Organic Vegetarian Rennet

New England Cheesemaking Supply is now selling ORGANIC Vegetarian Rennet!  Woohoo!

More about Rennet on Foodista

Hervé Mons' Pasteurized Camembert

My friend Wendy sent me this New York Times story on a new Camembert made from pasteurized milk that aims to be as good as ones made with raw milk.  (If a cheese is made with raw milk it must be aged at least 60 days before it can be sold in the U.S.  That doesn't work so well for Camembert!)  Time for a trip to Whole Foods!

Oh, and I'm also adding "Make my own Camembert" to my list of 2010 New Year's Resolutions.  I've been shying away from trying to make (intentionally) moldy cheeses... until now.  Stay tuned...

Update:  So apparently H. Mons made a deal with Whole Foods so that they'd be the only distributor of his cheeses.  That'd be fine by me, I guess, except every WF I've been to (in both Los Angeles and San Diego) has been sold out since the holidays!  They keep telling me they're waiting for another shipment, and to stay tuned.  So until then, no camembert for moi!

Camembert Cheese

Like a party on my tongue

Our New Year's Eve feast began with an assortment of cheeses, both homemade and professionally-sourced.  The two large wedges in the photo came from the Beehive Cheese Co., from a  Wine Woot purchase a few weeks ago.  On the far left is the Barely Buzzed, a nutty and crisp cow's milk cheese, rubbed with coffee and lavender.  We actually broke this open last week, and weren't too impressed.  This time, however, it really hit the spot.  I can't imagine that an extra week of "aging" made much of a difference, so perhaps it was just our mood.  In any event, it was definitely a popular choice.  The other large wedge, on the right, is Beehive's Seahive, a salt & honey cheese.  I would actually prefer if it had a stronger honey flavor, but it was delicious nevertheless.

In the center of the main board is our homemade Habanero Jack.  I was a bit worried that it wouldn't be spicy enough, but it turned out quite nicely -- not too much pepper flavor, but it had a lingering heat that was perfect for a cold winter night.  It was still a bit too crumbly, though. It might be time to invest in a proper pH meter -- I clearly need to work on getting the right acidity level before adding the rennet.

On the plates at top is some freshly-made Chèvre.  We kept one plain (just lightly salted), one is rolled in Herbs de Provence [wikipedia], one is rolled in fresh ground black pepper, and then the crowning experiment achievement is the little guy sitting on his own plate -- it was rolled in cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and chopped pistachios.

We ran out of crackers fairly quickly, but found that the hard cheeses were a perfect substitute.  We simply cut off a piece and slathered the chevre right on top.  The Barely Buzzed and Herbs de Provence worked perfectly together (lavender! lavender!), and the Pistachio Extravaganza and Seahive were great together as well.

Yay Cheese!

Three Cheeses for the Holidays

My friends Sean and Michelle showed up to my holiday party with the perfect gift: Three wonderful cheeses they discovered at Venissimo Cheese, their neighborhood shop in San Diego.

First up: On the far left is the Humboldt Fog, an increasingly-popular goat's milk surface-ripened cheese from Cypress Grove.  The vein of edible ash is the signature mark of this rich, creamy, and delicious monster.  (I'm a big fan of Cypress Grove's cheeses -- especially the Fog and the Truffle Tremor, one of the most spectacularly decadent and knee-buckling cheeses I've encountered.)  Venissimo's notes:  California's top seller, with a ribbon of edible ash.  Herbaceous & Tangy.  Recommended Wines:  Sancerre, Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Noir, Dry Rose, White Burgundy, Super Tuscan, or a wheat beer.

In the middle is a Goat Sage Cheddar from Spring Hill Cheese Co. in Petaluma, CA.  The distinctive goat's milk tanginess melds beautifully with the sage, creating a zesty and robust kick... what an earthy delight!  Venissimo's notes:  Organic, pasture-fed, infused with sage, herbaceous and fresh, perfect on pizza.  Recommended Wines: Chardonnay, Champagne.

Finally we have the real zinger, the Chipotle Cranberry Cheddar from Carr Valley Cheese in Wisconsin.  This white cheddar has huge smokiness and tang, followed by the slightly tart and sweet cranberries, ending with quite a bit of heat.  Venissimo's notes:  Studded with cranberries, infused with chipotle, sweet, BBQ sauce flavor, incredible melted!  Recommended Wine:  Zinfandel.

Served with Fuyu Persimmon, Medjool Dates, and water crackers, this sampler was the perfect year-end treat.  Thanks, Sean and Michelle! You're the best.

What's the environmental impact of cheese?

My friend Michelle just sent me this article from Slate about the environmental impact of cheese.  Interesting topic.  Two quick take-aways:  Sheep are gassier than cows or goats.  Soft cheeses are better for the environment than hard cheeses (due to higher yields and lower energy needs for processing and aging).

One blatant omission, though: The article doesn't say anything about how far the cheese needs to travel to reach your plate.  Buying local makes a big difference... and making your own cheese at home is as local as you can get!  (Gotta use locally-produced milk, of course).

Hippychick’s Smokedy Chipotle

This is a cross-post from my friend Michelle, aka Shelly aka Hippychick -- she's been blogging about her incredible experiences towards sustainable hapiness, and was kind enough to allow me to re-post this.  She's been raising chickens and bees and growing her own fruits and vegetables... and making cheese.  Thanks, Michelle!

hippychick’s

smokedy
chipotle
aged
cheese

/ rich, smokey flavor /
/ russet in color /
/ a homestead recipe of my own /

ingredients

•  1 1/2 gallons of raw milk (if available)
•  ta61 thermophilic starter – 1/8 teaspoon
•  organic vegetable rennet - just short of a 1/4 teaspoon (diluted in 1/8 cup chlorine free water)
•  lipase - just short of 1/4 teaspoon (diluted in 1/8 cup chlorine free water)
•  home grown, smoked and dried chipotle peppers - ground to a fine powder
•  smoked sea salt

process

• in a clean cup mix 1/4 cup of chlorine free water with 1/4 teaspoon of lipase - mix and set aside. lipase takes a good 15-20 minutes to dissolve in water
• in a clean cup mix 1/4 cup of chlorine free water with 4 drops liquid rennet or 1/2 tablet of rennet - mix and set aside
• in a container larger enough to hold your pressed cheese, add 1 cup of smoked sea salt to 2 cups of water. stir until salt is fully dissolved and set aside. this is your finishing salt bath.
• line a colander with high quality cheese cloth (note store bought cheese cloth is too loose a weave).
• place the colander over a larger sized pot or a large sized bowl. the bowl will catch the whey when straining the curds. a good note is to use a bowl or container that can catch as much liquid as you use milk - 1 gallon, 2 gallon, etc.
• prepare a hot water bath set up – set a smaller pot (*1 gallon sized) in a larger pot (*2 gallon sized) – place water in the large pot – place milk in the small pot.
  

* use pots sized to those that you have on hand

• heat milk to 90˚f - use a cheese or candy thermometer to measure
• turn heat off and remove pot from heat
• add 1/8 teaspoon of ta61 thermophilic starter
• stir in starter for 2 minutes using a non-reactive spoon
• cover and let set for 30 minutes
• stir in lipase/water solution for 1 minute
• cover and let set for 5 minutes
• stir in rennet for 3 minutes (If using store bought milk you need stir only 2 minutes)
• stir in 1 tablespoon of fine ground *chipotle pepper - modify amount for your own taste. 

* i grow, smoke and dry my own. you can purchase dried chipotle peppers at a local market and grind them down in a coffee grinder. Remove the stem and seeds from the dried peppers. Break the peppers up into penny sized pieces. Set your coffee grinder to the espresso/fine setting, then grind them up.

ps. i am saving my seeds for next year's peppers

• cover and let set for 35 - 45 minutes or until the curd gives a clean break
• with a clean knife, cut the curd to 1/4 inch sized cubes.
• heat the curds to 100˚f slowly increasing the temperature by 2˚ every 5 minutes. slowly stir your curds
• throughout this process. this is a good time to think or to relax quietly or ponder something deep.
• when the curds reach 100˚f, remove from heat but keep stirring for another 30 minutes to maintain
• temperature and to keep curds from matting.
• set the curds aside for 15 minutes to rest.
• drain curds from whey
• once the curds are fully drained gently mix in the pepper bits to the curds - gently gently
• line a cheese press with fresh cloth and load curds into press
• press curds at 10lbs pressure for 10 minutes
• remove cheese from press, flip it over, reload cloth and cheese into press
• press curds at 10lbs pressure for 10 minutes
• remove cheese from press, flip it over, reload cloth and cheese into press
• press curds at 40lbs pressure for 12 hours
• remove cheese from the mold
• remove cheese cloth
• place cheese into smoke sea salt bath and set aside for 24 hours - flip the cheese every 4 hours or flip the sealed container every four hours - whichever works for your set up
• remove cheese from sea salt bath and set aside to air dry for 3-5 days flipping the cheese each day.*

*wrap loosely in a cloth if you have kiddos, pets or counter investigating creatures about. best to place cheese on a wood cutting board. the wood absorbs moisture.

• once the cheese has formed a rind, wax cheese
• allow the cheese to age for 3-6 months
• enjoy

waterbath set up - note the large post hosting the smaller pot - the larger pot is filled with enough water so as to surround the smaller pot but not so much as to over flow. the smaller post hosts the milk.

 

cut curds now floating in whey - notice the pepper bits mixed into the curds - i am a fan of the golden whey

drained curds now ready for the press

the humble cheese press

the big finish
cotswald on the left and the smokedly chipotle cheese on the right

Beehive Cheese Co.

I've been ashamedly behind in my cheese making recently, so I'm doing penance by supporting other small-batch artisanal cheese makers instead.

Woot's "Wine Woot-Off" just offered two of Beehive Cheese Company's cheeses, "Barely Buzzed" and "Seahive."  Never heard of 'em before, but that's one of the reasons why I love woot.

I ordered up a pound of each and am looking forward to sharing with friends over the Holidays!

From Beehive's Website:

Barely Buzzed:

This is a full bodied cheese with a nutty flavor and smooth texture. The cheese is hand rubbed with a Turkish grind of Colorado Legacy Coffee Company's (The Cheesemakers brother) "Beehive Blend". The blend consists of a mix of South American, Central American, and Indonesian beans roasted to different styles. French Superior Lavendar buds are ground with the coffee and the mixture is diluted with oil to suspend the dry ingredients in the rub. The rub imparts notes of butterscotch and caramel which are prevalent near the rind, but find their way to the center of the cheese. The cheese is aged on Utah Blue Spruce aging racks in our humidity controlled caves, and moved to different temperature during the aging process to develop texture and flavor. The name "Barely Buzzed" comes from Andrea at Deluxe Foods in California. She was the winner of the name this cheese contest.

Seahive:

From the land of Salt and Honey. We couldn’t resist this one. Our SeaHive is hand rubbed with Beehive wildflower honey and local Redmond RealSalt. The honey is harvested from a local farm where the bee’s visit wildflowers and fruit orchards. The salt is from an ancient sea bed near Redmond, Utah and contains unique flecks of color that are the result of more than 50 natural trace minerals. This cheese is shaping up to be one of our best experiments yet and is a true expression of our local flavors

15-Year Cheddar, now available

Every so often I like to run a Google News search for Cheese News and see what comes up. Usually, I'm pleasantly surprised. This morning I learned that Hook's 15-year cheddar is now available. Yes, that's FIFTEEN YEARS. Said another way, they've been aging this cheese since 1994. I know aging like that is pretty typical for a fine spirit, but cheese? That's a completely different story.

I had the privilege of trying their 10-year cheddar last year as part of a swanky Scotch & Cheese Tasting at the Beverly Hills Hotel (see pic below) and it was absolutely divine. Sharp and flavorful, of course, with bonus little crystals that seemed to burst in your month. A bit like Pop rocks meets cheddar. Okay, I exaggerate, but you get the idea (they're actually just crystallized Calcium Lactate).  Oh, and in case you're wondering, it paired exquisitely with the Glenfiddich 30.

At $50/pound, it might be the priciest cheese I've encountered yet. I bet it's well worth it.

http://www.hookscheese.com/

That's the 10-year cheddar at 9 o'clock.

Foodie Blogroll

My humble little blog has been accepted to the Foodie Blogroll.  Hooray!

Ricotta Salata

This is a guest post from David Greenberg.  David shared some of his cheese making experiences with me, and, of course, I twisted his arm to contribute a guest article.  Thanks, David!
- Andrew

Let me first begin by thanking Andrew for the opportunity to be a guest contributor to his cheese making blog. I’ve only recently begun to make cheese and I think it’s great to be able to connect with others who have the same interest.

For many years I've been an avid amateur bread baker, cook, and general foodie. I've long been interested in owning livestock, particularly dairy animals, despite having had only limited contact with them over the years. I figure that one day owning milk-producing animals will be a good way to combine my interests in animal husbandry, cooking and eating.

This idea actually got its start about 15 years ago when I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Central Africa. I lived in a small rural community in the savanna where many people have dairy cattle. In the nearest large town, there was an international collective running a commercial dairy business producing milk, cheese, and ice cream. Their milk came from the many small dairy farmers in the surrounding rural communities. Every morning a 4-wheel drive truck drove the country roads picking up the metal canisters of milk (these trucks were great to hitch rides into town since they were MUCH faster than being stuffed into a bush taxi like a sardine for hours and hours).

I naively thought that I could meet with the management of the dairy collective to teach me how to make cheese. I figured they would have the same “sustainable development” mentality I had to help the villagers improve their nutrition. As it turns out, profit-making collectives aren’t always interested in helping foreign aid workers and the villagers who supply them with cheap milk.

So cheese making went on the back shelf.

Recently, my interest in cheese has resurfaced and I decided it was time to learn more. Hours on the internet uncovered numerous websites with information about dairy animals, cheese making, and supplies needed.

I purchased Ricki Carroll's Home Cheese Making book and was off and running. I've made several soft cheeses thus far including one semi-failed attempt at feta.

One of the more successful cheeses I’ve made is a variant of a Ricotta Salata, or salted ricotta. I like this recipe because it is simple, doesn't require any fancy equipment, and you can age it in your fridge without need for an aging-cave.

In my variant, during the aging process, I rubbed the outside with smoked paprika. The idea for this came from a similar style cheese I had found in one of the local hispanic groceries.

The basic, overall concept is to make a ricotta cheese, hang it to drain, salt it again, press it, and then age it.

Here we go!

Needed:
1 gallon store-bought whole milk
1 teaspoon citric acid dissolved in 1/4 c hot water
1.5 teaspoons cheese salt
Extra cheese salt for curing process
Paprika (Smoked or Hungarian)

Large Stainless Steel Pot
Thermometer
Butter Muslin
Ricotta Mold

Step 1:
Add citric acid solution and ONE teaspoon of salt to milk. Stir.

Step 2:
Heat milk, without boiling, to 185-195 degrees F. Do not allow to boil or scorch. Stir often. Raise temperature slowly. Be patient, this step takes time. Probably around 30-45 minutes.

Step 3:
The curds and whey will begin to separate. Make sure there is no milky whey. There should be white curds and a somewhat clear fluid. When in doubt, keep gently stirring and wait another minute or two. Turn off heat.

Step 4:
Cover and let sit for 10 minutes.

Step 5:
Line a colander with butter muslin. Ladle (don't pour) the curds into the muslin. Tie corners muslin and hang to drain for 30 minutes. I squeezed it a little initially to help express more fluid. I drained mine over the sink.

At this point you have ricotta cheese. you can stop here and eat it if you want. Some people add a tablespoon or two of heavy cream to the curds to make it a little richer. This will keep for about a week.  [Andrew's note:  No way it would last that long in my fridge!  Gone in two days, max!]

Step 6:
If you want to make the salted ricotta, next is to salt it again. The original recipe calls for a second teaspoon of cheese salt to be mixed in. I did that. I personally think it was too much.

In this recipe I'm recommending a 1/2 teaspoon of cheese salt, and frankly, I might even consider skipping this second salting.

If adding the second round of salt, remove curds from muslin, add salt, and mix.

Step 7:
Put curds back into muslin, this time you can use single ply muslin. You want something just to help move the cheese around and hold its shape.

Place the cheese (within the single layer muslin) into the ricotta mold. I bunched up the excess muslin on top of the cheese, sticking out of the mold, so that the weight I put on top, would push down on the cheese within the mold. I used a heavy cast-iron pan.

Press for 1 hour.

Step 8:
Unmold cheese. Turn upside down. Rewrap. Put back in mold. Press for 12 hours (in sink).

Step 9:
Unmold cheese. Lightly rub outside of cheese, on all sides, with cheese salt. Cover and place in fridge.

Step 10:
Once each day, lightly salt the outside of the cheese and turn it upside down. I ended up putting the cheese inside of a salad spinner so that it could drain. Not a lot of fluid comes out, but enough to make the bottom moist.

Step 11:
Continue salting and turning for 7 days. On day 7, coat with paprika on all sides. Age for 2-4 weeks, turning every few days.

Troubleshooting:
If any mold appears, use moist cheesecloth, dipped in salt water to gently remove.

I personally found it hard to regulate moisture. Either condensation was forming on the inside of the lid/plastic wrap or fissures appeared as it dried out if I didn't cover it. Normal fridges aren't the best for aging.

After about 3 weeks, I couldn't wait anymore and had to try it. The cheese was firm, crumbled a little, and had a very nice texture and taste. As I mentioned before, it was a little salty. The paprika on the edge of the cheese was fantastic. FYI, it didn't melt very well which is characteristic of this style of cheese. It is good for eating solo, chopped up on salads, or crumbled on mexican dishes.

Good luck and enjoy!

[Andrew's note:  Instead of buying disposable ricotta molds, you can just buy a container or two of fresh ricotta at a (higher-end) grocery store -- you can find some brands that come with the ricotta still inside the mold.  I found some at Whole Foods, so it's not too tough to track down.  The bonus, of course, is that you get to eat that ricotta, too!]