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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!

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.

   

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.