Cracking open a new cheese

Excitement reigned this evening as we decided the time was right to test my blue cheese. It’s probably a couple of weeks away from being properly ready, but it’s REALLY hard to wait for the allotted time with a “first” cheese. I haven’t made any more blues in the meantime because I wanted to know if this one was going to work before I kept on with the same recipe.

Out of sight, out of mind has been very useful in the maturation of my blue. It has been living in a snap lock box in the brewery so that it is as far away from any other cheese as possible. I don’t want everything I make to turn blue! The colours that the rind has turned in the past 2-2 1/2 months are almost disturbing. The outer surface has been covered in a variety of moulds, none of which will be eaten so I’m not too concerned about them. It’s become quite wavy in it’s appearance as well, rather than having the smooth surface that I’m used to. Tonight, this is what it looks like….

Interesting!!

With not a moment to waste, I cut a wedge of this beautiful beast and this is what we found…

Um, there seemed to be something missing…can you guess what it is? Yep, it’s NOT BLUE!!!! What!!! How the……….?! Ha, maybe I managed to cut the only piece that had a tiny bit of blue in it (you can see it at the top right of the wedge). So I cut the rest in half to inspect…

But no. There is just NO BLUE! How disappointing (imagine sad faced Andi at this point). So much for keeping it away from other cheeses so it didn’t turn them blue!!!!!

Not to be deterred, Adrian demanded a cracker and gamely tried the first piece. To be completely honest, he did ask me if I wanted the first bite, but I’m not nearly as game (or as confident in my abilities) as he is. There was no grabbing of his throat, gagging or falling to the floor, so I gingerly tested a smidgeon. (A smidgeon by the way is about 1/32 of a teaspoon according to the measures I have…it may have been more of a pinch or 1/8 of a teaspoon that I tested!) It has a really creamy, smooth paste (that’s a technical term), with only a little bit of chalkiness in the very centre which is expected given it’s a bit young. The taste, well, it was bluey. Quite strong, but definitely blue. Interestingly, the eyes confuse you when you’re tasting sometimes. Because it’s not blue, I’m not sure that the taste was blue…I almost needed a blue cheese from the supermarket (ick, cough, ban it from the house) to taste alongside mine to confirm.

I’m still a little disappointed as it was supposed to look something like this…

That is more like it…ah well, something to strive for I suppose. We have decided to describe it to people as a Creamy White Stilton, which will probably set people up not to be disappointed!

But you will all be terribly pleased to know that I overcame my loom band failure of last night and created several different (intermediate, and NOT beginner ones!!!) bracelets which I will show off at a different time. Baited breath, I know….

Experimenting

I’m not usually one for experimenting, I’m much too controlled for that. Instead, I like recipes, instructions and the like. So I really like that there are lots of written resources as to how to make cheese. I have a few lovely books which in total have probably nearly 100 different cheeses in them. With so much milk around at the moment, I have started to try to make every different cheese in the book. We don’t eat an awful lot of soft cheese, so that section of the book will take a while, but with hard cheeses you make them then store them, so that section has been (mostly) ticked off. Then there are the “special” cheeses, the white rinded like camembert, the blue cheeses, swiss cheese and red rind cheese. As you know, I’ve tried camembert with varying results, though I hope to start again tomorrow to perfect my technique. Blue cheese I’m waiting on, swiss cheese I’ve made but I’m not sure it worked very well. I really want to make a Port Salut, which is a red rind cheese. In fact, I have made Port Salut twice, but….. I’ve never managed to get my timing right to get it finished so it ends up with the chickens! The idea is that after 6 days, you make up a “red wash”, leave it for a day and then rub the cheese with the wash the next day and for several days after that. Again, maybe Port Salut will be on the menu of cheese for this week. Third time lucky?!

Today, however,  I have broken the mold, and I have embraced experimentation! I know, exciting!? Frankly, the process of cheese making is essentially the same for all cheeses (I’m talking about hard cheeses here), with just a few differences here and there. I’ve been doing a very basic recipe 2-3 times recently and it’s been working really well. Tonight though, I didn’t quite have the time to do the recipe to the letter. So I experimented! Yikes! Careful, anarchy may reign at Ra Puke. I’ve used the same basic process…heat milk, add bacteria and leave to ripen, add rennet and leave to solidify, cut curds, stir and cook curds, drain, salt and press. I’ve just tweaked things here and there so that it actually fit with what needed to happen around here tonight. And I won’t be able to share the results for another 3 months! Got to be patient around here.

And on another note, I would like to admit a defeat. Loom bands have taken over in New Zealand over the last month or so. Everyone has them and they were a great thing for the kids to be doing at school, until the school banned them…thanks for that. But I’m also quite taken with the different designs so I set myself the task of completing a “fancy” bracelet this evening….but it didn’t work. Oh dear, please don’t say I’m going to have to take my own advice to Emily to start with the easy ones…..