Today I continued on my quest to perfect my Camemberts. So far, very happy with my results, but it is early days! I have achieved a much lower moisture curd in the hoops, currently having 1200g curd from 8 litres of fresh cows milk. They are still draining so I expect them to lose a little more in weight over the next 24 hours. I achieved this by cutting the curd a little smaller this time (say 18mm cubes) and I stirred the curd more aggressively (but still gently so as not to damage the curd). I also made sure the curd did not mat up during synerisis. Interesting to watch the curd firm up during this stage, and I took the advice of contributors to this forum and regularly touched and squeezed the curd in order to understand the changes.
So far, they are turning beautifully and look very nice sitting in the hoops. Tomrrow will be the first test when I take them out and brine them.
For the record, I used a thermophylic starter, Temp 42 C, and added PC and Geo mould spores. Pre ripening time was 45 minutes, renetting time 46 minutes and synerisis time 130 minutes.
They look good so far. Keep us informed on how they go.
G'Day Bob, They are sitting nicely in the hoops. She'll be allright mate ;)
Thanks. They are now sitting in my maturing containers in the cave, and looking good. Here is a photo of them drying after brining on Sunday.
OK, now they are sitting in the maturing container in my cheese fridge. Temp is around 10 C. Turned them tonight, they look and feel very good. Just need some mould growth to start in the next few days now!
Temp is around 10 C
I keep mine at 14-15c and mold apears within 2-3 days, unlike in semi hard or hard cheeses you dont fear that the higher temp will further (over) acidify the cheese in camambert you pretty much maxed out your cultures abillity to acidify during the long overnight fermentation (during draining).
Thanks Tomer. Yes, I would prefer to have the temp a litttle higher, but my cheese fridge can only manage around 10-12 C. I did try a higher temp last time I made, but my cams suffered from slip skin and ripened on the outside very rapidly. I believe this was due to the higher (and less well controlled maturing temperature) and high moisture in the curd. (see my previous post in Problems on Aug 22nd) So I have reverted back to my standard make conditions in order to hopefully replicate my original success.
I usually get mould growth by day 5 and am happy to wait a little longer and keep my maturing under control. I'll post again over the wekend when I expect to see mould happily spreading across my cams! :D
Well, just over a week from make and the cheeses are doing very nicely. You can see in the attached photo that the Geo has coated the cheese in a nice layer of thin, golden tan coloured mould. And starting to grow over the top is the lovely white, furry PC.
Interestingly, I have the 4 cheeses in two different containers and this one is showing more mould growth at this stage. Maybe a slightly higher humidity in this container as evidenced by the droplets of water on the container sides?
Will post photos again in a few days, before wrapping.
12c is just fine,it will just take a few extra days for complete coverage.
Day 9 in the maturing container, lovely mould has spread all over the cheeses. I have decided to try some different storage methods to see if there is any difference in appearance, texture and flavour. I have therefore wrapped two cheeses and placed one in the 10C fridge and one in the normal 4C fridge. Will give the next two another couple of days in the maturing container, as I think they could do with a little more mould. I'll post again on the weekend and let you know how they are all going.
;D ;D ;D
Hi Bob,
How interesting to use a thermo starter for a camembert. May I ask what motivated your choice?
Lovely cheeses!
- Helen
Hi Helen,
Thanks for the comments!
I use two different recipes from the Australain book "HOME CHEESEMAKING - The secrets of how to make your own cheese and other dairy products" by Neil and Carole Willman. One is a Traditional recipe using meso and the other is a "Modern" recipe using thermo. Both give a good result, with the thermo recipe being slightly simpler. The flavour is very good, not quite as complex as the meso recipe, but still excellent. So for I have had more success with the thermo recipe (but I think that is mainly related to maturing conditions rather than the recipe) so am concentrating on learning as much as I can about the process using this recipe. I plan to try the meso recipe again soon, and will share the results on the forum. :)
Two weeks after make day and all cheeses are looking good. Lovely even mould growth over them all. I now have them stored, some at 4C and some at 10C while they continue to ripen and mature. I will monitor them closely and hope to start tasting in 3-4 weeks time. Can't wait!
I will be making again next weekend, going back to my meso recipe and hopefully will replicate my success here.
Those look great! Let us know how they taste when you try them.
Bonnie
Uniform coverage of PC, nice looking cheese Bob. ^-^
My cams from 17 September are going along beautifully. Still quite firm so won't be cutting into any just yet. Beautiful mould growth and no sign of slip skin at all. Will post some photos later this week.
Made some mores cams on the 8th October, this time using my meso recipe. This has a much shorter syneresis time before hooping, and my previous attempts resulted in very moist cheese, prone to skin slip and short shelf life. This time I paid more attention to the stirring steps, ensuring I stirred all the curd well, and I also left them to drain for 30 hours. The results look fantastic and the weight of the cheeses indicates my moisture levles are much lower this time. As an experiment, I left some of the curd in the whey for 30 minutes longer before hooping, to see if there was much difference in the end product. At this stage, they all look the same and are now happily sitting in my maturing container in the cave.
I'll update with some photos when the mould growth starts in 6-7 days tiime. :) :)
An update on my 17th September thermo cams. They are now 35 days old and looking beautiful. Cut one open today to have a peek. Still not really soft yet, but the flavour is very, very good. I have attached some photos.
My meso cams from 8th October are now fully covered in PC and have been wrapped. They too look very, very nice, as you can see.
I'll update on the tastings soon. ;D ;D
GReat looking cheeses.. I have tried two different recipes and both have been failures. Any chance of a description of the 'brined' methode and recipe ?
Sweet cheese, Bob!
I really like that contrast between the colors of the paste and the rind.
I enjoy your cheese "travelogue". Looking forward to more.
-Boofer-
:) Thanks boofer! The cams are still maturing, after 8 weeks. The paste is getting nice and soft now, no sign of ammoniation yet and very tasty! I'll post some final pictures soon.
My other cams, from 8th October, are now 5 weeks old and also progressing well. They are ripening faster that the previous batch due to their higher moisture content and slightly thinner height. I'll be cutting into them soon too. Thanks for your interest. :)
Cut open my last Cam from 17/9 make, 63 days old. This is my Thermo recipe, and it has quite a long synerisis time. This batch I stirred quite well too, so the result has been a much "drier" cheese then my previous makes.
The rind has faded from a brilliant white to a creamy colour. It is just starting to get some darker discolouration on the rind, but there is still no hint of ammoniation yet. The paste is now getting soft almost to the centre, but certainly no where near gooey. The flavour is very creamy, camambert flavour, with a nice earthy flavour from the rind. Overall, I am pretty happy with it: a nice, very edible creamy camembert without the rich custard like texture that I aim for.
PS I'll post some photos of my meso cams from 8/10 shortly.
Here are some photos of my meso cams, made 8/10. I made them in two slightly different thicknesses, as part of my experimentation with stirring times.
The first two photos are of the thinner cam, 196g. It was already starting to show signs of some ammoniation, with some darkening on the rind, and a slight ammonia aroma. When cut, the cheese was very soft and almost runny. The paste was creamy, with a slight bitterness on the aftertaste. This cheese is definitely ripe and needs to be eaten now. :)
The last photo is of the slightly larger (thicker) cam at 277g. This cheese had only the faintest ammonia smell on the nose. Cutting it revealed a lovely soft, gooey exterior with a line of chalky, harder paste in the centre. The flavour was particularly good, classic creamy, earthy camembert flavour with just the very slightest bitterness on the after palate. This cheese needs another week or so to fully ripen into the centre.
Drool....
Yeah, thinner is better. Man, they do look tasty! Good work.
Now, where's that crusty bread?
-Boofer-
Thanks boofer :)
Yes, they are very, very tasty. Enjoying every mouthful with crackers, fresh bread or just plain naked cheese! It's great to taste the result of all my hard work and patience!
Bob,
Beautiful cheeses. Can you elaborate a bit more on the differences in your make between your september "thermo" cams and your October "meso" cams? Particularly the stirring and the ripening temps, if indeed there were any differences?
I'm just trying to get a sense of what made the October batch runnier compared to the September batch.
Thanks.
Thanks for the compliments medomak. :)
The main differences in the make are as follows:
- Thermo cam recipe has half the pre-ripening time, 45 mins vs 90 mins
- Thermo cam recipe has a much longer syneresis time (time from cut to hoop), 130 mins vs 50 mins.
Ripening temps were the same for both cheeses, as were all other steps, apart from the different cultures. I must admit, I don't fully understand the affect that using the different starter cultures will have, apart from flavour differences.
Also, I had a bad expereience previously with very moist cams ending up with skin slip, so when I made these thermo cams I was stirring quite aggressively by the end of the syneresis time. I suspect I overdid it, and expelled too much moisture during this step. :(
Hope this information helps, and if you have any other ideas, let me know.
Bob