Boofer made me do it ...
So I've been using the recipe from 200 Easy all along - amazingly enough, without too many modifications (most of which I don't write down anyway). The only thing I did differently on this last one was increase the weight some on the pressing, because the number of holes/really bad knits were bothering me. Not that it made a difference in the end anyway, still ended up with lots of holes/bad knit. It didn't help that the room they were in had gotten down to 66F overnight, even though I'd used a space heater to get it up to 75F or so when they first went into the press.
So - no notes, but lots of pics:
And the saga continues ...
And here they are now, at 3 weeks old. This batch had a better push on getting the b. linens going, because I also had made a Port Salut that was developing nicely already, so I've been washing the Port Salut first, then using the same cloth for the rebs. I suspect that these are still going to take a lot longer, probably a month or so, before they're ready, since they're still WAY too tall. It's been fun playing with these, though, a good use of winter milk. (I do most of my experimenting in the wintertime.)
Great pics. Thanks for those. Nice work.
Now I'm in a dither.... Should I make Butterkaese or Reblochon next? Decisions, decisions....
Dos Equis, huh? That makes the cheesemaking process smoother I would imagine. :D
A cheese to you for inspiring and entertaining me today.
-Boofer-
Thanks for the cheesey!
I said before in the other thread, go for butterkaese! IIRC, your wife is not a fan of stinkys and likes pretty mild stuff, so it's right up her alley and she won't even have to surreptitiously cut off any rind! ;)
I admit that my one disappointment was not having the lovely molds that you do (Kadova?) that you used for your Rebs. Mine are so straight that they don't really have any little cheese bellies to pat. I miss that.
Hi Mary,
I have just discovered this site and I know I belong to it. Right now I have some aged Bucheron (at least a kilo).I also have access to raw milk. The cows are grass fed. We are also fortunate to have a home in Donegal, Ireland and I know I can access grass-fed cows and goat milk there. I recently been making yogurt with great success but now I want to move on to cheese making. Can I innoculate some milk with some of the aged Bucheron and begin the process of cheese making. in other words, I assumes the P. Cand.... will still be in the cheese. Once again, I am new to this and hope with time to be making cheese for my family. I'd ike to know ideal temperatures, etc. Bear with me, I am a good student with a lot of tenacity.
Best,
Pauline ^-^
I think they are on the tall side so they may take a long time to age but that's a nice show of blinens.
I personally do not press my reblochon strongly. Just a glass of water on the lid overnight.
Mary -
Looking nice.
Pauline -
Bucheron that is one I am NOT familuar with. Can you share the make and details of it's style?
Quote from: DeejayDebi on March 15, 2012, 12:57:02 AM
Mary -
Looking nice.
Pauline -
Bucheron that is one I am NOT familuar with. Can you share the make and details of it's style?
Hey, I've got the molds, just no recipe yet. I recall
iratherfly saying "Bûcheron is a giant Crottin".
-Boofer-
Quote from: Boofer on March 15, 2012, 06:55:13 AM
Hey, I've got the molds, just no recipe yet. I recall iratherfly saying "Bûcheron is a giant Crottin".
My tastebuds agree with that statement.
Ahhh thanks!
Alas, alack!!
The season for ripening cheeses outside the cave in the chilly basement is officially over. I had seen one little fungus gnat flitting around the laundry area a couple of weeks ago, didn't think much of it (foolishly, of course - but wait, did I just ruin the punch line?). At that time when I washed the rebs, I thought the rind was looking a little weird, but it was hard to tell because of all the indentations from the mat they were on when being pressed.
Went down the other day to wash them again. "DANG, those DO look like pinholes, don't they? Hmmm."
*wash wash*
"HEY! THAT'S not a teensy piece of wet paper towel! Paper towels don't move!"
*SOB*
On the good side, I WAS mildly entertained when I realized that rather than the usual white or off-white, the little squigglies were orange-colored.
Not to be deterred, however, after having invested 7 weeks in these little boogers (the cheeses, not the gnat larvae), I decided that they couldn't have gone TOO far down past the rind, right? I can still eat the middles, right? Suuuuurrrreeeeee you can. So out comes the knife.
First pic is of the pinholes (which you can barely see) - second is after surgery, sitting on the plate waiting to see if any more critters were going to decide to come out for a visit (none did). So whenever I feel an abundance of intestinal fortitude, I'm gonna eat some of my now much slimmer Reblochons #3.
And yesterday I proceeded to order some better molds to use for Rebs (what do you mean, I can't afford them? I WANT THEM!!!) Ordered three so that I can end up with three hopefully-normal-sized cheeses instead of two way-too-tall-these-will-take-forever-to-ripen cheeses. Shipped yesterday, so the end of the week most likely will see Reb #4 in process. ^-^
pity about the bugs. those cheeses were looking mighty fine. i'd still eat em.
Oh george, you brave soul. You've made a version of Casu Marzu (http://xo.typepad.com/blog/2008/06/casu-marzu-maggot-cheese.html). Congratulations! A cheese to you for your awesomeness!
Those Reblochon molds should help you get to the proper dimensioned cheese. I have the right molds but haven't found the time to put curd in them. :(
One more look. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVy_QoShxhM)
-Boofer-
Its like finding gold and hoping it was silver :)
LOL - except my Cazu Marzu had larvae from WAY less pretty flies.
And yes, I have high hopes for the new molds - even more than getting the proper thickness, the description said they do have rounded corners, so maybe I can fulfill yet another dream and end up with little cheese bellies to pat. ;D
Quote from: george (MaryJ) on April 04, 2012, 12:25:58 PM
LOL - except my Cazu Marzu had larvae from WAY less pretty flies.
And yes, I have high hopes for the new molds - even more than getting the proper thickness, the description said they do have rounded corners, so maybe I can fulfill yet another dream and end up with little cheese bellies to pat. ;D
Ah yes, the cheese bellies...a fond memory. :)
-Boofer-
I don't know.... I like cheese mites as long as you can control them. They are essential in some cheeses like Mimolette, but eh, Reblochon, not so much.
What I don't get is how they got there. Where was the cheese aged? At 7 weeks it should have been refrigerated long ago!
I have to say that the 200 Recipes version of this cheese is actually way off the production mark. If you do the right recipe the right way, aging takes 2 weeks ONLY in a cave and then 3-4 more weeks in the fridge. By the time you are done the orange rind sould look quite white as it is covered with a velvety fuzzy layer of late-blooming GEO. You should almost be unable to see the orange anymore. Also, the wash itself is rather mild; it's a pale orange strain of B.Linen, not like Muenster, Morbier, Limburger or any of these meaty hearty trappist style strong cheeses. Reblochon overall should be a mild.
More importantly, since they are surface ripened, the form factor (size/proportion) must be correct at approx Ø2:1, or in other words diameter twice as large as height, (or better yet: radius = height). The Classic Reblochon de Savoie AOC is Ø135mm x 65mm mould. This assures that when using the classic recipe/affinage, by the 6th week of aging the surface ripening of the paste from the top inward + bottom inward + sidewall inward will meet and the center -fully ripened.
I have been using the recipe from the National Dairy School of France and it's a night and day from this one. Let me know if you want details!
They were aging in a container on a shelf in the unheated basement by themselves - basement hovers around 58 degrees in wintertime. The reason they were there for so long was because I was getting a huge yield from this milk, but I only had two hoops to use for them, so they were way too tall. I probably could have cut into them at 6 weeks, but I wanted to be sure they were ripened all the way through - I'd made that mistake with a prior batch.
When I started the very first batch of Rebs, I debated whether to use your recipe or the 200 Easy (although you've posted slight modifications to 200 Easy also). I finally decided that since I have a tendency to lose individual recipes and then can't figure out what went right or wrong, I'd go with just the straight 200 Easy. (I also don't like doing cheeses that I have to fuss over, either - I tend to screw that up as well. Doing washed rinds at all was a major departure from that philosophy for me. ;D)
So while I know that I don't have, and never will have, a "true" Reblochon, they taste awesome (and yes, very mild). And this way they also match up with all my other cheese types - I don't do a "true" anything, I ALWAYS muck around with the recipes and do something entirely different. Like with washed curd cheeses - I don't bother with this "remove such and such an amount of whey and replace with the same amount of water". Nope, not me. I remove every time down to the level of the curds, and I end up with the creamiest gouda-types and such ever invented. :)
Quote from: iratherfly on April 05, 2012, 12:47:00 AM
I have been using the recipe from the National Dairy School of France and it's a night and day from this one. Let me know if you want details!
Yes please, Yoav.
I have a recipe I used (probably 200 Easy Cheeses), but I just received the attached one. Does the one you have been using differ?
-Boofer-
This is a lot closes to what I am using (Frankly, I got my hands on an entire professional Reblochon de Savoie AOC handbook). The main differences are:
1. Starter culture is a thermophilic Danisco MY800 - made specifically for Reblochon and has a very unique acidification schedule
2. Rind culture is purely PLA
3. Very long initial ripening (I will have to look up the pH value, I think from 6.8 to 6.5 or so, could take 3 hours or more with this culture)
4. very short flocculation
5. Assuming you are using proper Reblochon size, cheese should be pressed at 1.5 Kg (no more than 2Kg) and flipped at 30, 90 and 180 minutes. Press until reaching pH 5.7, but no less than 90 minutes. Transfer to cold room immediately to cool brine or dry salt in cold room to slow down acid production
6. No coloring in morge. Wash every 2nd day, then sparse it out over the 2nd week.
The combination of the lighter pressing and higher pre-salting pH should make it more supple
Notice that your recipe (as well as mine) call for 2 weeks aging. That's the right affinage. The 200 Easy Recipes book gives you a hard, acidic, overly-stinky and orange Reblochon which is just totally wrong. I also don't believe in making them in a Camembert mould unless you have enough experience to anticipate that the final shape would indeed be Ø2:1.
I will have to look up the make sheets and make a recipe out of them here.
Thanks, Yoav. I have become a big fan of PLA. It has done some really nice things for some of my cheeses.
-Boofer-
Alternative to PLA for this cheese would be a mix of LAF3 or DH, GEO CB or Geo 25, and a light but aromatic B.Linen like MGE or LR.
I am reading the make and troubleshooting guide here. It's huge. Has all kinds of comments about affinage and how to fine tune it to make it more or less supple, stinky, stable etc. Such interesting cheese. You know me, I invent new cheeses and don't try making what a million others make well, but on the way there you have to go through the basics and this is the granddaddy of all washed rind trappist style cheeses. If you know Reblochon, Tallegio and St. Necraire - I think you can do anything in this genre.
Quote from: iratherfly on April 10, 2012, 06:14:53 AM
this is the granddaddy of all washed rind trappist style cheeses. If you know Reblochon, Tallegio and St. Necraire - I think you can do anything in this genre.
Boy, that certainly sounds like a challenge to me. I was pleased with my pillow-like Reblochon (#1) (https://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,7517.msg57925.html#msg57925), disappointed with my two Tallegio attempts, and haven't tried St. Nectaire. I have the Reblochon moulds but haven't made a second effort yet. I am anxious though to repeat my earlier success in the correct moulds.
-Boofer-