Last month, I decided to try to get into Swiss style cheeses and decided to try Jarlsberg first. I thought it would be a softer landing :)
I made a 1.1 kg Baby Jarlsberg, vacuum packed it and aged it for 2 weeks in 13C.
After that, I put it out to room temp which has been between 18C-21C.
After 10 days it has swollen up substantially and I was really impressed with how it was going.
But the vacuum pack looked like it was going to explode soon, so I opened the bag to rebag it.
I have not eaten a Swiss type cheese except for a few bites of gruyere and the smell was really similar to what I remember gruyere smelled like.
I thought this was going well and vacuum packed again and left it to complete its warm aging phase.
After 10 days or so from rebagging, which is the third week of the warm aging, the bag kept swelling up but the cheese collapsed suddenly and I notices 2 little holes in the rind.
And there was some fat collected in the bag, which I thought was normal.
It has been almost 4 weeks into the warm aging and I got impatient and opened up the cheese half an hour ago, I am disappointed.
- As soon as I opened the bag, I smelled it. It smelled so sharp my lungs hurt and I had to cough.
- After wiping with a paper towel, cheese smelled not so pleasant.
- I cut into halves to see inside, there were a lot of small eye formation and they were all shiny as far as I could see.
- I sliced and took a bite, it tasted sweet, which was expected since it is a washed curd cheese, not salty and almost as how I would expect a really young gouda to taste like.
- But there was an off taste and smell to it, It was so bitter and made my tongue tickle like alcohol does.
- After half an hour, this bitter and tickly sense has just worn off from my tongue.
- There were unpleasant smells as I said earlier, but I could not describe them to you. The only smell I can definitely describe is that my hands were smelling like cow feces. ( My dad had a farm when I was little, I remember cleaning the farm couple of times )
Here are some pictures,
Halves:https://imgur.com/3XZJtB4 (https://imgur.com/3XZJtB4)
Slice after taste:https://imgur.com/HmjAofG (https://imgur.com/HmjAofG)
I vacuum packed the halves again, I am not going to eat them at this stage. I don't want to toss them out, I think I will age them at 13C for now and see how it ends up.
My question is; is the smell and taste normal? If not how should I proceed and what may have caused these.
Your cheese looks contaminated. The smell and excessive swelling is not normal. Did you use raw milk? My first cheese with eyes is vacuum packed and still in the warm phase. It only swelled very slightly but when I tap it using my index finger there were some hollow sound.
Yes, I used raw milk but I may have used a bit too much Shermanii. Could that be the issue?
At first, my cheese was also in a similar situation as yours. It started to round up at the top and when I poked it, it produced hollow sound.
Also, how can you tell it was contaminated from the looks? I am asking so I can identify myself next time :)
Are you sure about the quality of the raw milk? do they test it? It could be you put too much Shermanii but the smell and taste you described and the excessive swelling can't be produced by Shermanii. It looks spongy and has small holes that looks similar to holes produced by Coliform.
More info here:
https://cheesefromscratch.com/early-blowing-and-cheesemaking/ (https://cheesefromscratch.com/early-blowing-and-cheesemaking/)
https://www.readkong.com/page/cheese-defects-the-blowing-defect-2479108 (https://www.readkong.com/page/cheese-defects-the-blowing-defect-2479108)
Sounds like coliform. Also, I wouldn't age in a vacuum bag for the warm phase - do that after it's back in the cooler for the final stage of aging. You'll get some nasty rind bacteria that way.
Thank you both for your answer.
I fed the cheese to chickens and they happily devoured it :)