think that will be key here. Thanks for looking at this though!
Here's a pic of my poor raffine, I will say the paste looks good.. to me anyway. I let these dry and now they are in the fridge at 43F and 90-95% humidity. I'll try one in a week. The sloughy rind actually doesn't taste too bad, so maybe there is hope
The rind on this cheese is very problematic in that I've been turning the cheese every day and my fridge is a constant temp and 85% RH and yet the cheese still stuck to the cloth. I'm assuming here that The higher initial ageing temp has caused the surface to ripen faster and trying to unstick caused large portions of the rind to peel away. And there is no appearance of B.linens at all. I fear another B.linens failure is imminent.
Ahhh yes.. I have been having trouble with the rind as well. I tasted a small piece today out of curiosity and it was bitter tasting. When do you do the 24 hour soak? I'll be interested in knowing how that goes for you.
BTW I got my pH strips! I just need more recipes that actually have pH markers!
I think the bitterness is due to super fast (and over) ripening, I think this is the case because I saw a comment on NE Cheesemaking Washed Rind Monk's Cheese recipe. " The longer you wait the stronger the flavor. However, if it goes too long it will give off ammonia smells and the taste becomes bitter." My raffine gave off definite ammonia smells .. When I try this cheese again, I'll do it in the late autumn when the house will be cooler.
I have had to decrease the temperature to 12DegC and increase the humidity to 90%. The cheese sticking to the cloth has peeled off part of the under side of two. My cave cube is working well but I'm fighting little pop ups of blue so I removed the boards and changed the cloth covering the cheeses and wiped out the fridge with vinegar to wipe it out - hopefully. The smell of the cheese is not bad and I seem to have kept the ammonia production down to the bare minimum.
I have not tasted my cheese as yet.
You're about a week behind me.. Have you done the 24 hour water soak?
I have that on my list tomorrow. How much salt and water did you use in the end?
I put them in a plastic container and added just enough water to cover them with a handful of salt. That is what I got from the recipe and the Q&A. I figure it was about a liter of water..
At the end of the flipping and washing - no B.Linens !! I'm starting to the think it is a urban myth. To give it the best chance of showing I even rigged up my Cave Cube set to be 85% to 90% humidity and the fridge set to 12 DegC and still no 'linens'.
I even left the cheese in this environment for an extra week to see what would happen - nothing!
To the salting. We conversed over the interpretation and covered with water with a handful of salt was a little too vague. So I set two in a Red Decore ripening container each and measured my 'handful at about 30 grams and about 1.5 litres of water gave me a a light brine - ish! If the cheese tastes any good I'll standardize this to a light 8% brine.
The results were 'Interesting'
After 24 hours, the end result was sort of suspected and the rind got very mushy - but not slimy - one of the cheese lost almost all of one side - the others didn't seem to fair to badly but, the rind on all was very delicate and wouldn't take too much handling to make a mess. Before wrapping in cheese paper I dried them off as mush as possible and placed them in the cold fridge 5-7 DegC and I'm going to leave them ripen a little longer. I've numbered them one to four, starting with the mushiest one and I'll run a taste test next weekend.
I will definitely do some more research on this cheese. If anyone else has run across this one please add your findings and impressions.
There are a couple of keys for getting b. linens to show up. First, the pH has to be high enough. For some strains of b. linens that's all the way up to 6.0 (though the average is 5.8). The only way to get there is rampant yeast growth. This is why some producers of this style of washed rind have a "yeast phase", where they hold the cheese at 16 C for several days.
Second you need salt. B. linens is one of those strange bacteria that actually requires salt. IIRC, this recipe has a dunk in salt water several weeks in. I suspect that's what it's for. Washing with a 3-5% brine usually does it for me, though. However, if you don't have the yeasts growing actively on the rind, it may not work.
Finally you need moisture. Keeping the cheese damp is really the key. Especially if your cave has a fan, it may not be damp enough even with a high humidity. Again, a wash is the easiest way to get there.
But, I had problems for ages until I realised that the yeast phase is crucial (I think it was iratherfly's Reblochon thread that clued me in...) If you can get the rind to be a bit greasy as the beginning and you maintain that yeast growth throughout, I doubt you'll have any problems. The other thing you can do when coaxing b. linens from the wild is to rub the cheese with your fingers. Lots of bacteria there to transfer (b. linens is natural present on skin). Sounds gross, but...
Sorry about your bLinens problems! I've been lucky and have been able to get it even when I DON'T want it!
My rinds got all icky, too. I will try this cheese when we have much cooler temperatures since my cheese ammoniated WAY FAST.
Do your cheeses stink? This cheese matures quickly. I am anxious to hear of your tasting? I tasted mine and they were very bitter.
:-(.
Yep. Stinky and bitter if you don't slow it down. That's why I say that as soon as it starts to turn, get it in the normal fridge. If you don't want the b. linens then dry it off aggressively. If you manage to get it to dry off, the rind tastes *very* nice in my experience.
Mine didn't ammoniate at all though I did lower the ripening temperature to 12-14 DegC. They are currently in the colder fridge for a week and I'll test on the weekend.
The Reveal - even without the B.Linens missing the party I declare this cheese a winner.
I must admit to having a piece when friends dropped in yesterday - don't judge me !
I had huge trepidations regarding the outcome of this cheese and all were discounted after the first bite. As predicted, the outside is very soft (about 1/4 a centimeter of ozzy creaminess) and inside was tangy and firmer. The salt level could be higher and the added cream certainly help stabilize the overall internals. It has a definite washed rind funk to it but is is not overpowering at all. Overall there is no bitterness and the ammoniation is present but again not overpowering. The overall mouth feel is a squishy creamy outside with a very delicate rind - the late stage brining caused that - with a creamy, tangy, firmer inside. It spreads well on crackers and I have tried it with a nice Ale and a good cuppa, all very nice.
This is very different cheese than I have made before and the results of the short aging was surprising. I hope the images show the how far the softening has reached. My extra week of aging in the fridge, trying to get the B.Linens to play has contributed to the degree of softening on the outside and brining did the rest. They were very difficult to handle after the brining.
My lunch for today, including some of our homemade pickled onions and a very nice ale - again. Things I'm going to change.
1. A little more salt added initially
2. Definitely add extra cream - remember the original was being made from Raw milk and while the milk I use is the best one I can afford here, it is still processed.
3. Cut the brining time down to reduce the degradation of the rind.
4. Drop the aging temperature in the fridge to 12-14 DegC but increase the time by about a week.
5. Try to keep RH at 90% - that is a bit difficult using a cheap wine fridge as the refrigeration cycle drops the RH and the cave cube is almost constantly running - better than nothing I suppose.
6. Work on my B.Linens story...
7. Make this one more often
This has been a very rewarding experiment and one I intend to do more of. The details are scant on how to make this cheese and it would be a shame to see it disappear altogether so, if any one else would like to take up the 'Raffine' challenge I do thoroughly recommend it and would love to see and read about your endeavors.
Fantastic! AC4U! Mine was an abject failure! But once the temps here get to be a bit cooler I am going to try again especially in light of your success! And your cheese looks similar to the pic on the Cheesemaking site. Congratulations!
Thanks for the cheese. So if you can share how the heck I get B.Linens showing up I'd be grateful. I'm very happy with the way it turned out. I think the secret here is the temperature and adding cream if you are using store bought milk. Try and find better milk as I think yours was processed way too much. I'll type out my make sheet and post it here. I'll leave out the pH levels as I don't really know what they are.
Cool. The Milk I have been using has been either raw or supposedly gently pasteurized. It did get pretty warm here that week. The week before it would have bene better I think. But no matter. I will study your make and try again. Thanks!
Nice Project guys... Glad to see someone doing comparative makes here with this historical cheese.
Remember there is no such thing as a cheese recipe. What I post online is really a guideline from my side. Milk and process are just so variable.
I spent a lot of time digging the details out of the past since the original maker has passed on.
The biggest hurdle for this one was the fact that the rind bacteria came from a salt marsh near where they were made on the island.
I did use a bit of Lab produced bacteria but also washed forward with other washed rind cheese which I've collected on my travels both here and in Europe.
Thanks! Funny.. I was JUST thinking I might try Raffine sometime soon since 1) it's cooler and 2) we finally got AC!
:-)