I spoke with someone today that gave me some very definite answers about
my Epoisses 'hockey pucks'.
He said that to be that hard, they had to have gotten VERY acid. And this can
happen several ways. 1) the amount of starter could be off, or 2) I could have let them
ripen too long. He also said that it sounded as though they possibly weren't getting
enough humidity and had just plain dried up.
Di scourageing but I have hope. If I had managed a good rind development, then the
next batch, which I can fix, will be good.
I did find the problem, the recipe I was using wasn't taking into consideration the fact
that I am using fairly fresh raw. I should have been using half the starter.
Well, tomorrow is cheese making day for me. I guess I'll see. My new PH meter
will also be delivered tomorrow....Hope it works.
annie
I'm replying to myself!!
I just opened one of my B.Lin hockey pucks. Verrrrrrrrry interesting. It's not
dry, it's just solid. But with a great flavor. And it's beautiful. The orange has
moved toward the center of the cheese. It's really pretty. And I think it would
be good with a crusty piece of sourdough and a home made beer like my son
makes.
annie
How large is your "puck"? form factor has a lot to do with this! It ages totally different if the size is too small or too large and you need to adjust for that.
As for the acidity probe, eh... I am not too sure; lactic and semi lactic curds are as acidic as you get. 20 hours in the vat/pot and you can easily have 4.5pH which is what's needed for them to coagulate properly. Getting hard cheese from over-acidified milk/curd is very true on semi-hard and semi-soft rennet-coagulated cheeses.
My suggestion for your next trial is to make a larger cheese. Use yeast to de-acidify the surface faster (KL71 for example). Begin your wash 4-5 days after entering the cave and wash vigorously (in spite of how gentle the cheese is). It will create a more significant rind faster and trap the moisture in longer. If you are using Marc or Grappa liquor, add it gradually to your washes. Start with no liquor at all, then add a bit the next time and so on, until you wash with 75%-100% liquor (+3% salt of course).
Don't give up! Keep trying until you get it right!
Duh! Yoav, of course I added the Grappa gradually. And the rind development
wasn't the problem....I had used over twice the starter that I needed and I let them
ripen WAY too long.
But you are right about the size. Someone else also suggested that maybe I try
a little larger size. The last ones were too small. I will be making over twice the
size tomorrow. About the yeast, per PD, I was already adding 'pinches' of DH, CUM,
and MVA.
I'm glad to have you take an interest....I will try to post a photo of my pretty, and
fairly tasty, hockey pucks.
annie
I just find it weird because these are so acidic that they are difficult to over-acidify to that extant. I really think this is about affinage, form factor and moisture control. If they were indeed so overly acidified you would have had hard time developing this crazy orange rind -which you have successfully developed.
IMHO I would say use less yeasts and cultures. Cheese needs a bit focus and cultures don't need that many other cultures to augment them or compete with them over the same nutrients; doing so only serves to weaken the effect of each one and often one would out-compete the other killing it completely and slowing down development in the process. This isn't just slowing down affinage schedule but also reduces the timely breakdown of proteins and fats which makes your cheese texture what it is.
Technically this cheese should work without adding any of these fancy yeasts or overly sophisticated starter culture. Epoisses relies on the existing yeasts from the Marc liquor. If you must, DH is good for this cheese, as well as R2R (but not together, pick one). CUM and MVA do not belong with this cheese -in my opinion at least. You should really be able to make this cheese with very simple cultures (sat, MM100 starter, Geo 13 and a wash of marc+water+salt, maybe a pinch of B.Linen like SR3) -nothing else. It should work. Then you can deviate one culture at a time to see if any of them can improve your basic Epoisses' flavor, aroma or texture.
Quote from: iratherflyCheese needs a bit focus and cultures don't need that many other cultures to augment them or compete with them over the same nutrients; doing so only serves to weaken the effect of each one and often one would out-compete the other killing it completely and slowing down development in the process.
Yoav, I'm not clear on where you're getting this. Taking surface ripened cheeses, these cheeses have literally hundreds of species, subspecies, strains working on them all the time - and here, I mean, adventitious flora; forget added cultures. If what you're arguing held true, these cheeses would be bland "nothings" of microbial soup. Just one example - from a study of 4 surface-ripened cheeses:
QuoteA total of 194 bacterial isolates and 187 yeast isolates from the surfaces of four Irish farmhouse smear-ripened cheeses were identified at the midpoint of ripening using pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE), repetitive sequence-based PCR, and 16S rRNA gene sequencing for identifying and typing the bacteria and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and
mitochondrial DNA restriction fragment length polymorphism (mtDNA RFLP) analysis for identifying and typing the yeast. The yeast microflora was very uniform, and Debaryomyces hansenii was the dominant species in the four cheeses. Yarrowia lipolytica was also isolated in low numbers from one cheese. The bacteria were highly diverse, and 14 different species, Corynebacterium casei, Corynebacterium variabile, Arthrobacter arilaitensis, Arthrobacter sp., Microbacterium gubbeenense, Agrococcus sp. nov., Brevibacterium linens, Staphylococcus epidermidis, Staphylococcus equorum, Staphylococcus saprophyticus, Micrococcus luteus, Halomonas venusta, Vibrio sp., and Bacillus sp., were identified on the four cheeses. Each cheese had a more or less unique microflora with four to nine species on its surface. However, two bacteria, C. casei and A. arilaitensis, were found on each cheese.
Diversity at the strain level was also observed, based on the different PFGE patterns and mtDNA RFLP profiles of the dominant bacterial and yeast species. None of the ripening cultures deliberately inoculated onto the surface were reisolated from the cheeses. This study confirms the importance of the adventitious, resident microflora in the ripening of smear cheeses.
I think the affinage process is a lot more about "fighting it out" among a myriad of flora, a complex interaction, metabolism and lysis among a ton of microbes, than you argue. If this were cooking, then I'd agree - but these are complex, living systems, not inert ingredients in a recipe, you know?
Let me be very general and not go into deep science for a second. It's the longest post I ever wrote here but this debate has been going on in the forums for a while and my view is very particular about it.
I have seen too many cheesemakers lately that have been very "culture happy", dropping their entire culture library into the milk and perusing exotic cultures almost competitively before they master cutting curd or understanding the activity of these cultures. To me this is a grand departure from cheesemaking for the sake of great culinary art into the world of science or performing "bacterial gardening" on soil made of curd. Too often this doesn't result in better cheese and creates expectations, disappointment and confusion. It's a little like doing aerobatics in an aircraft before you learned to takeoff and land and surely before you learned to assess if the aircraft and rules of aerodynamics are capable of doing what you are asking it to do. Doesn't mean that you can't learn to fly for the sake of aerobatics, it just means you have to follow a structured path to get there, and you will be fine.
There is no doubt that a cheese or any cultured product for that matter contains a diversity of living organisms, acids and enzymes in some harmony or another. This is also why raw milk that is still rich with the variety of these makes better cheese. Cooking is no different. I remember once reading that there are over 250 different acids in carrot which are known to men and many that are yet to be isolated. The character however; the appearance, aroma, texture, flavor and stability are entirely dependent on the balance between all of these, not on the fact that they are all present.
When we introduce cultures to milk, the idea is to over-promote a particular character over another by super-propagating that type of bacteria, giving it a head start -thus controlling the end result. We can put different "leaders" for different stages of the cheesemaking - starter bacteria for example is not used in the same way and timing as rind bacteria so they seldom conflict. The problem begins when we put in too many "leaders" to be in charge of the same aspect of cheese at once. They each "lead" their own way and end up fighting each other. That could happen by stealing each others' nutrients (remember these are inoculated in far higher count than that naturally occurring in the milk) or fight each other as flavors in your mouth because there are only so many yeasty, citrucy, buttery, stinky chalky, sharp or nutty characteristics which human has sensory capacity to process at once and many of them just don't work together.
Cheesemaking has always been about promoting what you have. Acidifying milk of a particular breed of particular animal eating a particular feed in a particular region and doing so in particular conditions, circumstances and reasoning - will give you very particular cheese. Culture mixes are a recent invention that is meant to mimic these particular variables outside of their natural habitat, so you can make Beaufort without having milk from cows feeding on the Savoie vegetation that age on spruce planks infected with the local soil's cylindrocarpon. It allows you to make Roquefort without actually owning a natural stone cave in the French Aveyron area. It enables you to make Reblochon without being stuck in a limestone basement of a 15th century monastery for 6 weeks. The principles and techniques of cheesemaking however remain the same and cultures are used to augment what is basically a good cheese to begin with - not to replace the basic cheesemaking or affinage skill (or to land character to a depleted poor quality milk).
This isn't something I just made up. It's an industry best practice to first make up a basic good cheese by way of fabrication and affinage and only then to refine the results with slight bacterial modifications, one at a time. You will seldom see commercial artisanal cheesemakers pouring cultures galore into their milk. It makes it impossible to find out which culture did what and how it interacted with other cultures and phages. It's a bit like playing all of your favorite songs at once, really loud. Or, like painting a picture of the sky by loading up a blank canvas with all of the most vivid colors you can find in your color swatch. Surely you will draw the sky first, paint it blue next and then use and mix other pigments to perfect it and give it proportion, depth and aesthetic qualities.
That is not to say that some cheese have a rather complex array of inoculated cultures in them. However... if you must put 6 starter cultures, 2 types of yeasts, 2 types of geo, 2 types of B.Linen and 3 types of PC than either you are
1. Making a spectacular cheese that took you at least a year of trial and error to figure out how to balance and you started it with good technique and , very simple cultures that you added up on in trial and error
or
2. You are using all of the microbiological assets in your disposal to apply some type of flavor and character into milk that is so poor that in no way can it naturally yield any flavorful cheese (as large scale industrial cheesemakers do)
In Annie's case what I am saying is simply - first make an Epoisses. Then revisit the bacterial makeup of it to make it spectacular. Having a complex array of bacterium on a platform that isn't good enough *yet* is not going to save it but just serve to confuse the cheesemaker and the cheese. People have been making great Epoisses for hundreds of years before they could purchase DVI cultures. Annie is obviously experience enough with her other cheese to be able to master this one rather quickly.
(and I don't understand why would she need to increase the candida utilis, debaryomyces hansenii, staphylococcus xylosus count in her curd when her issue is with the paste and not the wash/rind? This by the way explains the strong redness of her wash and what seems to be lack of geo re-growth and with it possibly the reduced proteolytic activity on the paste, but we will never know the probe with certainty unless we try these cultures one by one in different batches rather than in a single cheese.)
Now don't get me wrong, of course it's okay that our urban hobbyist cheese relies on SOME cultures, it's even good, safe and traditional. let me just add that I love interesting cultures and use them to create fascinating cheeses, but I am no scientist and this isn't a lab. It's ARTisanal cheesemaking which in my view should produce delightful cheese with exciting flavor, texture aroma and presentation -without being overly dependent on myriad of exotic cultures. Then it could be easily refined by testing other cultural designs methodically until it's spectacular. Does that make sense?
Yoav, I think we need to clear up what it is we're actually talking about. What prompted this, for me, drew from your comment in another thread, mirrored here:
Quote from: iratherflyFirst off, if you could have all these things grow at once on your cheese it would be bland and confused in character.
-I just cannot agree; it doesn't happen in nature. If it did, as I show above, with hundreds of species, strains, etc. on cheeses not even inoculated with any DVI, much less several, then no cheese found in nature would be remotely interesting - "they'd all be bland and confused in character." Flora ecology, microbial interplay doesn't work like that. At least, this isn't my understanding. I'm not a microbiologist, and I certainly could be wrong. Perhaps Sailor, or Pav, or Francois could opine?
Now, if we're talking about alchemy, what I call, "playing with your food," yes, I do tend to agree. Allow the natural expression of the raw ingredient - here, milk - speak for itself as much as possible. And no amount of alchemy will turn a lousy milk into an extraordinary cheese.
That said, I again say - if any of us are using a blend, none of us are minimalists. You've expressed your love for using ARN. ARN is a blend of 2 different strains of linens (an ivory and an orange), a. nicotinae, and geo.
How is that different from choosing and simply adding in those 2 different strains of linens, MGE (a. nicotinae) and Geo 15?
I just got home and don't have time to fully read your post. I will get to it when I return.
QuoteI have seen too many cheesemakers lately that have been very "culture happy", dropping their entire culture library into the milk and perusing exotic cultures almost competitively before they master cutting curd or understanding the activity of these cultures.
However Yoav, I don't think that this is a good description of Peter Dixon. And he is the
one who suggested the trio of extra cultures that I used.
After cutting the 'pucks', I now know that one of his observations was correct....It was
very very much too small to age that length of time without proper humidity. The
cheese was NOT brittle Or dried out. It had simply aged too long and had solidified.
The texture, for a harder cheese, was lovely and the flavor was as good as it could
be. But as I said before, it was too salty. But that of course would be simply from
losing too much moisture and body....If you had cooked as long, and as much as I
had, you would know that salt only gets stronger. I am not insulting you, I am
simply twice as old as you are and the extra years have been spent cooking and
teaching cooking.
annie
QuoteHe said that to be that hard, they had to have gotten VERY acid.
In my experience, acidity and moisture, while interrelated, are not causally linked. Meaning if your cheese was 4.0 or 6.0 or anywhere in between, it doesn't have THAT much to do with moisture post make, or final moisture.
I can site several dozen studies to support this contention, that controls relevant to final moisture amount are only weakly related to acidity at best.
Moisture is about milk PF, set time, temperature, curd size, and stir schedule. Acidity is about calcium balance, starter selection, temp, and starter amounts.
Quote1) the amount of starter could be off
Somewhat irrelevant per above.
QuoteHe also said that it sounded as though they possibly weren't getting
enough humidity and had just plain dried up.
This is almost certainly your root cause based on the descriptions.
Annie -as you see above, I too suggested you make a larger cheese. Peter Dixon is a brilliant cheesemaker and even in his own recipes he doesn't go crazy with cultures. Usually he mixes a couple of starter mixes so he has 4-6 strains total and he does the entire affinage with spray or morge of rather focused character and high compatibility. The culture answer he gave you would perfectly fit the problem of not getting a desirable wash results but do not fit the question of hard or chalky paste issues that you have presented here. (which as Linuxboy and myself here suggested are probably unrelated to acidity).
As for your other comment, I don't really see how our age difference takes away from my culinary education, my cooking and cheesemaking experience, or my travels around the world in pursuit of foods. Trust me I have aged enough cheeses, cured enough sausages, made enough pickles and cooked more than enough food -and was educated by enough world class chefs to understand the principles of moisture control and salinity timing control methodologies, even at my young age of 38.
Paul, you put it together very nicely. Perhaps we are talking about the same thing after all? You gave as an example my love of ARN and you hit the nail on the head with this one. ARN is a blend of very compatible cultures that not only don't compete with each other but TOGETHER bring about a specific set of characteristics common to several types of bloomy and washed rind cheeses and that is exactly what I call focus. (Heck, it's like salt pepper and lemon on a fish only more particular, say Malaysian long peppers, fleur de sel and meyer lemon..)
My problem is when people try to blend ARN with PLA in a cheese that has MA4001 and Thermo B starters and then they add CUM and DH to it, and top it off with a wash of Geo 13 and 17 and PC-VS with PC-Neige, maybe some P.Roq and mycodore too, why not? That to me is a confused cheese that cannot amount to any one particular flavor. As I said, of course many of these strains would be in the milk (or cave) anyway but the extra amplification should only be given to a few cultures that work together in harmony. PLA is a beautiful culture that seldom needs another yeast, but sometimes you want to add a darker B.Linen to it if you wash with it or a pinch extra geo if you need a thicker rind than what it offered on a bloomy type. PC-Neige hardly ever needs more PC strains with it (it grows high and aggressively) but you can add SAM3 to stabilize it a bit and cause secondary flora with similar character and possibly help deter mucor if that's a problem you are having). Geo13 hardly ever need also Geo15/17 and I would not add an MD culture to Flora Danica because the increased eye formation that looks so good on paper will mean that the cheese will actually taste like cheap butter... You get the idea.
The design principles of picking compatible flavors, aromas and textures is the same as in cooking (or painting, music, writing etc.) The only difference is that here you have to remember who fights who and at what timing and conditions they activate and deactivate - which makes cheese such a fun challenge but also requires some calculated pre-planning.
At the end of the day however, I think you and I agree that first and foremost you need to let the milk speak for itself. There is that old saying I mentioned in the other thread that "You can't make good cheese without good milk, but having good milk doesn't mean you'll make good cheese".
Thanks, Yoav - I knew we're on the same page philosophically, and I better understand what you're driving at in terms of a willy-nilly approach to tossing in DVI. I agree.
Thank you all for an invigorating discussion.
It's unfortunate that this dialogue is relegated to this Epoisses thread for I believe a larger audience would do well to ponder the points and perspectives presented here.
This helps me focus more on what I am trying to achieve in my makes.
Sometimes it's good to be a lurker. ;)
-Boofer-
Quote from: Boofer on June 09, 2011, 02:16:32 PM
Sometimes it's good to be a lurker. ;)
-Boofer-
I can't get the opening to Office Space out of my mind, now. ;D
Agree, Boof. I'm just really grateful for the wealth of people here. Always an insight into something new.
I think I can, I think I can,I think I can, I think I can.
Started a new Epoisses type yesterday. I used MM100, B.Lin, and a pinch of the
trio ' MVA, DH, CUM'. I made this one much larger, 1 gallon full Jersey to one
basket mold.
QuoteMix the culture in for 5 minutes. Wait 25 more minutes.
Add 2 ml single-strength rennet to 50 lb. milk.
This is from PD's website recipe for semi lactic types. I did just that had absolutely
nocream on top to worry about. It will drain (and be flipped) for 20-28 hours.
At that point, I should know roughly how large each cheese will be.
More later,
annie
I found this on the cheesemaking.com website - under trouble shooting.
There are obviously other professional cheese makers who also think an excess of starter can cause acidity and consequently lack of moisture.
QuoteDRY
Corkiness, curdiness, excessive hardness.
Possible Causes Lack of moisture due to excess acidity, excess rennet, excess stirring, too long drying in a warm room.
Possible Solutions At ripening reduce acid development. Reduce starter, add rennet sooner, reduce amount of rennet, decrease heating temperature, keep acid level low.
annie
Quote from: Boofer on June 09, 2011, 02:16:32 PM
Thank you all for an invigorating discussion.
It's unfortunate that this dialogue is relegated to this Epoisses thread for I believe a larger audience would do well to ponder the points and perspectives presented here.
This helps me focus more on what I am trying to achieve in my makes.
Sometimes it's good to be a lurker. ;)
-Boofer-
Ah Jade, you kill me. I think you are right. As I wrote this I thought maybe it deserves its own thread? This whole discussion is so strange because it brings an entirely new problem in the 5,000 years of cheesemaking: Abundance. We know too many cheeses and try to make so many types of them with no relation to our own regional and social circumstances (or, maybe this is the relation - we are living in a global reality now so this is what we socially want and can do). We have an endless library of cultures to work with and good variety of milks to own. We absorb so much information about the making of so many different cheeses in such short time. We can't avoid trying to invent as well as confuse some of our element and overblanding them a bit. A few decades ago this would have been impossible. Cheese enjoyed its success because a cheesemaker would dedicate their career to focus on one, two, maybe three cheeses -with a single source of milk and by making the best with a limited selection of cultures; but it would be their own home culture and no one else had it or knew how to work it. It's difficult being traditional in our global reality. Modernism is good to most aspects of cheese but the core of this discussion is the question of where to stop and say "I have enough. I am adding nothing more to this".
Great post, couldn't have said it better Yoav!!!
I love those discussions that actually make you think about what you are doing.
Thanks to all contributors!
Yoav,
what you said was so well stated, so eloquent. I've copied it into my own personal cheese files. Perhaps you would edit this into an article for the wiki section? I'd certainly like to see it readily available.
Dave in CT
Quote from: dthelmers on June 10, 2011, 04:01:19 AM
Yoav,
what you said was so well stated, so eloquent. I've copied it into my own personal cheese files. Perhaps you would edit this into an article for the wiki section? I'd certainly like to see it readily available.
Dave in CT
Hey...what
he said! :)
When I began learning about making cheese two and half years ago, I had Ricki's book as an incentive and early guide. I figured that with all of these cheese styles in the book, I'd better get started. No, I didn't feel I had to make them
all. I did feel a pull to try quite a few recipes though.
Over time and with meager successes and outright failures (some recorded herein), my perspective has evolved to the point that I really want to narrow my focus and concentrate on fine-tuning a few select styles. My picks have been stripped down to Beauforts, Tommes, and Goutalers. All hard or semi-hard styles. At this point, I have completed 3 makes of each style. I am waiting patiently for their affinage to complete. If I can get to a point where they are consistent in quality and memorable in taste, I will have gained some measure of satisfaction.
-Boofer-
Boofer,
Did you see my post that started "I think I can, I think I can", etc. I am very much
into the mode of doing and not talking about doing. Chemistry is great, BUT,
doing is supreme!!!
I am having a great time 'butting my head against a brick wall". But I know from
many years experience with learning new tricks, that the only way to do
it, is to do it!
I have found a great resource of help with cheese, albeit not free, but great.
My next challenge is going to be the 'almighty Beaufort'. Actually, I have ordered
the milk and will start my first next Wednesday. I have a couple of Gruyere types
that I started last year in the frig still. But the 'Big B' sounds to be the best of the type.
And for people that like brick walls, it is probably the best challenge.
If I may, I would like to ask you questions about your experiences to date. That
is, after I get started.
annie
Quote from: arkc on June 10, 2011, 05:47:52 AM
Boofer,
Did you see my post that started "I think I can, I think I can", etc. I am very much
into the mode of doing and not talking about doing. Chemistry is great, BUT,
doing is supreme!!!
I did see that post. I agree. Repetition builds confidence, improves quality in both the cheese and in the process, and fills those idle hours staring at the empty Dutch press. :)
Quote from: arkc on June 10, 2011, 05:47:52 AM
If I may, I would like to ask you questions about your experiences to date. That
is, after I get started.
Whatever knowledge I may have to share, you are welcome to it. I would also suggest picking Paul's (https://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=4148) brain...the up-and-coming guru on rind development.
-Boofer-
Thanks so much Dave (in CT) and Boofer. Boofer, I would love to hear more about your tommes.
My focus is on bloomies and Trappist cheeses, but about 25% of what I make are wild tommes. Tomme is a magical platform onto which you can build a million different personal styles. Currently have a very wild raw Jersey Tomme aging with a little surprise in it. I'll show you all when it's done... (2+ months)
Quote from: iratherfly on June 12, 2011, 12:36:29 AM
Currently have a very wild raw Jersey Tomme aging with a little surprise in it.
Wow, a surprise! The suspense is killing me. ;D Come on, give us a hint!
I agree about the Tommes. Between you, linuxboy, Paul, and others, a lot of inspiration has flowed across the pages of this forum. I am looking forward to starting an all-raw Tomme in two weeks. I still need to buy some cultures for it. I am excited about its prospects. It will be #4 for that style. I'm thinking it should get a bit of fur on its rind. My #1 was a simple make that I vacuum-sealed rather quickly. #2 developed a beautiful golden b. linens rind. And #3 was washed with a Moscato.
-Boofer-
Yumm.... What types of cultures do you need to get? Usually a farmstead culture is enough for it. Then for the rind you are talking about maybe mycodore and some geo, a little yeast. It's more about getting great affinage in these. I also do one that is vacuumed "drunken cow" style which is really easy to make and delicious. I aged the last batch 5 months and it was fantastic.
First, Boof, thanks for the kind note above. I still feel - and am - very much a neophyte, and once again have to lend my nod to Pav, Francois, Sailor. I've learned so much from them.
Yoav, on the mycodore, I thought about this one for a long while. I used it on my first rounds of tommes, but as I'm concentrating on Savoie-style cheeses, did raise the question on the use of mycodore with Pav and Francois. The consensus was, mycodore doesn't really belong in an alpine-tomme; more, pyrenees. Just an fyi, if wanting to do alpine-style tommes.
Interesting discussion on the use of cultures, and technique as well, so I've taken the liberty of posting Francois's comment (https://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,573.msg12016.html#msg12016) as a point of departure:
Quote from: FrancoisMycodore and Mycoderm are the yeast and mould used in Pyrenees style cheeses. In my old cheese factory I made a goat tomme that looked very similar to that one. The whote whisps are geotrichum. My version of that cheese had 6 ripening cultures, it is a very complex rind that invloves bacteria, yeasts and molds. From memory I used:
Starter: MA4001 and sometimes thermo to stabilise
Ripening:
Geo 13
Mycoderm
Mycodore
DH LYO
KL 71
MVA
Here is mycodore:
http://www.fromagex.com/product_info.php?products_id=937
mycoderm is another Danisco culture, but Fromagex doesn't carry it standard. I used ot buy it from Glengarry in Ontario.
Not all washed rinds are b.linens. In fact most of my cheeses were washed in some way, it's a great way to control surface growth, rind texture and final appearance to the customer. I would agrue that the majority of aged cheeses are in fact washed rinds.
uisually I would innoculate the milk with ripening cultures and also make up a 2-3% salt wash with them as well. After brining I would dry the surface then start the washing. Frequently at first but becoming very infrequent over a few months time.
Quote from: iratherfly on June 12, 2011, 06:04:04 AM
Yumm.... What types of cultures do you need to get? Usually a farmstead culture is enough for it. Then for the rind you are talking about maybe mycodore and some geo, a little yeast. It's more about getting great affinage in these. I also do one that is vacuumed "drunken cow" style which is really easy to make and delicious. I aged the last batch 5 months and it was fantastic.
I was considering the following:
- 1/4 tsp Kazu
- 1/16 tsp TA61
- 1/8 tsp PLA
Does that seem like it would produce a decent Tomme with a bit of fur to brush back? All three of my previous Tommes have been very low rind...no nap. I'd like for this to be a bit more "from out of the back woods...
it came...looking a little wild-eyed". :o
Opinions?
-Boofer-
Boof, FWIW, I've got fur growing out my ears. Course, I just turned 50, so I'm allowed. Wait, that's not it.
Cheese. Mucor. My tommes are furry as they come, and, knock on wood, show promise to be the best yet; I hand it all to mucor. The only issue is that this cave will be all mucor, since it explodes everywhere. I'm fine with that, and that was my intention. Just an FYI.
Quote from: ArnaudForestier on June 15, 2011, 11:09:33 AM
Boof, FWIW, I've got fur growing out my ears. Course, I just turned 50, so I'm allowed. Wait, that's not it.
Reminds me of the old gentlemen in the park, sitting there with the sun glistening through the forest that has become their ears. Why is it that you old guys grow ear hair so prodigiously? ;)
Quote from: ArnaudForestier on June 15, 2011, 11:09:33 AM
Cheese. Mucor. My tommes are furry as they come, and, knock on wood, show promise to be the best yet; I hand it all to mucor. The only issue is that this cave will be all mucor, since it explodes everywhere. I'm fine with that, and that was my intention. Just an FYI.
Would you care to share
just that small portion of your newfound education that allowed you to do this? Specifics with regard to my proposed regimen above.
-Boofer-
Boof, I just used Pav's technique; got two cheeses I liked, and made a rind puree. Composed of 1/2 Herve Mons's Tomme de Bois Noir (a goat's milk tomme, actually), and an AOC tomme de savoie that looked like the rind I was seeking, and tasted wonderful. I wanted to do a true tomme grise, with that velvety, even mat of gray-black, as in Tomme de Lullin (it's in DK's French Cheeses book).
I also prepped the cave from the start, much more rigorously than my first cave. Sanitized it thoroughly, then did a whey-puree wash over all surfaces, allowing it to dry. Started the temp and humidity levels to 54F/90% RH.
In the make, a just used enough milk to make a slurry - sanitized my blender as thoroughly as possible, dropped in the rind sections, pureed the heck out of the slurry until it was as liquified as possible. Then just added to my make. The only other added culture is MA4001.
On all 3 tommes, I started seeing the mucor welling up in very wispy lines, like cobwebs, from underneath, in the paste. I leave it alone. It springs to fur within 7-8 days, and I've allowed it to go for a couple of weeks, then rubbed down, and spread it around the wheel. The only issue I'm seeing is that the sides of my wheels don't, for some reason, sprout as readily, so I'm a bit disappointed in that I won't seemingly get that even rind look, over the entire wheel.
One thing I'm thinking: I'd love to do a wheel, without any management whatsoever - simply, allow the mucor to grow, thrive, die back. It occurs to me that because I age on wood, and not coarse matting, the mould tends to get pressed naturally, by the weight of the wheel against the wood. So I might try another, on matting, to allow the delicate "hair" to grow to tall-stand length, possibly.
The smell is rich mushroom. My hands are as black as coal, when done hand-rubbing the wheels. Because this mucor is an aggressive little beast - I understand from Pav it has an extremely proteolytic nature - I have dampened its growth curve, as well, by dropping back a bit on the temp, to 51F. I'd like to manage nuanced growth, good funk, with the proper aging time - this one's a bit shorter than my other tommes, 3 months at most.
Oh, additionally, French Cheeses describes no washed curd for the Lullin. They simply cook the curds from 91F to 99F. I did a kind of hybrid, again with guidance from Pav, or about 10% water-whey replacement washing; I then ramped the temp up by heating to the proper 99F. I was seeking some of the piquancy of the cooked curd approach, yet preserving some of the sweet curd from using a bit of washing.
Well that certainly gives me something to ponder. You dedicated a fridge for just this style? Or will the flora that is developing be applicable/conducive to other styles?
You are also doing Beauforts...and what other styles? How many caves (fridges) do you have in operation?
Yeah, I know, so many questions. ::)
-Boofer-
Yep, the cave is a mucor cave. It's too aggressive, and not good friends with other things. It's OK - I'm working on perfecting a limited range of cheeses, and as I intend on doing this commercially, I need to really hone in. So far, I've got two caves; one is my Beaufort cave - though I use an aging container in it, to do my reblochons as well. This other cave is this tomme grise cave. The Beaufort cave will also get my regular tomme, a more mottled, rustic, "flora fight it out" wheel. And in the autumn, I'll begin working on Vacherin Mont D'Or. I need to figure out how to peel spruce strips - suspect I won't be able to secure that nifty channel-chisel, so will have to score it first, then peel. At any rate, I love Mont D'Or, and it will make a nice autumn-winter component of my seasonal desires.
Boof, I never tire of questions. I know I beleaguer poor Pav a ton, and the others have gotten my flurries as well. My only hope is that I'm helpful. :)
Hello,
So sorry to interrupt this conversation! Wondering if anyone would be willing to share the recipe they are using for epoisses? From my reading ( and I may have missed something) I am assuming that many of you are using the Peter Dixon lactic curd recipe with the addition of B-linens), flipping / pressing for several days to remove extra whey and ageing from that point on with the brine washes etc. If you would be willing to share it would be appreciated! Wondering also how far past 60 days anyone has aged I understand it is typically done before then!
Thanks, Lisa