Moldy (but delicious!) Cheese

Well, it looks like I didn't do the best job at waxing my cheese. There were three little pin-holes that look like tiny little micro-bubbles. How do I know this? Well I ended up with mold under the wax, and above the mold if I look really closely I can see holes. Mold needs air to grow, and I guess this is all it takes.

I did some reading and debated on whether I should let it ride, especially since it only happened on one of my wheels, or if I should fix it. The consensus was it wasn't going to make the cheese unsafe to eat, but the black mold can negatively impact the flavor of the cheese. So, I decided to fix it.

It's not so hard to fix. I threw my cheese wax in the double boiler to get it melting and then went to task on getting rid of the mold. I simply cut the mold out of the cheese right through the wax, making three small divots in the cheese. I think I caught it pretty early and the visible portion of the mold only penetrated about 2mm into the cheese. It was fairly easy to cut out.

I also decided that this would be a good point to sample the cheese. It had been aging for a month to the day. I was nervous, but after cutting off a chunk and smelling it I was quite optimistic. The sour smell was completely gone and replaced by a very mild cream smell. I took the wax off (throwing it into the double boiler to join the rest of the wax) and sampled.

It was amazing! Honestly, definitely not the best cheese I've ever had, but definitely good and made all the more special knowing that I had made it. It tasted very mild and somewhere between a cheddar and a provolone. It's harder than a normal cheddar, which I can only assume is due to the acidification that caused the sour smell, but not at all crumbly. It was also probably hard because the way I cut it I probably got mostly rind. I'm very happy with how it's turned out so far.

I then cleaned the cheese surfaces with some white vinegar and cheese salt and let it dry. Once the wax melted I re-sealed the holes, first by dripping melted wax off a toothpick to fill the holes, then dipping the entire face of the cheese back in the wax a few times. I'm pretty certain I got a good seal this time. Then I sealed the end I cut off by dipping it in the wax directly. To be prudent I used six coats.

Now I'll let it sit another two months and see what kind of flavor develops. The other wheel I plan on aging for six months.

Happy cheesing!

Home Made Pasta

This recipe will make six 80-90g servings of pasta. Including the resting time it will probably take about two hours, give or take. You can scale it up to whatever you can handle. It's pretty easy once you get the hang of it. I'm sure you can probably do it alone, but it definitely helps to have an extra set of hands. Especially since you're dealing with raw eggs.

Ingredients:

• 2c Flour (you'll need some more to sprinkle on the cutting board)
• 4 Large eggs
• 1T Extra virgin olive oil (you'll need some more oil for the "sitting" process)
• 1T Water

Utensils:

• Large cutting board
• Butcher's knife
• 1c Measuring cup
• 1T Measuring spoon
• Rolling pin
• 2 Bowls
• Plastic wrap

You start by making a "flour volcano."

Then you add the liquid ingredients as the "lava." We cracked the eggs into the measuring cup to make sure we didn't get any shell in there.

Then you start mixing! This is the fun part. Start by breaking up the yolks and mixing all the liquid ingredients together. Then start working the flour into the mix. Being sure to not break the edges of the volcano pull the lava away from the walls pulling a little bit of flour in with it.

Once it's viscous enough that it's not going to run all over the place you can collapse the walls of the volcano into the lava. Then use both hands to mix it well. It's going to be a sticky mess, for sure. Once the dough is homogeneous get as much of it off your hands as you can. Then, sprinkle flour on your hands a little bit at a time, rubbing your palms together, until the dough on your hands dries off and starts to fall off.

Once you've got all the dough off your hands it's time to get it all into one ball and knead it, adding a little flour until it feels "soft as a baby's bottom." Be careful not to knead it too long, as it will make the dough tough. Really you're trying to knead it and add flour to the point where it's not sticking to your hands. Once it stops sticking you should be all set.

Then cut the ball in half (you do this because trying to roll out more dough than this is quite difficult. if you double the recipe you'll need to quarter the dough, etc).

Next coat each half with olive oil and put in a bowl covered with plastic wrap. Leave it in the fridge for an hour. Honestly, I don't know what this does, but it's how I was taught so it's how I do it.

After the hour take one of the halves out and simply roll it out on the cutting board coated with some flour.

You'll want it as thin as you can manage it, but be careful as if you roll it too much it will get tough and you risk breaking it. Ours is probably as thin as 4-5 sheets of paper stacked, or a little less than 1mm.

Next you fold it over itself short wise to make a flat roll. Then you start cutting the roll. I make our cuts about 7mm for a traditional fettuccine type noodle, but you can make your noodles as wide or thin as you like.

Once the pasta is cut unravel it and divide into the portions you want to store. We divided each half of the dough into three portions making six portions all together.

Here's where you have options. You can either air dry the pasta and after a few hours it will be ready for consumption. Or, and this is what we did, you can simply freeze it. To freeze it I put it into a birds nest type formation on wax paper, then simply over-lapped each portion with more wax paper and put it in a freezer bag. Takes about thirty seconds and if you're not going to eat the pasta same-day I highly recommend it.

Finally, to cook the pasta you boil water, put the pasta in the boiling water, and stir to avoid sticking until the pasta floats. It should only take a minute or two once you put the pasta in.

Enjoy!

Waxin' De Cheese Mon

After a week of aging/rind-building the cheese has mellowed and lost most of its sour aroma, but has kept all of its delicious cheese smell. It's built a nice yellow rind and was dry to the touch on day three. I gave it a few extra days of rind building as I've read this can help it dry out a bit, get the extra whey out, and help with the sourness. Although dry, the cheese was slightly oily to the touch. It didn't have drops of oil on it or anything, so I think this should be fine.

Time to wax!

I used a casserole tin to heat up my wax in. Expect that whatever you use will be ruined forever, and should be considered your waxing container henceforth. I plan on storing the wax right in this container when I'm done.

Make sure to use some sort of double boiler system, as wax is highly combustible and shouldn't be allowed near an open flame.

I heated on high until the wax was almost completely melted, at which point I turned off the burner. Make sure to keep an eye on things to prevent the tin from tipping over and letting water in or wax out.

I then washed my hands thoroughly and started by rolling the edge of the cheese in the wax. This was the easiest part and went very smoothly. Next I dipped the ends in. This was wrought with issues. Primarily the large uneven surface was prone to create air pockets that were either encased in the wax or created areas that didn't get covered at all. I used a wide toothpick to pop the bubbles and fill out any uncoated areas. I repeated for three coats. Two would probably be sufficient, but three isn't going to hurt anything.

Lastly I added labels noting when the cheese was created and when it was waxed.

This all took about 45 minutes, but 30 of that was waiting for the wax to melt. Next time I think I'll dip the edges, but use a natural paintbrush to paint the wax on the ends (don't use synthetic as it will melt and destroy your wax and possibly your cheese too). All in all, very easy.

I'm planning on aging one of the wheels for three months and the other for six months. My basement is currently 61F which is pushing the upper limit for aging temp. If it goes any higher I'll move to the fridge.

Happy Waxing!

Every Day I'm Chedderin'

I came.
I saw.
I made Cheddar.
...
Kind of...

I made something called Farmhouse Cheddar. It kinda skips the "Cheddaring" process and cuts about an hour out of the cooking time, but creates a cheese that tastes just like Cheddar, and is, in essence, Cheddar. I put together my recipe/plan based on what made sense to me after reading dozens of online recipes. I'm pretty sure I made some mistakes, and I'll point them out below. I won't know how bad I screwed up until we eat the cheese. Regardless of how the cheese turns out, this has been a pretty rewarding experience.

Here's the goods:

• Total time - 6 hours, including cleanup, but not including taking the cheese out of the mold 12 hours later
• Might be able to skip the pasteurization step and cut off ~2 hours
• Tools
• Cheese Press
• Home Made, see previous posts
• Cheese Mold & Follower
• Weight For the Press
• I used water-filled 0.5 gallon milk bottles, 6-7lbs each
• Double Boiler
• I just put a 2 gallon pot inside my wife's large canning boiler
• You could probably get away without a double boiler, but you'll probably end up with some scorched milk on the bottom. I highly recommend it
• Cooking Thermometer
• Strainer
• Cheese Cloth
• Ladle
• Strained Ladle
• A ladle with holes/slots in it
• Large Metal Wisk
• Wax Paper
• Tin Pan
• Measuring Cup
• Measuring Spoons
• Ingredients
• 1.5G Milk
• I found a local dairy farm that sold Cream Top milk. This is milk that is un-homogenized and pasteurized at a slightly lower temperature (160F I believe). I was assured it was the closest thing to raw milk I could get in the area legally:
  http://rocwiki.org/Pittsford_Dairy
• The recipes I was following called for 2G but I didn't have a pot that could fit that much
• The fact that it was so close to raw milk slightly concerned me, so I ended up re-pasteurizing for 30 minutes at 150F. I don't really think this was necessary, and the heating/pasteurizing/cooling process took just about two hours, so I think I'll try skipping this step next time
• 1 Packet Mesophilic Direct Starter Culture
• I bought a 5 pack from a local store in Philly, but they bought it from here:
  http://www.cheesemaking.com/store/p/135-Mesophilic-DS-5pack.html
• 1.5T Cheese Salt
• Not the same as table salt:
  http://www.cheesemaking.com/store/p/66-Cheese-Salt.html
• 0.25t Double Strength Vegetable Rennet Liquid
• I wanted to use animal, but the store only had vedgie:
  http://www.cheesemaking.com/LiquidVegetableRennet.html

Here's the play-by-play of how the whole process went down, including the time relative from start, notes/thoughts, and some pictures. Enjoy!

1. 0:00 Add water to the double boiler's outer pot, add milk to the inner pot, put the inner pot into the outer pot
2. 0:10 50F Start heating 10/10
1. I had let the milk sit out for about an hour, explaining why it was already at 50F
   
3. 0:40 145F Turn off heat
4. 0:45 155F Take off burner
1. I turned off the heat too late. There's some latency using the double boiler you just need to get used to
2. The milk was pasteurized at 160F+ so as long as you keep it below that mark you should be fine
5. 0:50 154F Temp peaked and is falling
6. 0:57 150F Back on burner, turn on heat 4/10
7. 1:05 151F Turn off heat but leave on burner
8. 1:12 150F Time to cool, turn off heat, remove from boiler
1. While the milk is cooling and the boiler is free I added a couple cups of water to account for evaporation, then brought the water to a boil and sterilized my mold, follower, and cheesecloth. A good washing would probably suffice, but I'm neurotic about germs
2. Scoop out 4oz of boiling water to be used to dilute the rennet
   
9. 1:25 136F Holy crap, this is taking forever to cool, put out on 40F porch to facilitate cooling
10. 2:00 120F Man, still taking forever. Adding plastic coated ice-cubes as to not dilute
1. Added ~8 cubes
11. 2:09 109F Adding ~8 more plastic coated ice-cubes
12. 2:20 100F Adding ~8 more, and stirring constantly
13. 2:30 90F Finally cool enough. Remove ice-cubes and add starter culture
1. My first screwup, I added too much starter culture. The packets are supposed to be good for 4G, but given that I had to drive several hundred miles over the course of three days after I bought the culture I assumed that keeping them in my cooler hadn't kept them properly frozen. Aaaand, maybe that meant they wouldn't be as effective? And I didn't know if I could use a half packet and then save the other half after opening. So many questions, so I dumped the whole thing in. More on this later
2. Don't stir in the culture yet. Give it a few minutes to "rehydrate"
14. 2:33 89F Stir in culture, making sure to not just go around but up and down too
1. While waiting add the rennet to the previously gathered water (that has cooled by now) and stir it up
15. 3:00 87F
16. 3:15 85F Add diluted rennet mixture, making sure to stir up and down as rennet is lighter than the milk and will have a tendency to want to stay near the surface. Stir for 5 minutes
17. 3:20 83F Return to double boiler but leave heat off, waiting for the curd to separate from the whey
1. Temp jumped real quick to 89, I probably should have added some cold water to the boiler before putting the milk back in
2. I covered with cheesecloth to prevent flies and whatnot from wandering in, but not sure how necessary this is
   
18. 3:40 86F Setting, but not ready yet
1. I tested using the "clean break" test. You put a knife in the curd/milk at a 45 degree angle and pull up. If this creates a "clean break" then you're set. If it's more like a soft yogurt and kind of pools around it's not ready yet. Another indicator that it's ready is if the space left by the knife leaves a yellowish/greenish pool of whey in its wake.
19. 3:55 85F Clean split, ready for cutting. To cut I simply used my wisk and mixed it up.

1. Mistake number two. I think this might have broken up the curd too much removing too much whey. Maybe? I'm thinking this might lead to a dry/crumbly cheese. Which I'm fine with, but some people may not be
   
20. 3:57 Turn burner on 4/10, heating to 102F slowly over 20-30 minutes, stirring regularly
21. 4:21 100F Turn burner off
22. 4:25 102F Maintain for 50 minutes, stir every 5 minutes to break up the curd
23. 4:40 101F Turn burner on 1/10

1. At this point I started to ladle off the whey, but make sure not to remove any curd
2. If I'd had more time I would have used this curd to make Ricotta and/or bread. Instead it just went down the drain
   
24. 5:25 Strain in cheesecloth lined colander. Break up into small chunks manually. Add salt 0.5T at a time, mixing into cheese with hands after each application
    
25. 5:32 Put curd into cheesecloth lined mold
    
26. 5:35 Press with 6-7lbs for 15 minutes

1. 0.5G of water in a glass bottle works perfectly on my press
2. You'll note a lot of whey comes out and the volume of the cheese greatly decreases
27. 5:50 Flip the cheese, removing any excess whey from the press, and apply ~20lbs of pressure

1. 3x0.5G of water in glass bottles again works great here
2. Set in a pet/kid/etc free place to be pressed for 12 hours
28. 17:00 Remove from press. Delicately remove the cheesecloth as you would remove a sticker from glass (pull back, not up)



1. I ended up cutting my cheese in half to promote drying and because I wanted to have two batches to be aged different lengths (3 and 6 mo). This is definitely not necessary, and for all I know screws everything up
29. Place on a wax-paper lined tray and let dry until a rind appears (yellowish) and the cheese is dry to the touch. You should be flipping the cheese daily during this process, and it might take up to a week, although my guess is less since I cut the cheese (tee hee hee) in half

Tada! The magic of cheese. After sitting for a few hours I've noticed that my cheese has a slightly sour smell to it. Hopefully this will abate with aging, but I'm pretty sure it's because I put too much culture in. I also noticed some small air pockets in the cheese (very small) when I cut it in half. This worried me until I looked at cross sections of other people's farmhouse cheddar and noticed the same thing. Hopefully not a problem, and could probably be averted by using more weight on the press (I've seen some people press Cheddar at 50lbs).

I'm letting it age in my basement where we keep our canned goods. It's about 60F and has a pretty low humidity, so hopefully the rind will build quickly and I can wax the cheese. Proper aging temperature is 45-60F, optimally around 50F. The higher the temperature the more quickly the cheese will age.

Expect another post once we've reached the waxing milestone.

Cheese Press Mods

After playing around with my DIY cheese press a bit I noticed a big problem: friction. The threads on the hex bolts were binding with the follower board so much that in a real application when the cheese compresses the board wouldn't actually "follow" it down. Dealbreaker.

Solution: Go Threadless! What has no threads, you ask? Why 1/2" dowel has no threads. I headed over to the Home Depot with an idea in my head and picked up a 1/2x48" dowel and a tube of food grade silicone sealant. I used food grade silicone since we're dealing with food, but I'm not sure how important that is since where the silicone goes the food does not, but better safe than sorry. I used the silicone to give the dowels a tighter fit and prevent any bacteria/etc from getting down in the gap where it's hard to clean.

I cut the dowel into 12" lengths (also giving me 4" more head than the hex bolts, bonus!) and sanded the ends smooth. Then I dry fit everything and thanked the carpentry Gods everything shored up.

Next I drilled 7/64" pilot holes, one for each dowel coming in from the long side of the board. I figured this way was least likely to split the board. I drilled the pilot holes without the dowel in place because I want the dowel to split a little to increase the friction holding it in place.

I then added silicone around the end of the dowel and put it in place. I found putting the silicone on the dowel instead of in the hole was much easier and much more effective. Then I put the dowel in place, twisting it as I put it in. Once in place I screwed in my 1 1/4" outdoor sealed screws. As expected the dowels split, but a little more than I'd hoped. The split went up about 3/8" above the flush line, but I just filled it with a little silicone and it was good to go. I had enlarged the holes slightly to decrease friction with the threads (maybe 1/64") and I think that extra gap is what allowed for the excess splitting. If you stick with a solid 1/2" hole I think you should fare better. Lastly I cleaned up the excess silicone on both sides, added the follower, and let the silicone cure. I might add another layer of silicone if it pulls in too much, but I think I should be in good shape.

Moar Cheeze Pleeze

After my success with the Ricotta I've decided to move onto a more challenging project: hard cheese. Specifically, cheddar.

I. Love. Cheddar. My wife's lucky it's not legal to marry cheddar, for if it were we might find ourselves embroiled in some straight up polygamy! The sharper the better (the best cheddar I think I've ever eaten was Heluva Good's Super Extra Sharp Cheddar, aged so long it's crumbly and actually has some crunch to it - only available at their Country Store).

So I started reading blogs and books and watching videos on how to make cheddar. I compiled a short list of things I was going to need to investigate/purchase to get this project rolling. They include:

• Whole Milk, Organic if possible, Unpasteurized if I'm feeling saucy
• Rennet
• Starter Culture
• Cheese Salt
• Cheese Wax (or a vacuum sealer)
• A mold
• Cheesecloth
• Calcium chloride if I'm using pasteurized milk
• And last, but not least, a press

I haven't been able to find anything but the milk and cheesecloth in any local store, but I have a call in to a local dairy farmer and relative of mine to sniff out where I might fill out the rest of my list.

In the mean time my investigation has continued. Big on the list was that darn press. I couldn't find anything locally, but there are several online retailers including Amazon who sell cheese presses. STARTING AT $75!! The sky is the limit from there ($300+ for stainless steel). I quickly realized that if I couldn't find a cheaper alternative this may be a non starter.

Sooo, I began asking around. One of my good friend's husband is a wood-worker so I thought maybe he could make one. The conclusion was that it would cost more but would be much nicer, but that ultimately this wasn't something you needed to be "nice." So then, this same friend, recommended I search for DIY alternatives. Brilliant!! I immediately found this little gem:



$10 Cheese press, niccccccce. Right in my budget:) So I watched and became inspired. I ran to Home Depot and picked up some supplies, and hours later I had a home-made press (for cheese, or whatever!).

My cost was closer to $30. I used nicer wood (red oak) but even without that the bolts alone were $12. The dude in the video must have a better nuts and bolts supplier.

Here's what I picked up:

• 4x 1/2"-8" Galvanized Hex Bolts
• 4x 1/2" Galvanized Hex Nuts
• 8x 1/2" Zinc Coated Washers (why I didn't go with straight galvanized here is beyond me
• 35"x10"x3/4" Red Oak Scrap (although when you pay by the inch the fact that it's scrap doesn't really matter)

The oak was poorly cut so I cut off the ends, then cut it into two 16" lengths. A table saw, ban saw, or even a radial arm saw would have been great for this. Lucky me, I don't have any of those, so I was stuck with either my manual wood saw or my circular miter saw. I went with the power option and as this wasn't something that was going to be shown off in the kitchen didn't worry too much about imperfect joins in my cuts.

Next I drew a line 1" from each edge, the plan being that at each intersection I'd drill the holes for the bolts. I put both pieces in my vice and proceeded to drill pilot holes with a 3/16" bit.

And last, but not least, I borrowed a 1/2" bit, drilled the holes (had to wiggle the bit around a bit to widen the holes so the bolt threads didn't stick), and assembled it.

And viola! It's got about 6" of head, so a 4" mold should fit in there perfectly. If you can get longer bolts I'd recommend it, but 8" was the best I could find.

Thanks and credit go to TN Gun Guy! I think you might be a little bit crazy, but in a good way.