I'm making Camemberts again using standard size hoops on plastic mesh mats that I turn by hand.
Currently my hoops sit on the mats which sit on a kitchen plastic draining rack at side of sink with whey draining into kitchen sink and down drain. While easy to clean and store, this board has three problems:
- Maximum number of hoops is 6 and I'd like to make 8-10 in a batch.
- Draining board has ridges about 2 inches/4-5 cm apart which means poor support for the mats allowing some leakage of curds between the ridges.
- The draining board bows with the weight towards the middle and some of the hoops full of curds and whey tend to float and move downhill resulting in them not being centered on ridges and leaking curds, plus the outside hoops tend to drain on slight slant resulting in tilted Camembert cylinders.
I'm thinking of buying a couple large metal mesh kitchen cooling racks (picture below) to fit inside a large baking tray or over top of sink to catch the draining whey.
Anyone have recommendations or a better system or can point me to an existing discussion that I must have missed?
Try using "egg crate" (the ceiling/lighting version, not the cardboard one!). It's been a lifesaver for me ever since reading about it here, makes everything much easier. I use a piece cut to fit each ripening box, and put the embroidery mats on top of that - plenty of drainage and no chance that a cheese can touch/sit in the drained whey.
For cams I use a nasty old aluminum baking pan that I had, cut a piece of egg crate to fit THAT, and then do the mold filling and draining essentially as you do with the dish drainer. My pan can only fit four hoops comfortably, but that also makes it easier to just tilt the whole thing to pour out accumulated whey while holding the hoops in it with the other hand. I'd think if you used a bigger pan, you could siphon off the whey rather than doing the full-scale tilt like I do, then you can fit more hoops in it also. Or just put a piece of egg crate on the draining rack first, that would stabilize it and solve most of your problems (except the space one).
I wouldn't go for the metal racks, though - eventually the whey will deteriorate the finish and you'll end up with rust- or other-flavored cheeses (learned that the hard way). The egg crate's easy to cut, too - I did it with a set of wire cutters. ;D
george, many thanks for idea and thoughts, I remember see someone post using those ceiling flurosecent light fixture egg crates cut to shape of their ripening box, didn't think to use them for initial draining as well! Like your idea of cutting to fit large baking tray. Good point on wire long term with acidic whey.
Since my post above I found member OzzieCheese's set up here (https://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,8434.msg59317.html#msg59317). He's using a wire rack under food grade plastic molds (single open end) vs my hoops (double open end), on top of a plastic tray.
You could use the egg crate in a baking tray with holes punctured in one end. That end could hang over the end of your sink to drain the whey out without having to tip or siphon the whey.
I use egg crate - I think it was Sailor or Boofer who first mentioned it (Sorry about my bad memory) - and I love it. I did try it once without the plastic mesh and it left a 1/2 inch grid on my gouda, which was actually kind of attractive.
What about the egg crate foam that you put on a bed? Sorry, just being a smart Alec.
Thanks to all, made Camemberts again yesterday and I hadn't made a better draining rack set up based on suggestions so I drained the cams on mats on metal baking racks in metal baking trays. Not a good long term solution as metal rusts, trays not hygienic (lots of baked on crud from years of use), and large volume of whey would have overflowed if I hadn't initially removed via turkey baster syphon and later after curds had started to firmed up by tilting the tray with whey draining out corner into sink. MrsKK's idea of a hole in corner to auto-drain from down sink is a good one.
What did work way better is that as the tray was perfectly horizontal, the hoops did not float-slide down hill and easy to slide mats with hoops on top back onto wire rack as wire was raised above side of tray, which is a problem primarily at first turn when curds still very moist and easy to slip out from between mats & hoops.
If you wanted to tilt the whole thing, you might use the spongy-with-holes-in-it shelf liner to prevent the molds from sliding downhill. Just a thought...
MrsKK, that foamy liner I think is low permeability plus it would I think be single use as very hard to clean of unwanted molds.
To replace the somewhat flexible and poor mat support draining tray pictured in post above I bought a USD14 extra large 15" x 20" / 38.1 cm x 50.8 cm polyethylene cutting board with a groove cut around perimeter to catch and channel draining whey and I drilled three holes in one end through which the whey could depart the board. Board is large enough to fit 6 standard Camembert hoops.
Just put it in service with egg crate (not yet cut to size) and then mats then hoops on top. Worked well, as horizontal not floating - moving of hoops like I had with original system and as well supported no leaking of curds out of bottom. But from one back corner the whey did not escape down groove fast enough and blew out over edge and escaped. Possibly the counter top isn't perfectly horizontal, or I need to put some small shims under back to create a slope for the whey or I could just ladle the curds into hoops slower.
Quote from: John (CH) on March 10, 2012, 10:07:08 PM
But from one back corner the whey did not escape down groove fast enough and blew out over edge and escaped. Possibly the counter top isn't perfectly horizontal, or I need to put some small shims under back to create a slope for the whey or I could just ladle the curds into hoops slower.
I did mine a similar way, and just shoved a square plastic chopstick under the 'top' end to increase the angle a little and make all of the whey run in the right direction. It worked fine - just check that it's stable and not so steep that anything will slide off.