I don't quite understand the methodology behind ladling the curds into a cheesecloth lined colander instead of cutting them. I am midway through my first stilton, and I have just finished this process, and now the curds are just sitting in the colander under the whey. What is it about this step that is even necessary? I watched the video on how it is commercially made, and it shows them cutting the curd and just letting it set in the whey.
Why am I going through all the trouble to get it into a cheesecloth in a colander?
Good thread.
I've always wanted to know hwy people recommend ladling curds instead of cutting them too.
Stilton curds are not cooked and therefore are very "fragile". If you cut it into cubes like most hard cheeses, your yield will go way down. More importantly, the curds will lose whey too quickly and slow down acidification. Ladeling into a colander in a pot allows it to drain slowly and the whey that accumulates continues to provide an ongoing "food" source for the starter bacteria. The curd mass continues to drain and as the pH drops, the curds will start knitting together. If you remove the whey, the curd mass will not acidify properly.
My experience has been that ladling curds as opposed to cutting yields less butterfat release from the curd; and so a much richer cheese. As little handling as possible with these soft curd cheeses is the optimum.
Ok. Well I'm on the second day now, and when I left them last night pressing under light weight, the curd really reminded me of ricotta. This morning, it was much firmer, almost elastic on the outside, and kind of sticky/pasty on the inside. I don't have a probe pH meter :-[ to measure the acidity, so I'm really just blindly following the recipe. I milled and salted (1tbs per gallon of original milk) and gently filled my mold. Now I'll be flipping every 15 min for the next few hours. Am I on the right track?
Absolutely. Maybe a little heavy on the salt. I use 3 tablespoons of a coarse pickling salt for a 5 gallon batch. But that is an individual taste preference. Otherwise, so far so good Mark. I keep my Stiltons at room temperature and flip for 3 or 4 days. Then I pop it out of the hoop, put them into a rippening box with high humidity and move it to the garage where it's around 58F. I always have a raging blue bloom within a few days after that. (Molds love cool damp places.) Then start piercing.
If you like blues, you are going to get hooked on making them.
The recipe called for 2tbs and it was made with 2gal of milk. I used 5gal milk plus some cream (enough to completely fill the pot, raising the milkfat to 5.1%) so I figured 5tbs was good. It was coarse Kosher salt too, which is less dense than flake salt. Still maybe still a little high, but something to taste and adjust for the next batch.
I had the same question. The first (and only so far) Stilton I tried to make I followed the direction exactly until I realized you need one monster colander to drain the curds. Of course they didn't fit so cutting the curds in the colander, but that still didn't get me enough room so I ended up dumping them back into the whey and letting them bleed into the warm whey. When finally there was enough room they wouldn't knit together (ugh) so I finally pressed the wheel under fifty pounds. I came out really nice but bore no resemblance to Stilton.
hahaha, yes I ran into that also. I didn't plan ahead that well, and so I was scrambling to find things to ladle the curd into. I started with a nylon draining bag, and when that was full, I went to the colander lined with a cheesecloth. When that filled up, I started filling my 8" tomme mold. I still had about 1/3 of the curds left so I made another go at all three, filling the space from the curds shrinking. At the end, I poured out a few cups of curd because everything was overflowing.
I think I'll do a smaller batch next time. It completely filled my 6" SS mold and a 4" camembert mold when it came time to hoop the milled curd. I think I can cut down to 3 1/2 gal plus cream and have just enough to fill the one mold.
50 lbs? Was there any blue-ing in the interior?
50 lbs? no mine was two pounds. After the fiasco of forming I thought I'd just let it be white. It did blue a bit round the edges.
Oh sorry, I meant 50lbs pressing weight. My thought was that you pressed all the air space out of the cheese, so you probably wouldn't get any blue-ing in the interior.
A 50# cheese would be a lot... ???
Guys when I made my "blue stilton wannabe" last week with 15 gallons, I used every container with holes in it that I could find and I had bags hanging everywhere! Very little pre-planning. My family and house looked like a circus. What a mess! I will definitely be better prepared next time. My 24 gallon cheddars never made this big a mess.
Certainly not! Didn't take as long to make either, with processing the curd for 2 days, flipping another 4 days before even un-molding, scraping it all smooth and THEN you get to age it. Even my traditional cheddars only take 8 hours!
This better be one darn tasty cheese!
Ok, now after 2 days of flipping every 4-8 hours, it seems that the whey has stopped draining. The recipe calls for 4 days of draining, but I don't think any more whey is going to come out. Perhaps the oversalting hastened the whey drainage ??? I gave the unmolding a test run (pulled the mold about halfway off, then slid back down) and it seems to be holding together pretty well. Should I unmold now and smooth the sides down? I'm afraid that if I let it dry out too much, that won't be possible, but I don't want it to crumble on its own weight if its not ready.
a 15 gallon stilton WOW!
I just hope it is not a 15 gallon waste. :-\
Is it blueing up JD?
Yea a little. Not covered though. I know the problem is humidity being too low (around 50%). I got a new freezer with defrost function to put my cheese in and I have not figured a way to raise humidity yet. The cheese does not smell blue cheesey right now; just musty, My kids and wife say they will certify that I am crazy if I eat this. ;D
Looks good JD. Could have a little more blue, but looks like the early salting and pH aren't too much of a problem. I put my blues in a small rubbermaid container with an inch of water in the bottom. The cheese is elevated using eggcrate held up with stainless screws. I keep this at 60-68F for 4 or 6 weeks before transfering to my cave.
I failed to mention that I have a johnson thermostat on the freezer set at 55 degrees. I did not want someone to think I was freezing my blue. :) Thanks for the advice Sailor; I'll try it if I can find a container big enough.
Sounds like they are going great! Here's what you have to look forward to! The light stilton is 5 weeks old and the darker is at 12 weeks. Lots of colors and molds going on to begin, which will settle down. Can't wait to taste mine!
What's with the marbles?
Mark,
Notice how rough the surface is on Brie's cheeses? That's the way they should be. You do not want to "smooth" the surface of a Stilton after you pull it from the hoop.
I'm NOT supposed to smooth the cheese after I un-hoop it? I don't understand. Is this going to interfere with the way the cheese develops? I thought all the commercial stiltons were smoothed down.
I was confused by this smoothing business too. The recipe in Riki Carol's book says to smooth and I've seen a video of a Stilton factory where they smooth them right out of the molds, but any good looking Stilton is very rustic looking.
Actually I do smooth my stiltons after hooping with a wet spatula to settle in the loose areas. I love the many molds and colors that develop over the ripening period--so much to look forward to as they die down and create a wonderful crust. As Sailor always suggests, don't let them touch water, but keep humidity high. I also taken them out of their confined containers and let them breathe every few days.
As for the marbles (I believe, at times, I'm losing mine! Actually it is my dining room table with a glass top that has an alcove beneath to fill with whatever I like. I chose marbles.
Of course you don't want any gaping holes. Otherwise, smoothing is just a cosmetic choice.
If made properly, it will meld together well enough without any intervention. After it ages, you will be amazed how smooth the interior turns out.
I agree, love the rough surface and the nooks and crannys--either way it works with the right temp, RH, and TLC. My daughter made a comment once that my blues smelled terrible--I reminded her that she was talking about her brothers and sisters and should be mindful of their feelings...
Marks tagline is right on target.
"I am constantly in awe of the very first people that consumed these things, despite how funky looking and smelling they had become."
I find that the nastier they look, the better they taste. This ain't your mama's Gouda.
@Sailor: Haha yes! Imagine the first person who saw that after his cheese was left out, an aggressive green mold had not only covered the outside, but worked its way through the middle of his cheese and started giving off an odd odor. Then he says, "you know what? I'm gonna eat it anyways." That's courage. Or desperation... maybe that's all he had to eat!
@Brie: So that's why there are marbles. I saw a couple pictures you posted with the cheese on marbles and the image of a fish tank kept coming to mind. Seemed like an odd place to store cheese... ;)
Anyways, if the smoothing is simply cosmetic, I guess it's just a matter of personal choice, but I think I like it that way. It's still a long way from smooth, but I prefer the closed (albeit still quite rough) surface to the pocked and jagged one.
I am getting a little worried, however, that I still have no sign of any kind of mold. I guess it has only been 7 days, and only 4 days out of the hoop, but I was hoping to have some kind of mold starting. It's sitting in my cave now. The temp is set at 52 F with an external thermostat. I don't know what the humidity is, but I'm assuming it's pretty high, as my little fridge has the freezer compartment/cooling coils inside and is constantly dripping water (I have 3 inexpensive hygrometers in transit now). My main worry is that when I was making the cheese (don't laugh) I forgot about the p. roqueforti until halfway through the ripening stage, so it was added to the milk only 15 min before the rennet. I know that the blue mold is pretty aggressive (it has formed on most of my other cheeses at one point or another without encouragement) but might it not have had time to rehydrate properly?
Give it a few more days, Mark, before worrying. Back to the smoothing though--I only smooth once, right out of the hoop and then let magic take it's course. I notice Ricki says to smooth and scrape weekly--that would rob you of all the wonders of Stilton. I do scrape Gorgonzola, but never Stilton. Patience and you will be rewarded.
weekly? no thanks ricki. I think once will suffice, as you do. I didn't use any water on the spatula though. Does it help? I didn't really have a hard time smoothing it out without it.
Then it's fine. Someone had a thread a while back on smoothing stiltons, but I can't remember where or when. I can't wait to hear how yours progresses--I plan to cut mine in about a month.
They have started blue-ing! I'm so happy
gonna need a lot of crackers for those.
Hooray--you're on your whey!
Update:
Here's my cheeses at ~4weeks. Both have developed a strong blue bloom. The larger one (but not the smaller one, peculiarly) also has a mottling of brown and white molds. I have pierced the smaller one (destined to be a gift for my gf's mom) but I am waiting for a few more weeks to get the outer crust similar to commercial stiltons before piercing.
Your surface transition from blue to tan looks good, but you have waited way too long to pierce the larger one. Blue mold needs oxygen right after it starts blooming especially with a large cheese. This is even more important since you smoothed the surface.
The pH of most cheeses starts to go up even just a few days after pressing and continues to increase with aging. By waiting, you have also missed the prime pH environment most conducive to interior bluing.
At exactly 5 weeks, I pierced the large stilton. It's a week ahead of schedule, but I think I'm getting anxious more than anything else. The smaller one has been blue-ing for about a week now, and also out of anticipation, I used my new toy, a cheese trier. It has been sitting on top of my cave for about 2 weeks just dying for some action! Here is how the smaller one is coming along:
wow it looks great. did you taste it?
Of course! Just a little nibble off the end of the trier, though I really wanted to pop the whole plug in my mouth after I did. Creamy and delicious. I think I'll give this one 3 more weeks before I turn it over to its intended recipient (after another taste of course). Hopefully the large one will get its full eleven weeks to develop a truly fantastic flavor and texture, but I might declare it finished at ten depending on how patient I am.
Looks very good. Am I correct in thinking that yours will not develop the kind of extreme brownish rind that most stiltons I have seen get? Just curious as I am planning to do one soon.
The large one is getting progressively more tan as the blue mold on the outside dies off, but since this is my first blue that I have aged for this long, I'm not sure what to expect. It still has plenty of time to develop the brown crust. I'm not sure it will look quite like a commercially produced one, but I'll keep you posted.
I have got Stiltion on the calendar for two days from now. Just reviewing all the stilton threads. How has this come along?
My Blue is great. It didn't have as much blue veining I wanted, but the flavor is great. I am at 90 days now and I eat it every day.
Yeah! Go Jd! :) Happy to hear all that scrambling to figure out more ways to hang curd to drain was worth it.
Yeah, definitely worth it. I will be eating blue for a lonnnnnggggg time. I think I wound up with about 12-15 lbs. Very thankful for all the help I got on here.
I cut into my stilton about a week ago. Sorry no pictures. The interior blue-ing was pretty good and it tastes great. It is a little drier and crumblier than I had hoped for. My aging was a little less humid than I would have liked, and perhaps not enough cream in the milk to start. Otherwise, a very acceptable cheese.
It is still sitting quartered wrapped in aluminum in the fridge. Next time I take it out I'll take a picture before I dig in.
well it seems you waited about 10 weeks, good work. Looking forward to seeing the rind.
Bump - Mark you've left us hanging. Where are the pictures. I'm drooling LOL! :P