• 6 litres pasteurised Jersey milk
• 0.9ml animal rennet

For Secret Santa this year I ended up with a fellow cheese lover from the Czech Republic, so I decided I should try and make her some Czech cheese as a present!

She had told me about Bryndza and Olomoucke tvarôžky (affectionately called “smelly cheese”), both of which looked easy enough to make, but given the time constraints I opted to make some fresh Bryndza.

Unfortunately there don’t seem to be very many recipes available, so I had to pretty much make it up, based on her description of the cheese and a fair bit of searching!

Fundamentally the Czech incarnation of Bryndza is a brined ewe’s milk cheese, similar to feta, but much softer and less crumbly.

I decided to go back to basics on this cheese, as I feel I’ve been relying on good equipment for the past few cheeses, so wanted to (briefly!) return to the good old makeshift double-boiler to show how easy cheese making is!

Prepping the boiler

Jersey milk

Although Bryndza is traditionally made with ewe’s milk, it proved impossible to get at short notice, so I had to use Jersey milk instead.

Decanting the milk

Such a tiny amount!

Warming very, very slowly

One thing I’d forgotten about making cheese in a makeshift double-boiler like this is how long it takes to heat up!

My lovely big vat takes a matter of minutes to reach temperature, whereas this took hours!

Measuring the rennet

I decided on 0.9ml of rennet as I wanted a coagulation time of around 2 hours.

Note that I was using new rennet in order to test the strength – in the end it took a little longer than expected, which is useful to know when portioning out next time!

FINALLY up to temperature!

Once up to 30C, add the rennet diluted in around 5-6 times it’s volume of cold, clean water.

I didn’t think there was much point in starter, as the cheese is going to be brined, overriding any flavour a starter would impart.

Adding the rennet

Once the rennet has been added, stir for 30 seconds – usually recipes prescribe 2.5 – 3mins of stirring, but after talking to a fellow cheesemaker recently I decided to reduce this given the volumes of milk being used.

Clean break

After just over 2 hours a clean break was achieved, once I’d managed to get through the top layer of Jersey cream!

Ready for draining

Ladelling out the curd

Since I wanted to keep the cheese soft and spreadable, I decided against cutting the curd as you would with feta.

Filling up

Makeshift press

Once all the curd is ladelled out into a cloth-lined drainer, add weights on top to force the whey out.

I actually ended up adding a LOT more weight than is in the photo – somewhere around 8kg, as the whey wasn’t draining quickly enough.

Although I was aiming for a drainage time of around 5 hours, it actually took a lot longer – around 10 – hopefully this didn’t cause too much acidification!

Drained curd mass

Ready for salting

Rub in a small amount of salt to the curd, and leave for a couple of days, flipping and re-salting twice a day.

The Jersey milk really shows itself in the final curd, giving streaks of yellow cream throughout!

Making up the brine

After two days, make up a 9-10% brine solution – use any salt for this, as the dehydrating agents don’t make any difference to a cheese immersed in water!

Brine-y

The ominous-looking finished product!

Leave in brine for 4-5 days before eating, so the cheese has time to pickle.

Having tasted it today, it’s very soft and spreadable, but the saltiness is a little overpowering.

As with feta, bathing it in milk before eating will reduce the saltiness, so I’ll see what the Czech verdict is first before updating the recipe!

Secret Santa present present giving is tomorrow – I’m sure it’s going to be pretty obvious who it’s from though!

• 28 pints Ellie’s Dairy raw Goat milk
• 3.3ml animal rennet
• DVI starter
• Penicillium candidum

Since my last update I’ve been trying to perfect my raw goat white cheese to a level where it’d be ready to enter into both Moorland’s Amateur Cheese Awards and World Cheese Awards!

While I don’t expect to win (or even be placed in the latter!), I thought it would be good experience to try and consistently make a cheese of reasonable quality.

Unfortunately things didn’t go quite to plan in terms of maturation times – my Amateur Cheese Awards entry was a little too old, and my World Cheese Awards entry far too young!

Both entries were made as follows:

Milk with new vat

I managed to get hold of a second hand vat from Sarah at Brockhall Farm which has absolutely revolutionized my cheese making!

The best thing about it is the SPEED it heats milk up!  I actually managed to ruin an entire batch by not paying attention to temperatures.

My old vat took a couple of hours to come to temperature, whereas the new vat takes around 20 minutes.

Having a professional style vat definitely takes a bit of getting used to – note the splashes on the wall behind the vat, where I accidentally sprayed water everywhere while filling up the jacket.  Oops!

Decanting the milk

Coming up to temperature

Heat the milk to 30C and add a small pinch of DVI starter and penicillium candidum, and stir well.

DVI starter & mould

Measuring out the rennet

Leave for around 45 minutes, then add the rennet diluted in 5 times the amount of cold, clean water and stir for 2 minutes, top stirring for the last 30 seconds.

Adding the diluted rennet

The milk should set in around 90 minutes, giving a clean break.

Clean break

Note that the strange swirly lines which used to occur in my old vat have completely disappeared with the new one.

I think this confirms the suspicion that the lines were appearing due to the milk continuing to move after stirring.

Since the new vat is rectangular, and I’m stirring more gently, the effect has disappeared!

Scooping out curd

Scoop the curd out directly into the mould without cutting, or ladelling.

Draining curd

Place the followers gently on top of the curd to avoid contamination, and leave to drain at 18C @ 70-80% humidity.

Dripping curd

16 hours later

After around 10 hours, when the curd is firm enough, flip the curd.

Partially drained curd

Flip another two times, at intervals of 8 hours, then it’s on to salting!

Ready for salting

Crushing the sea salt

I use Cornish Sea Salt (for reasons I’ll blog about another time!), which I crush up in a pestle & mortar in order to avoid the flakes being too large.

2g of salt

Before salting

After salting

Gently rub the salt into the top and bottom of the cheese, then pat round the edges.

All ready and salted

Leave the cheeses to drain in 18C with 70-80% humidity for a couple of days, flipping every morning and evening or until the cheese is not longer showing moisture on the surface.

Ready for the cave

Place in fridge at 12C with 85-90% humidity for 2-3 weeks, flipping daily.

White mould will begin to grow in a couple of days – if any unwanted blue, orange or black mould appears, just cut it out (I have a surgical scalpel!) and fill the wound with a little salt.

My entry to the Amateur Cheese Awards was around 4 weeks old, and had broken down a little too much, with a thin line of acidic paste through the centre.

For the World Cheese Awards (which were a week later), I had to send an unripe batch which had little breakdown and a lot of acidic paste.

I’ll update the post when the results are announced – fingers crossed!

Update:

Unsurprisingly I didn’t get placed in the World Cheese Awards (full results) but did manage second place in the Amateur Cheese Awards – unfortunately there were only two entries, oops!

There’s always next year!

• 11 pints Ellie’s Dairy raw Goat milk
• 2.5ml animal rennet
• DVI starter
• Penicillium candidum

I’ve been concentrating on cheddar-making now for a while, which although a lot of fun, takes quite a long time to produce results!

I decided it would be fun to make some quicker cheeses, which would ripen up in a couple of weeks rather than needing a year or so.

The make itself is also a lot simpler and less involved than a cheddar – a couple of hours work as opposed to 6-7 hours.

Excellent Ellie's Goat Milk

Barely filling the vat

Penicillium Candidum

I used Penicillium Candidum in preference to Penicillium Camemberti, as the Candidum seems to give a thinner, less leathery rind than the Camemberti.

Measuring out rennet

Added a few grains of DVI starter and Penicillium Candidum to the milk at 32C, stirred and left for 30 minutes.

DVI needs a higher temperature than normal starter, which begins working at around 21C.

At this point, measure out the rennet and dilute in 5-6 times volume clean, cold water.

2.5ml rennet might seem quite a large amount for this volume of milk, but this is required to coagulate the milk in a reasonable time (1h30).

I’ve only noticed after making cheddar repeatedly, that I need to double the amount of rennet recommended in recipes in order to achieve a good coagulation time.

I suspect this is either down to my rennet being poor quality, or the recipe’s referencing the different strengths of their time / experience.

Mixing in the diluted rennet

Add the diluted rennet to the milk, and stir for around 3-4 minutes.

Clean break

After 1h30 the curd is sufficiently coagulated to give a clean break.

Notice swirly lines on the right hand side – not sure what causes these, but I notice them sometimes, usually when making soft cheese.

I suspect they may be down to insufficient stirring at renneting, or the quantity of water in dilution being too high.

It could also be that the curd has coagulated enough to actually start breaking away from itself … if anyone has other ideas, please let me know!

Ladelled into moulds

Curd is ladelled out without cutting, and allowed to drain naturally with just the follower on top for pressure.

7 hours in

After around 7 hours of draining, the curd should have reduced in height by about 2/3.

Flip the curd, making sure the bottom doesn’t end up resting in the drained whey.

Draining curd

Flip again the next day, at which point the curd should be pretty well drained, and almost be able to survive on it’s own outside the mould without collapsing.

Ready for salting

After another 7-8 hours, remove the curd from the moulds and rub them with pure, fine salt.

For the 4 larger cheeses, I used 4g salt, whereas the smaller ones got 2g.

Curd surface

Dry off at 18C @ 70-80% humidity for a couple of days.

Wrapped up

Wrap the cheese in wax paper to prevent the mould from growing too thick and from spreading to other cheeses!

Store at 10-12C @ 85-95% humidity, turning daily for 10-14 days.

8 days young

Cut open

After 8 days I decided to check out one of the smaller ones:

• Outer appearance: consistent layer of thin, white mould without discolouration
• Colour & texture: uniform natural white; open texture, breaks easily in one clean line
• Consistency of body: soft; slightly chalky
• Flavour & aroma: very clean; no mushroom flavour or acidic bite; a little low on salt; very mild

9 days old

The next day, I tasted the same cheese, half of which had been sitting in my (actual) fridge, wrapped in wax paper.

What a transformation in just a day!  It may look pretty much the same, but the flavour and aroma had altered significantly from practically nothing to quite a fresh mushroom, reminiscent of a young Caerphilly!

10 days old

Creamy inside

Another day, another completely different cheese!  I opened one of the larger ones:

• Outer appearance: roughly 1mm layer of white mould
• Colour & texture: changes from slightly yellow at the edges, to white towards the centre; breaks cleanly
• Consistency of body: rind gives slight resistance; creamy and soft below the rind; chalky towards the centre
• Flavour & aroma: clean; subtle, warm flavour; no acidity or bite; no particular smell

 Can’t wait for tomorrow!

Check out my appearance on the Great British Food Revival last week on BBC2!

It was filmed a few months ago, so I was quite focussed on Goat-y Blue cheese.

I’m planning a raw Fresian-Holstein cheddar this Sunday, and will hopefully be posting updates then!

The fundamental purpose of a starter is to convert the lactose present in milk into lactic acid.

However, they are also responsible for degrading the components of milk which later result in much of the flavour complexity in finished cheese.

I found this cheese starter culture available from Goat Nutrition, which contains 4 separate strains of starter bacteria:

1. Lactococcus lactis subsp. lactis: generic strain, responsible for most of the lactose to lactic acid conversion
2. Lactococcus lactis subsp. cremoris: flavour production
3. Lactococcus lactis subsp. lactis biovar. diacetylactis: flavour production
4. Leuconostoc mesenteroides subsp. cremoris: flavour production

After reading the instructions, finding a suitable pan and glass jar, I’m ready to start the starter!

First, heat the milk – in this case raw organic pedigree Ayrshire, which will be used for Cheddar making tomorrow – to 90C for 10 minutes.

Heating the milk

90C for 10 minutes

Once sterilized, cool rapidly to 20C by placing in a sink full of cold running water.

Cooling rapidly

Add the contents of the freeze dried culture packet, and whisk vigorously.

Freeze dried starter

Whisking starter bacteria into milk

Quickly pour the milk into a sterilized glass jar.

Pouring into glass jar

Immediately cover with cling film to minimize airborne bacteria getting into the jar, and seal.

Covering with cling film

Sealing jar

Incubate the starter at 20-22C for 22-24 hours.

Incubated starter

After this time, the starter should smell clean and acidic, at around 0.85% lactic acid.

If you’re just making cheese at home, it’s unlikely that you’ll need an entire litre of starter for your cheese, so the remainder can be frozen in food portioners for future makes, and for propagating the starter later.

Propagation involves exactly the same steps as above, except in place of the freeze dried culture, a sample of the mother culture (i.e. a frozen portion of starter) is added.

I’ll be using this to make some cheddar tomorrow, and am very excited to see how it turns out!

It’s been very exciting to see the number of visitors today:

Quite an increase!

For anyone wondering what I’m up to at the moment, I’m in the planning stages of my first make of 2011, which is scheduled in for Feb 13th – an unpasteurised Jersey cheddar!

Until then, I will be thoroughly engrossed in reading Cheesemaking Practise, and making some initial attempts at a complete flow diagram for cheddar cheese making, which will contain the information i’ve gleaned from Dora Saker, Katie Thear, Kathy Biss and others.

This will hopefully end up as a step-by-step guide which will include everything I need during the make.

For now, I hope you enjoy my blog – leave a comment!

Temperature

• Optimum: anything from 8 – 15C depending on recipe
• Too low: will mature too slowly, or not at all
• Too high: will mature too quickly, and could turn rancid

Humidity

• Optimum: 85 – 95% depending on cheese
• Too low: will dry out and crack
• Too high: unwanted mould can take hold on surface

Air Circulation

• Optimum: gentle supply of fresh air to allow cheese to breathe
• Too low: ammonia given off by the cheese will damage both the fridge and flavour
• Too high: will dry out

Hygiene

• Must be easy to wipe down, and keep flies at bay
• Poor hygiene will cause flavour taints, unwanted mould or cheese fly infestation (check out Casu Marzu!)

Keeping each of these variables under control is vital for producing good, consistent cheese.

My first attempt involved placing the cheese on a rack over a tray of water, covered by a bowl, and placing in a cool area.

Within a couple of weeks, the cheese had dried out completely thanks to a combination of low humidity and temperature being too high.

I then purchased a couple of small 6 bottle wine coolers which kept a good temperature, but humidity was lacking (around 65% at 12C).

Cheeses matured relatively well, but it became obvious the fan required to keep the air inside cool was drying them out rapidly.

For a while I ran the fan at a lower voltage (i.e. slower), so less air would be forced around the cheese, which improved matters, but I was concerned it might cause the TEC (thermo-electric cooler – the component which “generates” the cold) to burn out.

I then moved on to a larger wine cooler, reasoning that a larger TEC and fan would require less aggressive air circulation.

This worked pretty well, allowing reasonable humidity (75%) at 12C.  Unfortunately then I started having concerns about cleanliness of the components, since there was no easy way to clean the fans.

My latest attempt, which seems to be working very well indeed is a standard household fridge, hooked up to a Digital Humidity & Temperature Controller (update: link has unfortunately stopped working, but the seller’s shop is here, or also available, unfortunately only in bulk, on their AliBaba shop).

Empty household fridge

Controller unit

Temperature is regulated by the controller toggling the fridge on and off based on the current temperature and last switch time, to avoid compressor burnout.

Humidity is added using a Pond Fogger based on the current humidity.  Ideally this would be placed at the top of the fridge, so the fog can drift down through the fridge, but immersing in the water-filled salad crisper is much easier.

Pond fogger

Humidity & temperature probes

Humidity is highest at the bottom of the fridge, so the probes are placed at the top of the fridge.

Cave ready to go

Fogger in action

The cave is completely self regulating thanks to the controller, which means all I need to worry about is air circulation & hygiene.

Circulation is a pretty tricky one to deal with, since the fridge is practically sealed.  The fogger provides some level of air movement, and I open the fridge at least once a day (usually to turn the cheeses) to refresh the air inside.

In terms of hygiene, I usually change the water and give the entire fridge a wash down with anti-bacterial spray once a week.

Overall i’m pretty happy with the setup at the moment!  The only small issue I have is that cross-contamination is quite difficult to avoid, so having blue and white cheese on the go at the same time is pretty much impossible, as you end up with everything going everywhere.

The simplest solution to this would obviously be to make another cave

• 30 pints Ellie’s Dairy raw Goat milk
• 6.9ml vegetarian rennet
• Pinch of penicillium roqueforti

I’ve been trying to get this cheese right for a while now (hence the lack of updates!), and think I almost have it cracked with this recipe.

Again i’m using Ellie’s Dairy raw Goat milk – it’s hard not to love this milk, it’s fantastic!  Sheer white, gives amazing curd, and tastes beautiful!

Luckily Franklins Farm Shop stocks it, so I can pick it up the morning after milking!

Ellie's Dairy raw Goat milk

Could fit another 2 pints in!

After decanting the milk out into the cheese vat, heat slowly to 32C.

Add the rehydrated penicillium roqueforti and stir gently.

Vegetarian rennet

Measure out the vegetarian rennet (courtesy of Moorlands at the Southbank Cheese & Wine Festival), and dilute in previously boiled & cooled water.

Adding the diluted rennet

Stir gently for a couple of minutes after adding the diluted rennet, then leave to set for about 45 minutes, or until a clean break is achieved.

Clean break

The way I identify a clean break is that the curd breaks easily over your finger, without leaving a residue.

In an attempt to scoop all the curd out at once, I used a stretched out metal coat hanger with cheesecloth wrapped around.

It worked quite well, although I have to find something stronger, and non-metallic, as i’m worried about scratching the vat!

Draining the curd

Leave the curd to drain slowly, moving round and flipping after an hour or so.

Drained curd

Once the curd has drained enough to be moved around easily, it’s time to cut & stack!

30 pints gives almost 3kg curd

69g salt

Need to have a quick weigh first though, to figure out how much salt to use later – around 23g per kilogram.

Stacking the curd

Allow the stacked curd to drain for 30 minutes, before moving the inside slices to the outside and leaving for another half hour.

Milled curd

Cut the curd into just under 1cm pieces, and add the salt ensuring it’s evenly distributed throughout the curd.

Hooped into moulds

Scoop the salted curd into moulds on a draining mat, and place a follower (without additional pressure) on top.

This keeps the curd top smooth as it knits together naturally over the course of the next 5 days (turned daily).

I will update this post next Saturday as rubbing up commences!

The answer is simple – Ricotta!  Although it’s not my favourite cheese, it’s still very easy to make and has a very fresh, delicate taste and texture.

The process is simple – firstly, leave the whey overnight at room temperature to allow it to acidify further, then heat to 80C.

Heating the whey

Ricotta

After a few minutes, delicate curd will begin to rise to the surface – simply scoop it out using a sieve and there you have it!

Draining the ricotta

Drained ricotta

The longer you keep the whey hot, the more curd will form, although it will get thinner and sparser as time goes on.

Too much ricotta!

Note that this recipe can be adapted to use regular milk (i.e. not whey), by simply squeezing a lemon into the milk during heating, which provides the necessary acidification.

I wouldn’t recommend this for large amounts of milk, as the acidification is likely to be too localised, and not work very well!

• 32 pints (~18 litres) raw goat’s milk
• 5.1ml vegetarian rennet

As part of the Underground Farmers Market on September 19th i’ll be offering grilled halloumi in pita with rocket, so thought i’d better get cracking on making it!

I’ve had fantastic results with Ellies Dairy unpasteurised goat milk previously, so ordered a large batch direct for delivery on Friday, for a make on Saturday afternoon.

Lots of milk

Unpasteurised tasty goat milk

After having used a couple of stock pots to make cheese in for about a year now, I decided to splash out and buy a KochStar WarmMaster from Ascott, which is intended for keeping soup or punch warm, but is also perfect for cheese making!

The unit itself is massive – 27 litres capacity – but to ensure the milk didn’t burn, I also purchased an insert which decreased the capacity to around 18 litres – still pretty big!

It makes such a huge difference during the make, allowing easy modification and maintenance of temperature.  My only small gripe would be that the outside gets very hot indeed, and when the water boils, it can start bubbling out around the insert.

Aside from this, it really is fantastic!  Can’t recommend it enough!

The new cheese vat

Filled to the brim with lovely white milk

After heating to 32C, I added 5.1ml vegetarian rennet diluted in previously boiled and cooled water.

No need for starter with halloumi – the unpasteurised milk has enough going on anyway!

Vegetarian rennet with new syringe

Clean break

A clean break was achieved after 40 minutes (pH 6.3), at which point it was time to crack out my other definitely-necessary purchase from Ascott – Plastic Curd Cutters!

These are a bit of a luxury, but save a fair amount of time when cutting the curd, and also keep the cauldron insert safe from knife-edge scratches.

Cutting the curd

Leaving the curd to heal

Once the curd has rested (healed) for 5 minutes, it’s time to start raising the temperature to scald.

Target temperature is 40C, over the course of around 20-25 minutes, stirring gently by hand to keep the curd suspended – unfortunately this is quite difficult to get a picture of!

Target temperature reached

Ladelling out the scalded curd

Curd in cheesecloth-lined mould

Curd after draining

After the curd has knitted together in a cheesecloth-lined mould for an hour or so, cut it into rectangular chunks around 10cm x 8cm.

Heat the whey to around 70C, and carefully add the chunks of curd.

Maintain the temperature, gently moving the curd around from time to time for around 90 minutes, or until the curd starts to float to the surface.

At this point, carefully remove the curd and place on a draining mat to dry & cool for around 20 minutes.

Drying and cooling curd

Cover in a thin layer of salt, turning the pieces to ensure good coverage, rubbing in if necessary.

Leave to cool completely, then it’s ready to eat!

Home-made halloumi has a lot more texture to shop-bought, especially when grilled – the insides are almost creamy, and it’s lovely raw too!

I’ve managed to resist tucking in too much, and placed the rest in the fridge immersed in a weak brine solution, which should keep it for a few months, although hopefully it’ll get eaten before then!