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Variant_Eris
Nov 2, 2014

Exhibition C: Colgate white smile

The Midniter posted:

This could literally not be easier.

Woah. I didn't know that Ricotta was that easy to make. Guess I'll try the recipe with Lemon Juice and put it on some Lasagna next time.

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dumptruckzzz
Sep 13, 2010
Well we got in a half-wheel of Cognac Bellavitano for the holidays, so far I've managed to sell .10 lbs so not a bad start. 79.99/lb, and I'm worried people are going to steal pieces

Also I went on a tour of cheese plants in Wisconsin back in September which was pretty fun, not too many pictures because we had to sign non-disclosure agreements for many places.

But here's a bunch of Roth Grand Cru (pretty sure) being aged



and the disgusting area where they spray annatto onto muenster

ColdPie
Jun 9, 2006

I took the day off work and our grocery store had the fancy, local milk in stock, so I made up a two-gallon batch of sage derby. It's pressing right now:



The yield turned out much higher than the last batch, probably because I used the proper rennet the first time. Just before pressing, this weighed about three pounds. The last batch was closer to two pounds. I actually had trouble fitting it into the mold. It was piling out a couple of inches and I had to jam it in and mash the press down on top to hold it in! I need a new mold. The drilled takeout-container is pretty rough and too small.

This is my third hard cheese batch, and I'm definitely getting the hang of it. Still fun and novel, though. This was my first batch that was cheddared. Unfortunately, I don't have any way to measure acidity. I just went in the middle of the recipe's suggestion of 1-2 hours and cheddared for 90 minutes, flipping every 20 or 25 minutes or so. Turned out a little on the wet side, I think, but seems to be pressing OK. We'll see when I turn it again in an hour.

RickVoid
Oct 21, 2010
About to make one of my favorite light meals; crumbled feta with manzanilla olives. I call it a Mediterranean Salad.

Wish I a nice crusty Italian loaf to go with it. Tastes so good.

Can't believe no-one has mentioned the joy that is Colby and Monterey Jack cheese. Thick sliced is very nice with salami on a buttered hard roll.

Pepperoni-wrapped Mozzarella whips are also amazing.

yes
Aug 26, 2004

dumptruckzzz posted:

Well we got in a half-wheel of Cognac Bellavitano for the holidays, so far I've managed to sell .10 lbs so not a bad start. 79.99/lb, and I'm worried people are going to steal pieces

Also I went on a tour of cheese plants in Wisconsin back in September which was pretty fun, not too many pictures because we had to sign non-disclosure agreements for many places.

But here's a bunch of Roth Grand Cru (pretty sure) being aged



and the disgusting area where they spray annatto onto muenster



Cool pictures! The cheese that is aging on the racks is actually Sole Gran Queso.

ColdPie
Jun 9, 2006

ColdPie posted:

I took the day off work and our grocery store had the fancy, local milk in stock, so I made up a two-gallon batch of sage derby.



Sage derby, aged four weeks. Turned out very sage-y. Almost takes like pine needles. Probably could've let this one age a little longer to develop more cheese flavor to balance the sage. Very good on crackers, in any case. Also used it on porchetta sandwiches last night, to great acclaim. Very creamy.

In the fridge now: gouda (aging three months, ready mid-March) and cheshire (aging 5 weeks, ready in early February).

ColdPie fucked around with this message at 18:18 on Dec 24, 2014

Rotten Cookies
Nov 11, 2008

gosh! i like both the islanders and the rangers!!! :^)

Man oh man. Cheese. For Christmas my girlfriend and I received a joint present of a cheesemaking kit and a large pot and curd spoon/ladle. We're going to start off easy trying out the simple mozzarella and maybe make ricotta out of the whey. (Honestly, if you have whey, why wouldn't you make ricotta with it?)

I honestly want to jump in and try to make a gouda and age it, but I should really just try the simple poo poo first and see how I gently caress it up.

ColdPie
Jun 9, 2006

Cool! What all's in the kit?

I've tried making ricotta from my whey several times and it's always failed. It would just get really hot but otherwise no coagulation. I wonder if there isn't enough milk solids left over, especially considering I do just two gallon batches. I've mostly been dumping the whey, though I did boil pasta with it once (no difference, really) and I've heard drinking it over ice is actually quite tasty...?

I got One-Hour Cheese by Claudia Lucero for Christmas. I'd recommend it to anyone interested in making fresh cheeses like chevre or mozzarella. You can find those recipes online, of course, but this book is consistent and very well illustrated. It has a great introduction chapter that describes the tools and basics, and contains a ton of recipes and ideas for what to do with the cheese you make.

Rotten Cookies
Nov 11, 2008

gosh! i like both the islanders and the rangers!!! :^)

Some rennet, citric acid, cheese salt, cheescloth, dairy thermometer, instructions.

We also got Home Cheese Making by Ricki Carroll. I'm just really excited. I've been going through the book like mad, looking through this thread and /r/cheesemaking

Rotten Cookies
Nov 11, 2008

gosh! i like both the islanders and the rangers!!! :^)

Cheese report!

As was said, we did not recover any ricotta from the whey.

We did make mozzarella though! It came out a bit tough. I suspect this is from overworking the curds when trying to form it into the ball shape. OR from letting the rennet set it for too long. We used a quarter tablet that wasn't quite dissolved fully, and we waited 15 minutes for the curd to have a somewhat clean break. Maybe the rennet wasn't distributed well? We cut the ball in half maybe an hour after it was shaped and cooled, and it looked marbled on the inside? Don't know what did that.



Anyway, it came out normal-tasting. Just tough. I'm just happy it came out as a cheese.

WD40
Nov 25, 2005

Woah, thanks to whoever suggested Epoisses. I managed to find some at a specialty shop, after trying without success to locate some at supermarkets.



Holy poo poo. It's really good. Someone described it as like Camembert falling in with the wrong crowd. I'd say it's like French-kissing the goddess Venus at a party after she's drank a bottle of brandy. It looks so bad for you, like it can kill you in many different ways. But it also knows that you want it in your mouth, you dirty slut. Go on, go buy some. You know you want to. Yeah. Just like that. Mmm.

Sorry. I really like this cheese. Oh god, look at it dripping everywhere. gently caress.

ColdPie
Jun 9, 2006

We cracked open the cheshire tonight.



Wow! This is definitely my favorite that I've made so far. It's dry, salty, crumbly, and creamy. It's got a good pungent kick to it that my other cheeses haven't had. I feel it's the first one that's had its own flavor instead of just tasting like "cheese," you know what I mean? The recipe has the curds sitting at a high temperature overnight before pressing. That lets the bacteria work full-bore on the curds for 8 hours, so that's probably where the flavor comes from. This is the first cheese that's so good, I want to make the same recipe again instead of trying something new.

Speaking of trying something new, next on my todo list is a soft, aged cheese. I'm doing camembert next. I just need to fashion another mold from some takeout container, since the recipe makes at least two wheels. I already have the mold spores and bacterias. It's a whole-weekend project, so maybe I'll try making a mold tomorrow night and kick it off this Saturday.


Jesus christ yes.

ColdPie
Jun 9, 2006

Dunno if anyone enjoys reading these posts, but I enjoy writing them so :dealwithit:

Yesterday I made camembert. This is a photo from this morning after roughly 18 hours of draining (ignore the goober on the right one, just a loose curd).



This is my first soft aged cheese. Two mold species and a bacteria culture went into it. I needed 1/64th tsp of one of the molds, which was fun to measure...

It was kinda nerve-wracking. The way it works is you place the very soft, wet curds into forms, but add no pressure to the curds like you do a hard cheese. Instead, you let the pressure of the curds themselves press the whey out through the holes in the forms. In the photo, the wheels are about an inch tall. When I first ladled the curds, they didn't even all fit into the 6" tall forms. I had to drain the sheet pan three times to keep it from overflowing. Lots of whey!

One catch was I'm using leftover takeout containers as forms. Flexible, low density plastic. So I ladled the curds in while holding the form in place, then took my hand off the form and bloop a bunch of curds came out from under the form. Oops. Awkwardly grabbed a heavy plate and some bean cans while holding the form down. Put them on top to hold it down while draining. They're dry enough now to hold their own shape, as you can see.

Today they get salted at room temp. Tomorrow morning they start drying, then the day after that they move to the aging fridge for three weeks. Then camembert!

ColdPie fucked around with this message at 15:38 on Feb 8, 2015

Suspect Bucket
Jan 15, 2012

SHRIMPDOR WAS A MAN
I mean, HE WAS A SHRIMP MAN
er, maybe also A DRAGON
or possibly
A MINOR LEAGUE BASEBALL TEAM
BUT HE WAS STILL
SHRIMPDOR

Variant_Eris posted:

Woah. I didn't know that Ricotta was that easy to make. Guess I'll try the recipe with Lemon Juice and put it on some Lasagna next time.

Paneer is super easy. And fun! I made goatneer. Goat milk hand squeezed by me!



Then I made eggplant lasagna with it. Delicious!

Feeding whey to the pigs is amazing. Gets them to scrape that last inch of slops up out of the feed bin. And at the last place I worked, the goats got a taste for it too, so they would get ice cold whey in the summer. One time we put a frozen block of it out, that kept them entertained for awhile. The current goats I work with don't have a taste for it though.

Suspect Bucket fucked around with this message at 19:17 on Feb 8, 2015

RattiRatto
Jun 26, 2014

:gary: :I'd like to borrow $200M
:whatfor:
:gary: :To make vidya game
Oh ricotta, my best friend on the table!
It's so delicious and no fat at all. Really nice to make kind of a cream for the desserts as well

Mokbek
Dec 19, 2014

Call Me The Shocker
I personally am a big fan of Roquefort and other blue cheeses. I like to place some cheese on a cracker along with some Prosciutto accompanied by some grapes and almonds.

My family also makes a cheese called Çökelek.

Rotten Cookies
Nov 11, 2008

gosh! i like both the islanders and the rangers!!! :^)

I'm doing my first attempt at a hard cheese, a gouda. I just put it in the brine. Things seem to be going okay. I was worried because my form was not even close to being able to handle all the curds I had. Eventually they all fit. This is what it ended up looking like.



I'm about to pick up a wine fridge off of Craigslist. While the cheese is brining I plan to give the fridge a thorough clean, let it cool, and adjust the temp. Then I shall chuck the cheese in there and go see the Misfits (or at least Doyle.) And see how that goes. That wine fridge is going to be seeing a lot of cheese and charcuterie.

Suspect Bucket
Jan 15, 2012

SHRIMPDOR WAS A MAN
I mean, HE WAS A SHRIMP MAN
er, maybe also A DRAGON
or possibly
A MINOR LEAGUE BASEBALL TEAM
BUT HE WAS STILL
SHRIMPDOR
Turns out milk containing any amount of colostrum retards curd formation! Good to know now. In other news, the 30 minute mozzarella turned into a confusing but still tasty farmer cheese of sorts.

Suspect Bucket fucked around with this message at 01:19 on Feb 18, 2015

ColdPie
Jun 9, 2006

My camembert had like 1/4 inch of pure white fuzz on it. I patted it down and it looks just like the store bought stuff!! I'm so excited. They're ultra thin, so I might cut into one a little earlier than the recipe calls for.

Croatoan
Jun 24, 2005

I am inevitable.
ROBBLE GROBBLE
My personal favorites are Kraft Singles, Velveeta, and shaky cheese.

Dr. Arbitrary
Mar 15, 2006

Bleak Gremlin
You guys were talking about how easy it is to make Ricotta earlier. I made some out of stuff I had lying around. 1 cup half&half milk, 1 tbsp lemon juice, 1/8 tsp salt. Microwave for 2:30, stir, strain through two paper towels in a colander.

My first cheese!

Thanks!

ColdPie
Jun 9, 2006

I cracked open one of the two Camembert wheels tonight. Aged just under three weeks.



It turned out looking gorgeous. Dense, fine white fuzz that packed down to a smooth surface. A nice gentle grid pattern from the racks they aged on.

The cheese is very runny. Basically no solid center, just runny the whole way through. I think that’s because the wheels are so thin at about 1.5 cm in height. The mold was able to break down the milk solids all the way through in no time. I suspected from the start that I’d run into this problem. The inside of the cheese is basically pure white, it didn’t develop a yellow or cream color.



The overriding flavor of the cheese is salt. I ate it on some bread, as shown, and it tasted mostly like salt on bread. But when I ate the cheese plain, the flavor really did come through. Still salty, but it had a bit of the creamy mushroom you expect from Camembert. A good, clean flavor, but very mild. The rind attached firmly to the innards and is moderately toothy.

I’m going to let my other wheel age at least another week, maybe two or three, before breaking into it. It’ll probably be super runny, but maybe it will develop some more flavor with the longer aging.

Lessons learned? With forms this size, maybe just do one wheel of Camembert from a one-gallon batch instead of two. I think this will give me the correct height, though the wheel will be pretty huge. Maybe tone down the salt, although I wonder if the extra saltiness comes from the small wheel size, too. I used the full amount of salt recommended by the recipe I used, and the small wheels may have thrown the ratio off.

Not a failure, but not as good as I was hoping. I’m interested to see what another couple weeks does for the flavor.

Mister Facetious
Apr 21, 2007

I think I died and woke up in L.A.,
I don't know how I wound up in this place...

:canada:
"I don't care how loving runny it is, hand it over with all possible speed!"
- John Cleese, "Cheese Shop"

Just give me that round and a baguette... :allears:

graybook
Oct 10, 2011

pinya~
I had some absolutely delicious Robiola due Latte one time and it was runny as all get-out. Sometimes that kind of runniness really just hits the spot.

Shut Up Spanish
Nov 6, 2010
loving hell - I want to eat that Camembert! Bet the next one will be even better after ageing!

THE MACHO MAN
Nov 15, 2007

...Carey...

draw me like one of your French Canadian girls

WD40 posted:

Woah, thanks to whoever suggested Epoisses. I managed to find some at a specialty shop, after trying without success to locate some at supermarkets.



Holy poo poo. It's really good. Someone described it as like Camembert falling in with the wrong crowd. I'd say it's like French-kissing the goddess Venus at a party after she's drank a bottle of brandy. It looks so bad for you, like it can kill you in many different ways. But it also knows that you want it in your mouth, you dirty slut. Go on, go buy some. You know you want to. Yeah. Just like that. Mmm.

Sorry. I really like this cheese. Oh god, look at it dripping everywhere. gently caress.

Good lord. What did you eat it with??

Dr. Pangloss
Apr 5, 2014
Ask me about metaphysico-theologo-cosmolo-nigology. I'm here to help!

THE MACHO MAN posted:

Good lord. What did you eat it with??

I desperately want to eat that with my mouth.

NLJP
Aug 26, 2004


THE MACHO MAN posted:

Good lord. What did you eat it with??

When I get some I just eat it straight with a spoon or schmeered pretty thick on some good nutty bread.

Waterslide Industry Lobbyist
Jun 18, 2003

ANYONE WANT SOME BARBECUE?

Lipstick Apathy

ColdPie posted:

cheesemaking

What do you use for your "cave?" I've been making a lot of mozzarella recently and want to start getting into aged cheeses but live in the mountains. It is cold and dry here now, and in a few months it will be hot and dry. Would a cheapo mini-fridge with a good hygrometer and thermometer work out alright?

Rotten Cookies
Nov 11, 2008

gosh! i like both the islanders and the rangers!!! :^)

Waterslide Industry Lobbyist posted:

What do you use for your "cave?" I've been making a lot of mozzarella recently and want to start getting into aged cheeses but live in the mountains. It is cold and dry here now, and in a few months it will be hot and dry. Would a cheapo mini-fridge with a good hygrometer and thermometer work out alright?

It's working for me (Humidity is high in that picture, I know.) I got a wine fridge off of craigslist very cheap, gave it a big, thorough scrub, and adjusted the temp controls until it was about 52F. I have a bit of water in a jar with paper towel sticking out to wick it into the air. It works too well, as you see the humidity is almost 90% in that picture. I've since adjusted it and it's sitting at about 78%

Don't make fun of my job of trussing up the bresaola. :smith:



In other news, let's see how long I can wait before I crack this badboy open.

ColdPie
Jun 9, 2006

Yup, I do exactly the same. Got an unused wine fridge from my girlfriend's parents, with some flat wire racks (instead of wine bottle shaped). I use a tupperware with a wet sponge in it for humidity. I have a Thermoworks thermometer/hygrometer and it stays between 75 and 85%RH. Open the door as infrequently as possible to help keep temps and humidity stable. For cheeses that need 90+%RH I stick a wet paper towel in a large tupperware with a loose lid and put that whole ensemble in the fridge.

Rotten Cookies posted:

In other news, let's see how long I can wait before I crack this badboy open.



I've got a gouda at about 3.5 months, ready to open. But I still haven't finished the Cheshire so I'm waiting.

Planning to do another batch of camembert next. It's one of my favorite cheeses, so I want to get this recipe right.

Dr. Pangloss
Apr 5, 2014
Ask me about metaphysico-theologo-cosmolo-nigology. I'm here to help!
2015 has been a killer for me at work and my major project finishes up this week. Thinking about taking a stab at a cheese other than Ricotta this weekend, but then I remember I won't be able to eat it this weekend. Might just go out and buy some, because this thread makes me so hungry and I have a bottle of wine I need to drink (not because it's going to go bad or anything, just because I need to drink one).

PiratePing
Jan 3, 2007

queck
I bought a Herve today and holy gently caress is it good with some red grapes. I bought the mild variety but it's already pretty pungent (washed rind, aged for 4 weeks). Looking forward to trying the extra ripened and beer-washed varieties.

This thread made me realize I should take more advantage of the fact that I'm living in Belgium. Six months I've been here without realizing that for the price of a beer (or two if I'm feeling especially fancy, I'm looking at you Epoisses) I can have a phenomenal cheese to pair with my beer. As a student I just assumed they were out of my league :shobon:

ColdPie
Jun 9, 2006

Made a second batch of Camembert yesterday. This time I did one wheel from one gallon, instead of two wheels like last time, so it turned out much taller.



I thought it might be interesting to post an in-progress picture.



On the far left is the sanitation pot. I keep an inch or two of steaming water in there with my utensils. In the middle is the curd pot where the milk is warmed, inoculated, curdled, cut, and is here being ladled into the form on the right. This cheese drains so slowly that it took about 7 hours to fit it all into the form. This was towards the end of the day, just before I flipped the cheese and ladled more curds into it. On the far right you can see the cutting board I'll be flipping onto. Just put the draining mat on top of the form, the cutting board on top of that, and quickly flip. You can see the left sheetpan is filling up with whey. I half-filled about four sheetpans before I went to bed to let it drain overnight. This morning, after another flip, it looked as you see in the first picture. Now it's being salted, then it will be firm enough to lay out to dry for a couple days before moving to the aging fridge.

THE MACHO MAN
Nov 15, 2007

...Carey...

draw me like one of your French Canadian girls
so I bought a block of manchego. Never had before and saw it was on sale. I saw some cool ideas here for it, but any personal recommendations for how to eat it?

http://www.seriouseats.com/talk/2010/07/what-would-you-do-with-manchego.html

Shbobdb
Dec 16, 2010

by Reene
With a nice rioja wine, some membrillo and some good bread.

ColdPie
Jun 9, 2006




It's so good.

yes
Aug 26, 2004

ColdPie posted:



It's so good.

Looks great! Intense cream line...what's your "cave" setup like?

ColdPie
Jun 9, 2006

yes posted:

Looks great! Intense cream line...what's your "cave" setup like?

I posted about it further up the page.

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yes
Aug 26, 2004

ColdPie posted:

I posted about it further up the page.

Oh, I see it. I think I'm going to try this. We keep our bloomy cave around 47F and 92-98% humidity. Did you work somewhere within that? I'm worried about properly regulating the moisture when I scale this down into a wine fridge.

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