We are getting to the pointy end of the year of cheese making.  This is the 9th Cheesepalooza challenge and we have made it to the final, advanced chapter of the book.  This months challenge was mould ripened cheese, the common or well known varieties being Brie and Camembert.

I have had some great success making a Camembert style cheese.  Although the first attempts weren’t perfect, they were more than worthy of eating. Then I tried to make some more last month and it failed miserably.  I followed exactly the same recipe that I’ve successfully used before.  It was a last minute make for a dinner party. I had just enough time to ripen the cheese, but not enough time to try it before serving it to my guests.  I broke my golden rule of cheese making: always try the cheese before sharing it with friends.  We cut into the slightly gooey Camembert, my friend took the first bite, and spat it straight back out again.  Somehow it had gone rancid.

Disheartened by last months disaster, I thought I would try something completely different for this challenge.  After perusing the recipes I settled on the Bloomy Robiola. This cheese has a completely different process to any other I’ve made and the part goat’s milk part cow’s milk appealed to me.

This cheese has very little rennet compared to others, this means it takes much longer to form the curd.  The recipe calls for the milk to be kept above room temperature for up to 18 hours, which meant a little clever thinking.  I picked up a great tip from The Cheese Making Workshop.  During their workshop we used a plastic tub paddling in a styrofoam box of warm water.

This method works a treat.  I managed to maintain the correct temperature for 18 hours.  It was difficult to time the making of this cheese so that the curd was ready to be cut at a sociable time of day.  The recipe did say the curd might be ready after 12 hours, but I was asleep at that point so had to let it go for 18 hours.  If I make this again I would ensure I time the making so that I can check it from 12 hours. I think my curd was a little too firm.

I cut the curds into large chunks to make it easier to scoop into the Camembert moulds. The curds then drain, and are flipped, to form a large mass under their own weight.  This was another part of the process that didn’t quite feel right to me.  As the curd was quite firm, it didn’t settle into the moulds as it does when making Camembert.  The curds did however taste delicious.

This is the cheese after it had drained and been flipped.  As you can see it was rather lumpy and had not shrunk as much as I expected it to, or as the book described.  Again I think it was due to the firm curds.

Into the fridge it went, ready to grow it’s layer of mould.  And it did.  I love watching the mould develop; each day as the cheese is flipped there is a little more skin preserving the stinky insides.

Then judgement day arrives. After ten days of ripening it was time to crack open the unknown cheese that is Robiola.  I’ve never tried this cheese so I have nothing to compare it to.  I could guess what it was meant to taste like from the description in the book and sadly I don’t think I achieved it.  It looked great, and the curd tasted fantastic when it was fresh, but yet again this cheese was on the verge of rancid.  I could tell it has potential. It had the acidic hint of a goats cheese; with the earthy tones of a stinky mould ripened cheese; followed by an after taste that left me running to the bathroom.  It also had an interesting, firm but chalky texture.

I think this is another cheese I will have to bin.  I’m not deterred though, as I can see great potential with this one.  I have two things to try to improve on next time.  I will be a little more vigilant with the cutting of the curd and I think I will buy some new starter culture.  I’m wondering if my culture is past it’s best as the common link between the rancid Camembert and the dodgy Robiola is the same batch of starter culture.  Watch this space for the new, improved Robiola.

The idea behind the smoker is you make smoke; cool it down; pass it over food.  The claims of the A Maze N Pellet smoker is that it produces very little heat so can be used on the grill for smoking.  We tried it in a dustbin. Admittedly, it was a fairly hot day, but the temperature in the bin still rose to 40 degrees Celsius. Those sort of temperatures were fine for the ricotta I was smoking but would not be good for salmon.  Here are the photos from the smoking adventure part 1.

The home smoker part 2 involved 2 dustbins and a drain pipe.  The smoke generator is placed in the first dustbin.  The first dustbin is then attached to the second dustbin with a short length of drain pipe.  The second dustbin contains the the cooling rack that the food is placed on.  The bin with the smoke generator also needs a couple of holes at the bottom to allow the air to circulate.  With the bin lid on this creates a nice little smoke haven.  The pellets that you buy to go in the smoke generator burn for a surprisingly long time, so long as the external air temperature is not too high, you should be able to cold smoke quite effectively.

So far I have smoked ricotta and cheddar.  I am waiting for a cool enough evening to try the salmon.  The ideal temperature for cold smoking salmon is 12C so I really need to wait for Autumn.  I probably could get away with temperatures up to about 20C but anything much higher and you are getting into the realms of hot smoking.

In order to smoke the ricotta, I made some whey ricotta, following this recipe but with an increased amount of milk.  The ricotta has to be firm to smoke, but I like the creamy flavour of whey ricotta, so I followed my recipe but with equal amounts of whey to milk.  I also increased the vinegar to 50ml to compensate for the increase in liquid.

In order to make the cheese firm enough for smoking I drained it in a ricotta basket, flipping after a couple of hours, then lightly pressing for a couple of hours.

Once pressed the ricotta needs to be air dried.  This is the most important aspect of hot or cold smoking.  The smoke needs a dry surface, or pellicle, to stick to.  This usually takes about 24 hours, basically the cheese needs to be dry to the touch.

The ricotta was smoked, using oak pellets, for 4 hours.  That provided a distinctly smoked, but not too dry cheese.  A pleasant surprise as I was expecting it to have the texture of a baked ricotta, but it was definitely still an uncooked cheese.

I enjoyed it so much I have also smoked a piece of cheddar.  Unfortunately, cheddar takes a few months to age, so you’ll have to wait a while to see how that turned out.

Well I still have a lot to learn and I have had a couple of minor disasters along the way, but overall I am very satisfied with my cheese making efforts for the year.  The biggest achievement is to be able to serve a platter of home made cheeses to friends without the fear that I’m going to poison them.

I am five months into the Cheesepalooza challenge and this month we step up a gear to make what I would consider a ‘real’ cheese.  A simple cheddar style cheese with the optional addition of dried herbs.  Now we are getting onto the serious stuff, where patience is required.  There is not enough time in a month to make and age this cheese sufficiently (especially if you do it on 27th December) so I now have to sit and wait for a couple of months while it does it’s thing in the cheese cave.  I have enjoyed the other cheddar I have made so I have high hopes for this one.

The process is slightly more precise and lengthy now the cheeses are getting more cheesey.  The curd for this cheese has to be stirred gently at a specific temperature for quite some time.  Good music should be part of the recipe for this one as you cannot leave the pan for a good 20 minutes as you stir.

Although this cheese is called a cheddar, it does not actually involve the cheddaring process, which involves pressing, stacking and re-cutting of the curds so it will be interesting to see what effect this has on the flavour.

The stirring and heating of the curds helps them to firm up, giving that harder texture that cheddar has.  The curds are then drained when they have shrunk sufficiently.  At this stage you can add your optional herbs.  I added chives so I could compare the flavour to non-herbed cheddar I have made.

Pressing is also the key to the texture of this cheese.  If it is not pressed sufficiently you will end up with unwanted holes in your cheese.  They are unwanted as this is where the bacteria can grow and sour the cheese.

Once pressed the cheese is brined in order to help flavour develop and rind formation.  It is then air dried, again to help rind formation but also to provide a dry surface for the wax to stick to.  At this stage waxing is optional but I have tried aging in vacuum sealed bags, but I much prefer the result with wax.

With previous cheese I have portioned the cheese before waxing but this time I have waxed all 950g of the cheese to see what effect this has on the aging process.  I will then cut and wax again when it comes to eating. Even I can’t manage to eat that much cheese in the short time frame it takes to go mouldy.  Don’t forget my cheese does not have any preservatives.

Waxing such a large cheese can be a little problematic so I had to build up the layers gradually.  I don’t have a big enough pan to dedicate to cheese waxing to get a good dunk.

With a successful year of cheese making I look forward to all of the the different challenges that 2013 has in store, including cold smoking my cheese with this year’s Christmas present! Thank you for reading and Happy New Year to all you lovely readers of Nic Cooks.

P.S. check my Facebook Page and Twitter account in about 2 months to find out how this cheese tastes.

I also feel I’ve gained enough skills to start experimenting and developing my own cheeses. I can’t exactly claim this one as mine, as it is that classic cheese of Wallace and Grommet fame. But I did read a few recipes and tailor it to suit.  For Christmas I’ve added some cranberries to make it into a great cheese for dessert.  This cheese is tart and crumbly, but with a little bit of sour/sweet from the cranberries.  It also looks pretty on the cheeseboard for Christmas.

As with my other homemade cheeses I cannot really call this a Wensleydale as it was not made in Yorkshire and I’m not sure it would pass the test with Wallace and Grommet but I hope the resulting cheese is somewhere close.  I enjoyed it and it is another cheese to add to my collections of favourites… It’s getting harder and harder to narrow it down to just one.

The Wensleydale should be matured for 1-2 months prior to eating.  The Wensleydale with cranberries is best eaten sooner rather than later as the cranberries can start to ferment if left too long.  One month in and the cheese with cranberries was perfect.

This recipe is adapted from recipes from Paul Peacock and Ricki Carol.

Wensleydale with Cranberries
8 litres unhomogenised milk
1/2 teaspoon MM100 starter culture prepared in 200ml UHT milk
2ml Calcium Chloride diluted in 60ml cooled, boiled water
2ml Rennet diluted in 60ml cooled, boiled water
2 tsp salt
50-100g dried cranberries

Prepare your starter culture the day before or use as per the instructions on the packet.

Gather all your equipment together and make sure they are all clean and sterilised.

Gently heat the milk in a large non-reactive pan until it reaches 32 degrees Celsius. Add the prepared starter culture stirring until well combined. Maintain the temperature at 32C and allow the milk to ripen for 60-90 minutes.

Add the calcium chloride if you are are using and stir until well combined.  Add the rennet, and stir with an up and down motion until well combined, this should take about 1 minute.

Maintain the temperature at 32C and allow the curds to set for 1 hour. After 1 hour test the curds for a clean break.  If you have a clean break cut the curds into 2cm cubes and allow to rest for 15 minutes.  If there is not a clean break, allow to stand for another 15 minutes and test again.

Gently stir the curds for 15 minutes while raising the temperature to 35C

Allow the curds to rest for 15 minutes, maintaining the temperature at 35C

Remove enough whey to expose the curds then drain the curds in a colander lined with damp butter muslin. Allow to drain for 15-20 minutes, or until the whey stops dripping.  Cut the curds again into 2cm cubes, then sprinkle with the salt.  At this point you can either transfer to the mould and press or add some dried fruit, such as cranberries.  I thought I’d do half and half so I put half of the curds in a mould lined with damp butter muslin.

I mixed the other half of the curds with 50g dried cranberries.  I then transferred the curds to the mould lined with butter muslin.  Press the curds over night with 5kg of weight, turning after an hour or so.

Sprinkle with 1tsp salt and air dry for 12-24 hours turning once before waxing.  The cheese needs to be dry before you can apply the wax. Heat the wax and dip the cheese into it, ensuring all edges are covered with at least two layers.

Age in a cheese fridge set at 12-15C for 4-6 weeks.

The idea behind Cheesepalooza is to teach yourself to make cheese at home, with an online community of home cheese makers and the awesome book Artisan Cheese Making at Home by Mary Karlin.  The book is thoughtfully arranged in chapters that allow you to build on your skills gradually, starting with the quick and easy fresh cheeses.

The first suggestion is to make whole milk ricotta.  I have made ricotta before, using my own recipe adapted from a few variations I found online, but the point of this challenge is to do it the Karlin way.  In order to enjoy the cheese I did have to adapt the recipe slightly.  Even with the light milk, cheese has a fairly high amount of fat, so as well as reducing the fat it’s about eating in moderation.  I also left out the cream, which I think is what gave my cheese a drier, crumblier texture that most ricotta.

I have to confess I am not a huge fan of whole milk ricotta, I much prefer the more traditional whey ricotta.  Whey ricotta is much creamier and I actually find it more flavoursome.  The whey ricotta will come at a later date, as you need to make another type of cheese first in order to get your whey.

The low fat ricotta was made from the best quality low fat, unhomogenised milk I can lay my hands on.  This is the Over the Moon milk that I buy at the local farmers market.  The good quality milk meant the finished product had more flavour than I expected but the texture of the ricotta was quite dry and crumbly, even though I only left it to drain for a short period of time.  On the few occasions that I have made whole milk ricotta before, I have always packed it into a mould and left it to stick together into a firm piece of cheese that I can bake in the oven.  The low fat variety would not compact together so I don’t think it would work as a baked cheese.  It was nice to crumble over dishes as an alternative to other cheeses and was certainly better than going without any cheese.  I served the finished product on toast with some grilled tomatoes and with sweetcorn fritters.

Here is my recipe for low fat ricotta, adapted from Mary Karlin’s recipe

Low Fat Ricotta
1 litre of low fat, unhomogenised milk
1/2 teaspoon citric acid
non-iodised salt to taste

Ensure all of your equipment in clean and sterilised. Put the milk in a non-reactive saucepan large enough to hold the milk comfortably. Add the citric acid to the milk and stir well to combine.  Heat the milk gently until it reaches 90C when it gets to about 85C you will see the milk start to curdle.

When it gets to 90C remove the pan from the heat, stir gently, then put the lid on and leave to stand for fifteen minutes.

Line a colander with damp butter muslin and place over a bowl.  Gently scoop the curd from the whey and allow to drain in the butter muslin.  The longer you leave the curds to drain, the dryer the end product will be. I left mine for about five minutes, until it had visibly stopped dripping. Once drained to your liking, add a pinch of salt to taste and store in an air tight container in the fridge until ready to use.

Tasting Notes:

• Appearance: Looked like dry cottage cheese (creamy white crumbly clumps).
• Nose (aroma): No smell
• Overall Taste: Milky, with a mild taste, used more for texture than taste.
• Sweet to Salty: Mildly sweet, with a faint hint of salt.
• Strength: Very mild
• Mouth Feel: Dry and crumbly

I was in heaven. We spent the whole day, up to our eyeballs in milk, stirring, cutting, and pressing 6 different cheeses, including Cheddar, Havarti, Romano, creamy blue vein, Haloumi and whey ricotta.  Of course there were also plenty of opportunities to sample the cheesey delights as we went along.

And the best bit? We got to take away some of the cheeses we made to nurture at home.  The Havarti was a rip roaring success, I will definitely be making that one again.

I have yet to crack open the Cheddar, I am patiently waiting for it mature in it’s wax coating. I like a good strong Cheddar, so the longer I leave it the better.  I’m keeping my finger crossed for that one.

The blue was not such a success. I lovingly nurtured it for weeks, but something was not quite right. One day it looked delicious, the next it a had a smell that made me not want to touch it.  I did try and battle through out of principle, I cut off the rind and dug into the centre to see if it was any better inside. I love strong cheeses but when a smell turns my stomach you know it has to go.  I will persist though, and now that I have signed up for Cheesepalooza I will spend the next twelve month working up to a blue cheese, one step at a time.

If you are interested in learning how to make cheese I would definitely recommend the Cheese Making Workshop.  The class is very practical and hands on and Sue is very knowledgeable about all things cheese related.  She is happy to help you out if you get stuck when you are cheese making at home too. So keen to share the cheese love, Sue has kindly given me this easy recipe for Quark (cream cheese) to share with my readers.  This is one of the few homemade cheeses that actually works out cheaper to make than buy, as you can happily make it from UHT milk.  Sue uses it in both sweet and savoury dishes as you would use that popular block of cream cheese you can buy in the supermarkets.

Ideally, you do need a yoghurt maker to maintain the temperature of the milk, but during a Sydney summer I’m sure you could make it in a jar at room temperature, or improvise with warm water and an esky.  Where there’s a will, there’s a way!

Quark (makes about 350g)

1 litre UHT
1/10th teaspoon of freeze dried MH starter (not currently listed on website)

Mix 1 litre of UHT (or heat milk to 90C then cool to 40C) with 1/10^thtsp of freeze dried MH starter.  Pour into the glass jars then incubate in yoghurt maker for 10 hours.

Refrigerate for approximately 3 hours.  Turn into a cheesecloth lined colander or sieve.  Tie the cheesecloth over a wooden spoon and hang over a container to drain for 24 –48 hours in the fridge. The quark becomes firmer the longer it is left to hang.

Turn into a garlic log rolled in herbs, coffee log rolled in chocolate flakes, fruit log rolled in toasted flaked almonds or use anywhere you would use cream cheese. It makes great dips and cheesecake, or like me, serve it with smoked salmon on English Muffins for a special Sunday treat.

Nic Cooks paid to attend the cheese making workshop.

Last year I learnt to make meat with the support of an amazing online community. Who knew it was possible to teach yourself a new skill without leaving your sofa?  We read each others blog posts and did trouble shooting via Twitter and low and behold there were few disasters.

When I discovered a group of bloggers who were keen to repeat this adventure but with cheese I was in, no questions asked.  I have been trying to teach myself to make cheese and it’s not going too badly, but to go on a journey with a bunch of other bloggers will mean I’m even more successful. In 12 months time I will hopefully have a cheese in the cave that I have invented and executed to perfection.  Introducing Cheesepalooza.  A year long cheese making project hosted by A Canadian Foodie, Much to do About Cheese, Deb the Locavore and Big Addie.

So how does it work?  On the first of each month the cheese challenge will be announced then you make it and blog about it on the first of the following month.  Starting with the soft, fresh cheeses, we will work up to mold ripened and blue with a finale of our own invention.  It doesn’t matter if you don’t have a blog you can still join in, or more information click here.

Anyway, enough about Cheesepaloza, just to prove how easy cheese making can be here is my recipe for Labne. And what are you waiting for? Sign up and get cheese making!

Labne
1kg plain, natural yoghurt
1 tsp salt

Stir the salt into the yoghurt.  Line a colander or large sieve with butter muslin and place over a bowl. Put the yoghurt in the butter muslin and leave in the fridge to drain for 12-24 hours.  The longer you leave it the thicker it will become.  Once ready transfer to an airtight container or form into balls and cover with olive oil.

I like to serve the Labne with olive oil, pistachios and tarragon, it is also used in Middle Eastern cooking.

This cheese was also another opportunity to use my cheese press, and the first cheese that I would consider required ‘proper’ aging.  As mentioned in my initial round up of my cheese making adventures, some cheeses require months of TLC before they can be sampled. Whether that is washing, turning or simply just sitting and maturing, some cheeses can be otherwise engaged for the best part of a year before they are ready to taste. The last thing I want is to be tending to something for that long only to find it is then inedible so I thought I’d start with the Lancashire style cheese that has a relatively short aging time.  The recommended aging time varies according to which recipe you look at, with some suggesting that Lancashire can be eaten immediately.  I tried that. I was disappointed; so I was determined to leave this one for a minimum of one month.

This is another cheese that was good enough to make it to the cheeseboard, but even after aging, the cheese was a little subtle for my cheese palate. It was, however favoured by some of my chief tasters who are not so keen on the stronger flavoured cheeses.  If I had the patience it would probably benefit from an even longer aging time… maybe next time…

As I don’t live in Lancashire, I can’t really call this a Lancashire cheese, so true to my promise to name my cheeses, here is the recipe for my Winstonshire Cheese, adapted from a recipe by Paul Peacock.

Winstonshire Cheese (makes about 650g)

4 litres unhomogenised full cream milk
100g natural yoghurt
100ml cultured buttermilk
1 ml calcium chloride dissolved in 30ml boiled, cooled water
1 ml rennet dissolved in 30ml boiled, cooled water
3/4 teaspoon cheese salt

Add the butter milk and yoghurt to the milk and stir with an up and down motion for 1 minute to ensure they are thoroughly combined. Heat milk yoghurt and buttermilk to 30 degrees Celsius gently over 20 minutes. Add the calcium chloride solution and stir well to combine for 1 minute.  Add the rennet solution and stir well to combine for 1 minute, all while maintaining the temperature of the milk at 30 degrees.  Cover and leave to set for 45 minutes to 1 hour, maintaining the temperature at 30 degrees.  Check for a clean break after 45 minutes. My curds weren’t quite firm enough so I left them for another 15 minutes. Cut the curd as described here into 1cm cubes.  Stir gently for 15 minutes then allow to sit for 30 minutes, all the time maintaining the temperature at 30 degrees.

After 30 minutes, the curds should have sunk to the bottom of the pot. Ladle off the whey until you can see the curds sticking out of the top of the whey.  Reserve the whey to make ricotta if desired.

Set a colander over a bowl and line the bowl with the butter muslin. Ladle the curds into the muslin and allow the fast flow of the whey to drip into the bowl (about 5 minutes) then salt the curd, gently stirring the curds with your hands to evenly distribute the salt.

Transfer the muslin with the curds into the cheese mould and cover the top of the curds with the tails of the muslin.  I find I often have a lot of extra muslin, so I have started to only put one edge over the curd, otherwise, if I bunch it all in I end up with a dent in my cheese.  Put the pressing plate on top of the muslin, then set up the press as described in the instructions.  I have a press from the County Brewer.  With their model, each turn of the nut is 1.5kg of pressure. For this recipe I require 10kg of pressure for 48 hours so I set up the press and gave it six and a half turns.

Set up the press on the draining board of a sink so that the whey can drain away.  Leave at room temperature for 48 hours to press.  I find the pressure in the press slackens off as the whey is expelled from the cheese, so every few hours I reset the press to it’s original pressure, in this case 10kg.  I also turn the cheese half way through pressing for even distribution of whey.  Well actually I like to check how it’s going so in reality I probably turned the cheese twice a day, for 48 hours.

Once pressed the cheese is ready to age.  I was not clear on the best way to age the cheese, as I have many recipes that are all slightly different, so I decided to go for the easiest option for me, which was to vacuum pack and age in my cheese cave (AKA the old fridge) which I keep at 12 degrees Celsius.  The fridge should also be at a high humidity (80% +), however I can’t get mine that high, so I have to take what I can get which is usually somewhere between 60-70%

The cheese was wrapped and placed in the fridge for 1 month and flipped daily.  After a couple of weeks I removed the cheese from the vacuum pack and drained the whey which had been extracted from the cheese under suction.

The cheese was edible after one month, but still quite subtle in flavour.  Despite the fact that the end product looks very similar to the Queso Fresco, it is in fact an entirely different cheese with a firmer, crumblier texture and although subtle, it does have a distinct, sharper flavour.

Enjoy a slice on your favourite cheese biscuit with a little bit of fig or quince paste.

Goat’s Milk Feta (Makes about 600g)

1/4 teaspoon MA11 Mesophillic starter culture, made up in 100ml boiled, cooled milk
4 litres Goat’s milk
1/4 teaspoon of lipase powder dissolved in 60ml cooled boiled water
1/4 teaspoon liquid calcium chloride dissolved in 60ml cooled, boiled water
1 ml rennet diluted in 30ml cooled boiled water
non-iodised salt to taste

The day before make up your starter culture. Bring the milk to the boil allow to cool completely.  Stir in the starter culture, cover with cling film then allow to ripen at room temperature for 12-24 hours.  Refrigerate until needed once set to a yoghurt consistency.

Prepare all equipment for cheese making by sterlising and creating a clean sterile work area.  This is really important to prevent cross contamination with undesirable bacteria.

Gradually heat the milk to 30 degrees Celsius.  Add the calcium chloride solution, then the lipase solution, then the starter culture and mix thoroughly for 1 minute.  Cover and maintain the temperature at 30C for to allow the milk to ripen for 1 hour.

After 1 hour, ensure the temperature is still at 30C then add the rennet solution.  Stir with an up and down motion for 1 minute to ensure the rennet is thoroughly combined.  Cover and continue to maintain the temperature for 1 hour to allow the curds to set.

After an hour check for a clean break. If the curds are not firm enough they will dissolve in the brine and the texture of the finished cheese will be too soft. If the curds are not firm enough allow to set for another 15 minutes then check again, or if firm, cut into 1cm cubes.  Allow the curds to stand for 10 minutes, then gently stir and cut any large pieces that come up from the bottom of the pan.  Leave to stand for another 10 minutes.

Set up some butter muslin in a colander and set over a bowl.  Ladle the whey from the top of the curds to expose the cut curd, then carefully ladle the curds into the butter muslin and allow to drain.  Once the fast flow of whey has stopped, transfer the curds in the butter muslin to a square feta mould and continue to drain for an hour.  After an hour carefully remove the feta from the muslin, turn over, re-cover with muslin and place back in the mould and continue to drain.

I allow the feta to drain in the mould overnight, flipping every couple of hours initially to ensure even draining. The following day you can do one of two things with the feta.  IF you are confident in the quality of your curd and like a really salty feta you can cut the feta in half and soak the pieces in brine for anything from 1-5 days. Make a brine solution with non-iodised salt and boiled cooled water. I have not had any success with this method, instead I prefer to cut the feta into two blocks and sprinkle with salt on all sides.  I then place the cheese in a non-reactive dish and cover the dish in cling film. Refrigerate for 5 days, turning daily, then it is ready to eat.

Great served as part of a cheese board, or in salads and pasta.

I have to say, I didn’t set out to make this cheese for the finished product; it was more that I wanted to take my cheese making skills to the next level in my self guided learning.  This cheese involves cutting the curd – an important stage in the cheese making process that can make or break the final product.  If the curd is not set enough and does not provide a clean break, the end product will not be solid enough, and disintegrate (sadly I learnt that lesson first hand).

The other reason to make this cheese was for the pressing. This was the first cheese that required the use of my cheese press, thus making me feel like I was making a ‘real’ cheese.

Finally, this is also a good cheese to practice all of these skills with a relatively quick turn around.  The word ‘fresh’ in the name means that it is eaten pretty much straight way without being aged or ripened.  For me this is a critical phase of the cheese making process. Before I launch into cheeses that takes months of aging (I am desperate to do this, as those cheeses are the entire reason I wanted to make cheese in the first place) only to find at the end of the six months of ripening my cheese was a failure.  The Queso Fresco requires around six hours of pressing and in theory can be eaten straight away.  I say in theory, because I did have a sneaky taste straight away, but it definitely benefited from 24 hours of resting in the fridge before eating.

Queso Fresco isn’t really a cheese board type of cheese.  It has a subtle flavour, that would be over powered by most other cheeses that appear on a cheese board.  For this reason, when I had made my first pressed cheese, I was a little disappointed that I couldn’t show it off to friends.  In a quest to use the cheese rather than waste it (four litres of milk yields about 500g of cheese) I started to toast it in my sandwiches for lunch.  What a discovery! This is an amazing melting cheese, which has a great melted texture. The heating of the cheese also intensifies the flavour, and it isn’t to oily like some cheeses can be when they are melted.

This next paragraph of this post was meant to describe how Queso Fresco was my new alternative to Mozzarella, for use in dishes that require melted Mozzarella, such as pizza toppings, pasta bakes, toasted sandwiches and pasta.  But when I made the cheese for a second time, it didn’t have the same melting properties.  Cheese making is not very forgiving and is so variable that it is really difficult to reproduce the same products accurately.  On reflection, I remembered that I accidentally overheated the cheese last time I made it, which I think it was gave it the stringy texture when melted.  The second batch tasted the same, but the texture was definitely different.  So now I have to go back and try this recipe again with the increased temperature, but I am impatient (not a good characteristic for a successful cheese maker) which means I am posting this recipe anyway! I will edit later if I ever manage to recreate the texture of the last cheese I enjoyed so much.

The following recipe is based on Mary Karlin’s recipe from Artisan Cheese Making at Home.  I have reduced the quantity of milk, as the cheese has a short shelf life, 500g is more than enough to deal with before it is past it’s best.  I have also adapted the cultures and rennet to suit the supplies I am using from the Country Brewer.  I have had a few problems with bitter flavoured cheese because of incorrect quantities of rennet. It appears that rennet can be sold at different dilutions, so follow the instructions provided with the rennet you have purchased and not the recipes in books which can differ.

Queso Fresco (makes about 500-650g)
4 Litres of pastuerised, unhomogenised whole cows milk
1/4 teaspoon MA11 made up with 100ml cooled, boiled milk 12-24 hours before
1/8 teaspoon calcium chloride diluted in 30ml cool, non chlorinated water
1ml (just under 1/4 teaspoon) rennet diluted in 30ml cool, non chlorinated water
1 teaspoon cheese salt (salt that is non iodised and without anti-caking agents)

Prepare all equipment for cheese making by sterlising and creating a clean sterile work area.  This is really important to prevent cross contamination with undesirable bacteria.

Put the milk in a large non reactive pan and heat over a medium heat until it reaches 32 degrees Celsius. This should take about 20 minutes.  Stir the milk occasionally for even heat distribution but also to prevent the bottom from burning.

Once the milk has reached 32C stir in the prepared culture with a whisk. Stir with an up and down motion for 1 minute to ensure the culture is evenly distributed throughout the milk.  Cover with a lid and maintain the temperature at 32C for 30 minutes to allow the milk to ripen.  I find the milk will maintain the temperature with the lid on without heating for the 30 minutes.

After 30 minutes, add the diluted calcium chloride and stir with the whisk for 1 minute in an up and down motion.  Then add the diluted rennet and stir with the whisk for 1 minute in an up and down motion.

Once the rennet and calcium chloride have been combined, ensure the temperature of the milk is still at 32C then cover to allow the milk to coagulate for at least 45 minutes.  To help maintain the temperature for longer periods of time I wrap the pan in towels, this is usually an effective way of maintaining the temperature for 45-60 minutes.

After 45 minutes check the curds for a clean break .  If the curd is not quite firm enough allow to stand for another 15 minutes and check again. Repeat until you are happy the curds are firm enough.  If the curds are too weak the cheese will not work.  Cut the curds into half centimetre pieces as described here or in most cheese making books.

Allow the curd to stand for 10 minutes then return the curds to the heat and gently increase the temperature of the curds and whey to 35C.  This should take about 20 minutes, but it is quite difficult to raise the temperature of something that slowly, so I usually find it happens much quicker.  Stir the curds a couple of times during the heating process to stop them sticking together.

Once the temperature reaches 35C let the curds stand for 5 minutes then ladle off enough whey so that you can see the top of the curds.  Line a colander with damp butter muslin (I boil the butter muslin in a pan for a couple of minutes to steralise it before use) and stand over a bowl. Ladle the curds into the muslin to drain.

Allow the curds to drain for 5 minutes then sprinkle with the salt and gently mix with your hands to combine the salt into the curds.

Transfer the muslin and the curds to your 12.5cm cheese mould with pressing plate.  Try to pull all creases out of butter muslin so that the surface of the cheese is smooth.  Cover the top of the curds with the tails of the muslin.  I find I often have a lot of extra muslin, so I have started to only put two edges over the curd, otherwise, if I bunch it all in the top of the mould I end up with a dent in my cheese.  Put the pressing plate on top of the muslin, then set up the press as described in the instructions.  I have a press from the County Brewer.  With their model, each full turn of the nut is 1.5kg of pressure. For this recipe I require 3.5kg of pressure for 6 hours so I set up the press and gave it 2.5 turns.

After the first hour of pressing I turned the cheese and re-set the weight on the press.  I find that I have to re-set the weight of the press as the cheese compacts as the pressure releases.  After 6 hours pressing this cheese was still quite moist so I flipped it again and pressed it for a further 2 hours to create the desired texture and consistency.

Once pressed, put the cheese in a zip lock bag in the fridge and rest for 24hours before using.  Use within 2-3weeks of making.