Ingredients:
- 18 pints (~10 litres) raw Friesian Holstein milk
- 1ml vegetarian rennet
Those of you following my twitter will know I recently stumbled across a nationwide raw milk delivery service provided by Hook and Son.
Raw milk, delivered!
I ordered 2 x 10 pint boxes of raw milk on Monday morning, and come Wednesday I had a package marked “Do not crush – milk!” sitting on my desk!
It sat in the fridge till the weekend, when I was able to start work – this time, some Camembert.
20 pints raw milk
Decanted out
Unfortunately the stock pot would only hold 18 pints, so the rest of the milk was happily consumed by the cats.
Heating to around 30C
I recently bought a new analogue dairy thermometer with clip to make it easier to monitor temperatures – seems quite accurate when compared with old digital one which is handy!
After heating to 30C, an extremely small amount of DVI starter was added, as well as a tiny pinch of rehydrated Penicillium Candidum.
Measuring out rennet
After 30 minutes, when the pH had dropped from 6.7 to 6.5, added diluted rennet and stirred gently for a couple of minutes, then left to set while maintaining a temperature of 30C.
Checking for a clean break
Clean break was achieved after around 6 hours, when the pH had dropped from 6.5 to 5.4.
Skimming off the cream
The milk was exceptionally creamy, much more so than the Jersey milk i’ve used in the past, so had to skim off the milk to get the curd.
Ladelling the curd
No curd cutting traditionally involved with Camembert – curd is ladelled directly into moulds and drained.
Full lower moulds
Filling the upper sleeves
Stored in cat-free zone to drain
Currently draining overnight, to be turned tomorrow morning, then salted tomorrow evening – they’ll reduce in size by about half, so should fit nicely in the lower moulds.
Update:
Salted curds in drying area
Curds have been salted and placed in drying area (18C @ 80% humidity), where they will remain for a couple of days being turned intermittently.
Will update with more photos as progress is made!
