Labels - the joy of 'too much' cheese...

So slight problem. Lots of one colour of wax, multiple cheeses needed to be waxed. Distinct need to identify all of the cheeses individually!

Solution: labels. But how do I keep in line with a pre-1600 look and feel.

Surprisingly easily actually. I've decided to go down the path of using the flax paper that was made for the pentathlon with a little bit of 'calligraphy' for type and date made. Certainly not how they would have done it pre-1600, where it was more likely to have the name pressed into the cheese or the wax (they also used the colour of the wax to tell them how long they needed to age it), but a nice middle ground. Also gives me a chance to play with the paper and ink which I have wanted to do!

 Making the labels. Did okayish with the writing given the roughness of the paper. Very out of practice!

 After a little thought I figured putting the labels onto the side of the cheese really was the only option. I have to flip the cheeses weekly so having a lump of wax on the top or bottom would make that awkward. A little rough and ready with the amount of wax. But they finally stuck!

Modern recipes but a medieval focus, why?

I've been asked a question regarding why it is that I make medieval cheeses but use modern recipes. So I thought I would attempt to pick that apart a little and make some sense of what it is I am trying to accomplish.

The Milk

Here in Australia there is no way that I can easily source raw milk and raw milk is at the core of medieval cheese making. Regional raw milk is what gives a cheese its beginnings. The region defines its flavours, its bacterias and its processes.

I can not for a moment entertain the idea that I can source milk appropriate for each cheese (and I really don't think anyone expects me to either!). So much depends on the time of year that the animal is milked and the floral influence that that milk is under. Grass is turned into cheese via the machine that is 'cow'. What comes out is dependent on what goes in, and grasses, wild flowers etc etc all play a role in that end product.


That floral influence plays 'havoc' more than you might think. Just like the flowers that bees collect pollen from affect the flavour of the honey, so does the grazing material effect the milk. Regional plant varieties, alpine grasses versus seaside shrubbery each affects the raw milk that is produced. Like a lot of things, the specific influences we now label as say 'Gouda' only occur in that one small area.

Medieval cheese making is incredibly regional. Medieval towns who are renown for the cheese (Edam, Gouda, Cheddar, Derby) all have one thing that sells their cheese, the distinct flavour that that cheese is known for. In modern terms they are Region of Designated Origin. Much like what we knew as champagne is now known as sparkling wine, unless it is actually from the region of Champagne.

These days we also have concerns over such things as nasty bacteria and liver fluke. So we do things such as pasturise our milk to remove any of those issues (and apply certain standards to the storage and transportation of milk/products). And we do that to the point of regulating the immunizations and medications given to all livestock that produce milk. These modern controls give us safety, but they cost us access to raw milk (it is illegal to sell most raw milks in Australia for human consumption).

If I had easy access to raw milk I would want to see how much of an influence our modern processes have on milk and cheese products. I would split the amount of milk, pasturise half and then make exactly the same cheese using exactly the same recipe. This would tell me how much of an influence the modern process has. But even with access to raw milk I would be no more or less inclined to use it for making 'Gouda' over commercial bought milk. Raw milk here in Australia is not a suitable raw milk for making 'Gouda'. It is out of region.

And that leads me to say that raw milk can be awesome I am sure. But I do not want to make anyone tasting my cheese sick. So commercial milk with a modern recipe made under sanitary conditions will always trump following a medieval recipe using period appropriate tools with riskier sanitary conditions. I do try and meet in the middle, but I won't risk my consumers if I don't have to.

The Recipes

A modern recipe is a distinct, reliable and replicable way of getting certain results. Modern recipes are simply a way of getting the same answer again and again.

The one thing that a recipe does is allows me to use pretty much any milk and know what the outcome will be. This is very important as it takes away all the variability that milk throws into the mix.

Each known 'medieval' cheese is known for a flavour and texture. What these modern recipes allow anyone to do is replicate it in a way that you to can experience that cheese, regardless of the region you live in. It has taken the humble cheese global. :)

Where a medieval recipe effectively does the same thing as a modern one, the one thing that is missing from the medieval is the surety that at the end of the process what I will taste is what they would have tasted (or as similar as I can get). Because I do not have access to 'their' milk.

What am I trying to accomplish?

I guess in the end what I am trying to accomplish is medieval experience. I would like to taste the cheeses that those in medieval times tasted. I am hindered by lack of access to milk from the regions needed, so I do the next best thing and use a recipe and a packet of bacteria.

As for replicating processes from medieval to modern, as I said in my documentation for last years pentathlon, my equipment is modern, the process is not. So I am quite comfortable with the fact that I use a stainless steel pot and a gas cooktop, and not a ceramic or copper pot over a fire. Doesn't mean I am not going to try and use those things (hopefully at Festival!) but the overall process is the same regardless of the modernity. Some things just have not changed. :)

References:

Jeon, I. (l996) Undesirable flavors in dairy products, in _Food Taints_and Off- Flavours_ (M.J. Saxby, ed.) pp. 139-167.

Tunick, M (2014) The Science of Cheese, Oxford University Press, New York USA.

Mendelson, A (2008) Milk: The Surprising Story of Milk Through the Ages, Alfred A Knopf, New York USA.

Food Standards Australia, accessed November 2014,
http://www.foodstandards.gov.au/code/primaryproduction/dairyraw/Pages/Questions-and-answers-about-P1022.aspx

Pepato

I am figuring out that I seem to have a great fondness for making hard Italian cheeses. :) This is no exception (well, Sicilian slightly more specifically).

This is normally a reduced fat sheeps milk hard cheese but as I have no ready supply of sheeps milk it is a simulated sheeps milk cheese, with added lamb lipase. One of the first I have done with an added herb (pepper, and I have made a chilli flake haloumi) so nice in terms of both learning and using existing skills.

6L unhomogenised milk (2L low fat, 4L full cream)
1/8 teaspoon lamb lipase
3ml calcium chloride
1 pkt Thermophilic starter
1/2 tablet of rennet
30ml spring water
200ml water (from the tap as you boil it anyway)
6-12 black peppercorns
26% brine solution

Method:
heat the milk slowly to 37oC
add the calcium chloride and stir for 1 minute
add starter and stir slowly for 1 minute
sit at temperature for 15 minutes
add lipase and slowly stir for 1 minute
sit at temperature for 15 minutes
dilute rennet in spring water and add to milk
stir gently from bottom to top for 1 minute
cover and let sit at temperature for 30 minutes or until a clean break
whilst the milk is sitting, boil the peppercorns in the tap water for 20 minutes
set the pot with the peppercorns aside to cool
at clean break stir the curd with a whisk into 5 mm pieces (rice sized)
very slowly heat the curd to 45oC over one hour, stir continuously to avoid matting
allow the curd to sit at temperature for 30 minutes, stirring  every 5 minutes
drain whey off to level with the curd (reserve for ricotta if desired)
add peppercorns (including the water it was boiled in) and mix well
transfer curd to a cloth lined press
press for 1 hour at 10kg
undress turn and redress
press for 12 hours at 20kg
brine for 8 hours at 10-15oC
dry for 2 or more days at room temperature
wax and age at 10-15oC for 2-12 months
turn weekly until matured

All went very well with the recipe. I made doubly sure I read it properly this time! Ended up having to wait an additional 20 minutes for a clean break, but that's not that unusual. When I boiled the peppercorns I did have to add a little more water because so much was boiling off, but I doubt that will effect the end product greatly. I intend to let this one mature until Festival (4 months) along with a lot of the others I will be making over the next while.

Montage:

Before and after the first pressing. Nicely placed peppercorn!

Turning the cheese prior to the long pressing. Love the look of the peppercorns near the surface.

More pics to come once I have brined and then waxed it. :)

Cheshire cheese and the failed ricotta

Cheshire cheese

And by Cheshire I mean the one in England. Not the USA (just to be clear). Some interesting bits and pieces and some things to look into such as the inn called The Cheshire Cheese.

Yesterday I tried a new recipe from a new recipe book. A couple of things didn't quite go right but seems okayish at the moment. As always time will tell.

Ingredients:
6L unhomogenised milk
1 pkt mesophilic starter
3ml calcium chloride
1/2 tablet rennet
20mg of salt
30ml spring water

Heat the milk slowly to 30oC
Add the starter and stand for 5 minutes
Stir for 1 minute then cover and allow to ripen for 40 minutes (maintain 30oC)
Add the calcium chloride and stir for 1 minute
Add the rennet and stir for 1 minute
Cover and allow to stand for 40 minutes or until a clean break (maintain 30oC)
Stir with a whisk to break the curd into rice sized pieces
Stand for 5 minutes
Draw off 1/3 of the whey (reserve for ricotta if desired)
Over 1 hour heat the whey to 31oC, very very slowly.
Cover and allow to stand for 40 minutes (maintain 31oC)
Drain all whey (reserve if desired) and allow curd to sit in the pot
Over the next 30 minutes hand press the curd to remove more whey
Drain all whey
Cut the curd mass into 4 or 5 equal sized chucks and leave in the pot
Cover the pot for 2 hours and maintain 31oC (you can gently reheat on the cooktop, being careful not to scorch the bottom of the curd)
Remove curd from the pot and cut into 2cm cubes
Put the curd cubes into a bowl and salt and stir to ensure even coverage
Transfer curd to a cheese cloth lined press
Press at 10kg for 30 minutes
remove, undress, check if the rind of the cheese has closed
IF the has not closed, flip and redress and press at 17kg for 2-3 hours
IF the rind still has not closed, dip the cheese into scalding hot water briefly
Dry at room temperature for 2-3 days turning daily
Wax and age at 16oC for 2-12 months
Turn daily for the first month then weekly after.

Now this is a pretty straightforward recipe, so long as you read it correctly... I cut my curd into 2inch cubes and didn't realise until the next day that I had done that. So it was too late to correct.

I also had an issue with the rennet I used. It hadn't set at all when I checked on it at the 30 minute mark so I added some different rennet (and threw the other tablets out, this was the second time I had had trouble with them) and let it sit for another 30 minutes.

I'll wax it in a few days and see how we travel. If nothing else I have learned a new recipe and a good, strong lesson in reading it correctly!

And now the montage...

 Whisked curd. Nice, rice sized pieces.

 This is after the first draining whilst I did the hand pressing.

 First cut and then after the 2 hours draining. Notice how my whey has come out.

 Cut into cubes (far, far too big cubes!)

 Salting and stirring the cubes prior to pressing.

Into the press and after the first pressing. 

 Out of the press after the first pressing. Definitely needed the additional time. Most definitely due to the size of the cubes.

 And this is it after the second pressing and after scalding it. Couple of spots that are going to be problematic but hopefully it will dry quickly enough so that i can wax it as soon as possible. I'll try and get the wax into all the nooks and crannies to help keep out any air bubbles.

Will post more pics of the progress when I get to waxing point. *cross fingers*

Failed Ricotta

I reserved all the whey from the Cheshire and attempted to make some ricotta (following my recipe in an earlier post). And it was a total and absolute fail.

I ended up doubleing the amount of apple cider vinegar attempting to get any curd from it and nope. Nadah. Nothing. Just would not turn.

So I am thinking it has something to do with the way that this whey/cheese is processed. I need to do some more investigation still and will report back when i know more. :)

Pepato - Sicilian cheese

Going to be trying a few cheese recipes this weekend/next week. But one that has particularly caught my eye is the pepato.

Recipe from one of my modern cook books, but the website has some great leads for the history side of things which I will chase up later. :)

Hopefully my cheese cupboard will look a lot less bare come Festival and Laurel Prize Tourney time.

Babbling about cheese...

I have been considering cheese making for the last while. The process that is. Really there are a few things that you need to understand before you begin. (all comments are focused on hard cheese making, as that is predominately what I have made).

1. Master your cooktop. Be it gas or electric or a waterbath, understand how to control the temperature and where to stop it so it gets to where you need it. Also understand the effects of a light breeze and a sunny window will have! That lovely breeze will steal your temps and that sunny patch will make it go crazy.

2. Steralise everything! Your basically growing bacteria here, and you do not want that to go wrong. And with that in mind, don't make cheese if your sick. Lets not accidentally spread that nasty around.

3. Know your recipe BEFORE you even buy your milk. Work out your timings so you know when the best time to start something is. Not something that you'll have enough experience with necessarily in the beginning, but you'll learn. No making cheese at 2am because you started something that should be a during the day recipe at 7pm!


As for the actual making of cheese and the recipes themselves you have a few variables, and all making cheese really is is altering those variables to suit the type of cheese.

a) Temperatures. This effects your bacteria, how much they grow, how much gas they produce, how they effect the proteins and the acidity.

b) Bacterias. Different starter bacteria have different effects on cheese. Gases produced, acidity and activation temperatures effect your flavors. Some cheese call for a mixture of bacteria's (with temperature activation being the key for some flavors here) others for one. Some for a primary and a secondary (for external mold growth). Be very very careful with contamination. I can not stress enough that the 'blood temperature' you are working with your milk in can make for some bad bad juju when playing with bacteria.

c) Processing the curd. From how it is cooked (or not), what size the curd is cut to and how much or long the rennet is left to set. All these things effect the texture of the cheese (amongst other things).

d) Pressing. Different weights, different lengths of time, breaking up the curd at the end of each press. And also not pressing (my asiago isn't pressed it is molded).

e) Aging. Whether a cheese is brined, waxed, bandaged, wrapped in paper or has external mold all effect your end product. As does the length of time that it is aged. Generally the longer you leave a cheese the richer and more complex the flavors, but that is not always the case.


I find cheese making easy. Not sure totally why, but I get it. It just clicks. I am not an expert. I have a lot to learn still. But I enjoy it. If my babbling helps others, awesome. :)

Leicester cheese and some accidental ricotta

With life being what it is, I haven't had too much opportunity to make much cheese of late. But given the few days of leave that I have had (though not how they were originally supposed to go) I decided to get my cheese back on. So today was two cheeses, a Leicester and some whey ricotta.

Leicester - from a 1475 redacted recipe (Platina) [http://www.godecookery.com/friends/frec21.htm] which I've trimmed down to do in my 6Lt pot.

6Lt unhomogenised milk
1.5 tablet of rennet
1/3 mesophillic starter
3ml of calcium chloride
1/4 cup of spring water

Muslin
Large pot
Colander
Cheese mold and press
Thermometer
Slotted spoon
cheese mat

Slowly heat the milk to 35oC
Add calcium chloride & stir
Add starter & stir
Cover and keep at 35oC for 1.5 hours
Dilute the rennet in the springwater
Add rennet and slowly stir top to bottom for 1 minute
Cover and keep at 35oC for 2.5 hours
Once curd is set, cut into 1 inch cubes
Gently stir and slowly (over 1/2 an hour) heat to 42oC
Cover and keep at 42oC for 1 hour
Strain into muslin lined colander
Gather corners of the muslin and place into mold
Press at 8kg for1.5 hours
Remove, undress, redress and return to press
Press at 16kg for 2.5 hours
Remove, undress, redress and return to press
Press at 23kg for 18 hours
Remove from press and place on a cheese mat
Flip daily for 3 days
Wax and age for 2-3 months at 12-16oC turning weekly

The recipe worked quite nicely. Nothing turned into an issue for me. Proof will be in 2-3 months :)

Update:

 Here is it all waxed (10/10/2014). My own 'recipe' for the wax. Mostly beeswax with a crayon tossed in to give it the colour and some additional stability. And the waiting begins...




Whey Ricotta

Now, I was clever for a change when doing my straining of the Leicester and I managed to (finally) reserve all the whey. So I also made some ricotta. Not an awful lot partly as I didn't add any other milk to increase the yield, will do that another time to see the difference. But a little bit that will be ready to try in the morning.

Worlds simplest recipe (from Ricki Carroll).

Take whey (about 4Lt) from a hard cheese process.
1/3 cup of apple cider vinegar.

Large pot
Muslin
Colander

Heat whey to 90oC
Turn off heat and add vinegar whilst stirring.
Skim the white 'fluff' into a muslin lined colander
Once its finished, hang muslin for a few hours to drain
Put into a container for consumption!

Re-purposed whey and the apple cider vinegar I used.

 After adding the vinegar, fluff!

 Hanging to drain.

 

Final product.

Not a huge yield. Around a cup worth in the end. Will try this shortly (after its cooled), hoping for yummy things!

The ricotta eaters - 1580 Vincenzo Campi