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It's pumpkin spice everything nowadays. So why not a Pumpkin Ale Cheddar?

I basically repeated from a previous make since it went so well the last time. But this time I soaked the milled curds for 90 minutes in the Pumpkin ale.

Oh man, I have to say that the smell of those curds sitting in the ale was out of this world! After the 90 minute soak, I salted and ate quite a few of those squeaky cheese curds. The pumpkin and spices flavours were more in the aroma, but the ale flavour was definitely in the curds. So good! Oh, so good!!!

Even as the cheese was air drying a few days later, the distinctive pumpkin ale smell lingered but now mixed with that young curd smell we're all familiar with.

The only problem I encountered was the pressing. The curds soaked at room temp and cooled off considerably before pressing. I pressed at 4PSI overnight and two days later had some rind cracking during the air drying phase. Next time I'll try around 8PSI hoping it's enough.

Anyways, I'm very happy with the whole process. Since I have no idea what to expect, I'll open it at around 7 months and determine if medium or sharp are preferable accompaniment to the Pumpkin Ale addition.

*Note: slight improvements to this make: Slabs stacked 3 high during cheddaring instead of 2. Also used a 1/2'' french fry cutter for milling which was so much easier than cutting by hand.

Very cool! 

How do you get that perfect cheese wheel shape?  It doesn't come out of your press looking like that (right?)  I guess there's a mould or something.

http://artisangeek.com/gouda-mould-500g/

Quote from: pastpawn on October 23, 2014, 11:18:00 PM
How do you get that perfect cheese wheel shape?  It doesn't come out of your press looking like that (right?)  I guess there's a mould or something.

FYI Perfect-Cheese also sells Kadova molds.  We don't carry the 500g but do have the 1kg (for up to 2 gal make) and 2kg (up to 4 gal.) at what we think are the best prices in the country.  I retired from the company that makes these (Sonoco) and Ivarson is their US distributor.  Their prices were high though so we purchased direct from Holland.  However the Ivarson link does have good dimensional information on the molds (or rather moulds).  I will say these are a joy to use: no cheese cloth and excellent draining and smooth rind.

Let me add that there are other gouda-style molds out there and Eric may have used one of those.

Will you open this soon? I'm looking forward to see how it turns out.

I'll probably open at around mid-June and see how it tastes at 8 months.

It looks absolutely great! What a nice wax and label! :-) A cheese for that!