Good evening all from this awesome comunity!
Forgive my surely nothing special bread, but I really want to share how happy I am now that I have found what really works with what I have to my disposal at home.

For the past year I’ve been experimenting with 100% whole rye flour to make a bread based on THIS recipe.

It has been modified in many occasions, the baseline process is the same, I just:

- first thing I did was I replaced molasses with honey, then completely removed it from the ingredients;
- started doing a full night in the fridge of cold fermentation, so instead of shaping and directly in the oven, now it rests a night before baking;
- replaced water with cheesemaking whey: since january I started my own journey of cheesemaking at home, and started having a lot of sweet whey leftover from cheese and ricotta making, hence why ai really started baking more and more!
- after some attempts, I started doing 6hours of soaking for the seeds, so that they got hydrated before baking. They were tipping my rations off since I started resting my dough overnight;
- started making 2 smaller loaf instead of a big one because we love the crust this bread produces and are easier for us to pack and consume;

Far from perfect but really just wanted to share my experience 🫰🏻

Wanted to achieve a rough surface for our fresh batch of pappardelle, so the mix this time for 2 people was:

- 2 whole eggs + 1 extra yolk
- 100gr of whole wheat flour
- 100gr of fine semolina flour

The sheets were left to air dry for a moment, then cut to size with a sharp knife.

We also had some leftover sauce from last dinner, that was pulled beef shoulder and tomato, so a nice pairing for our fresh pasta 🫱🏻‍🫲🏼

The assortment and cleanliness of this nice cheese shop in the city center was incredible. Missing the entire other half of the display, but the picture came out blurred unfortunately

Only regret was not having space to try the couronne lochoise ring shaperd wheels, but it has to happen the next time 🙂‍↕️

Last week we were walking in a very nice city center close by the lake (Annecy, in the south of France for the curious ones) and we thought a cool idea could have been to have a nice picnic at the lake, why not with a nice assortment of cheeses and some freshly baked bread!

But the cheese place was full and the lady did not have time to prepare for us the cheeses (she gave us forks and napkins tho and that was super kind from her).

Small EDC comes in clutch, I always keep it clean specifically for this kind of scenarios.

Pictured the full size Fox Vulpis in M390 with titanium scales, such a treat.

We really enjoyed this last wheel of asiago-style I made 3 months ago, opened yesterday and carried on in today’s lunch.

Far from perfect, actually had plenty of issues with the making as I was describing yesterday, but still we had a nice slice for lunch and have plenty spare to keep eating in the next days! The flavour is so sweet..

Today we treated ourselves eating what could be described as a series of issues that still lead to something that we defenetly enjoyed!

ISSUE #1

The main idea was to make a small wheel of asiago-style cheese. I mixed my ferments, got a (new to me) milk from a new farm we found, fresh milk, low temp pasturised, not homogenised or filtered. Was promising, but everything went south really quickly. I added the ferments, waited the supposed right amount of time, but when the rennet was added, nothing happened. I did double the amount out of despair, still nothing. Something was wrong, more with the milk than with the rennet since I used it in the past and after and had always achieved great results. Whatever changed was only the milk apparently.

I then switched plan, thinking I could make ricotta at least, since it was defenetly a lot of milk..heated up the milk to 80ish degrees C and added white vinegar as I would have done with any other ricotta in the past, and while resting, huge flakes of curds formed right away, they were big and had a nice consistency, enogh to stir me the other way around and since they were defenetly knitting with eachother, I decided to go back to a regular press and form for an actual wheel instead of making ricotta (whatever it was, it defenetly was not ricotta anyway).

I then brined the wheel, dried 5 days to establish an initial rind and then olive oiled the surface and added smoked paprika (last picture)

ISSUE #2

After 2.5 months we had a wine fridge issue that lead this cheese to experience high room temperatures for some days, I had an issue of a nasty black mold getting into the cracks of this specific wheel as well, and so decided to carve a portion out (you can see it from the 4th picture) and fill the cavity up with regular butter, thanks to the suggestion gave by a post from u/Smooth-Skill3391 (thank you, this totally worked great!).

Today, after other 2 weeks, for a total of 3 months worth of aging, we cracked it open and we actually really liked this ome. The texture is firm, reminds me somehow of an emmental in texture, it is not bad at all, the crust is edible and gives a slight hint of funky flavour, nothing too strong, and the overall flavour is very mild and sweet, not salty, not apicy, simply nice and gentle throughout.

Shotout to Azienda Agricola Piz Forca, in Poleggio, Switzerland, for trusting everyone into offering a self service service open everyday.

They have a book where you can sign in and saying what you took and how much money you left in the box, that’s it. We went there on sunday morning, at 6am, and indeed it was open. It is a small AC controled room where some fridges live, and you get access to anything there is in stock! Never seen this before with cheese.

Bonus points for having 3 meat dedicated fridges as well.

Spoiler, a total of 32 different cheeses were eaten during our 10 days holyday from Italy, to France, to Switzerland, and back to Italy.

The main goal was of course to try as many different cheeses we could, I even had a list to base my choices off to, but then we had being influenced into the most local ones we could find day by day.

DAY1 - Barolo (Piemonte - Italy)

1. TOMA PIEMONTESE - typical semi hard cheese from Piemonte region, kind of a generic name that changes slightly in apparence from producer to producer depending on location and available raw materials;
2. PAGLIERINA - typical from Piemonte (Cuneo & Torino). Very soft and creamy, reminded me of a camembert;
3. TOMA DI CAPRA - goat milk based toma;
4. TOMINO - from the name itself, a small "toma", again typical from Piemonte;
5. BETTELMATT - typical from Piemonte (Val d'Ossola & Val Formazza), very spicy and nice cheese crystals as commonly found n long aged cheeses;
6. GORGONZOLA - typical from Lombardia & Piemonte, a solid sweet choice;
7. BLU DEL MONCENISIO - produced in Colle del Frejus region, cross breed with clear influences from France;

DAY2 - Grenoble (France)

1. SAINT NECTAIRE - typical from Auvergne region, France. Defenetly one of the most sold cheeses in France;
2. SAINT MARCELLIN - typical from Isère, Rhone-Alpes region, France, and we defenetly had to try this;
3. FOURME D'AMBERT - typical from Auvergne region, France, this will come back later the next day as well;
4. TOMME DE SAVOIE - typical from Savoie region, France, probably is the best seller in this specific region, a crowd pleaser for sure;

DAY3 - Lyon (France)

1. CERVELLE DE CANUT - typical fresh cheese from Lyon city, France, not sure we were gonna be able to find one at a restaurant but turned out we were lucky;
2. TOMME DE SAVOIE;
3. FOURME D'AMBERT;

DAY4 - Lyon (France)

1. COMTÉ AOP - 30 MOIS - is a 30 months aged Comté, from the Franche-Comté region. Can't be beaten with this many months of aging;
2. BREBIS À L'AIL DES OURS - wild garlic infused sheep milk tomme from Aveyron region, France. This was suggested by the kind lady at the fromagerie. Was sweet and bright in flavour, one of our favourites out of the new cheeses we tried so far;
3. TOMME DE BREBIS DE L'AVEYRON - sheep milk aged tomme from Aveyron region, France, aged and colored with Espelette pigment;
4. LE SAINT-VINCENT CHEVRE - produced in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region, France. Hard crust, a small compact size, defenetly strong in flavour but we had to try it, couldn't skip it;
5. DÉLICE DE BOURGOGNE (AUX TRUFFES) - typical from Yonne department, France, this had a variant with a thin insert of truffes paste ("truffé"). One of the most decadent ones so far, had to be out favourite overall, so creamy;
6. MORBIER - typical from Franche-Comté region, France. Another easy crowd pleaser;

Shotout to Epicerie Fromagerie Casèus for beeing so nice and kind with us.

DAY5 - Annecy (France)

1. MIMOLETTE - produced in Nord department, France. Not tipical but defenetly on my list, we had to travel quite a lot to find some, defenetly worth it thanks to the long aging period it goes through;
2. BEAUFORT AOP - typical from Savoie region, French alps. Was suggested by the cheesemonger at the fromagerie;
3. ROQUEFORT - sheeps' cheese produced in Aveyron region, France. Defenetly an heavy hitter;
4. MORBIER;

Fun fact, we had to improvise a picnic at the lake since this specific shop could only sell cheese and did not account for customers to consume on the spot.

Shotout to Fromagerie Pierre Gay for taking the time to help us in the choice and delivering amazing products.

DAY6 - Annecy (France)

1. TOMME DE CRAYEUSE - produced in Savoie region, France. This came into my list later during the trip but I am glad we found some because it was defenetly one of the most interesting new to us cheeses we tried in our trip, very peculiar texture for sure, almost like crumbly but not quite;

Honorable mention for Beurre de Charentes-Poitou AOP, tasted on a fresh baguette that same day;

DAY7 - Sion (Switzerland)

1. CAILLADOU COUPE HERBES - tomme with herbes, from Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, France. Another absolutely new one to us, very herby for sure, soft and mild in flavour;

DAY8 - Faido (Switzerland)

1. SAN GOTTARDO - typical cheese produced near San Gottardo pass, Switzerland. This surprised us beeing quite aged and strong in flavour, one of our favourites out of the ones we tried so far;

DAY9 - La Punt-Chamues (Switzerland)

1. RACLETTE - typical from Valais region, Switzerland. We had to try it in the traditional way, melted on top of boiled potatoes;
2. FORMAGGELLA - from Graubünden canton, Switzerland. Nicely soft and mild in flavour, like a caciotta;
3. GRUYÈRE - typical from Canton of Fribourg, Switzerland;
4. MOZZARELLA - a slice of a humble mozzarella, nothing wrong with it;
5. PARMIGIANO - 12 months aged parmigiano, typical from Lombardia region, Italy;
6. CASERA - cheese from Valtellina, Italy. Typical cheese from the region used to make pizzoccheri dish;

DAY10 - Tirano (Italy)

1. CROTTO - cheese from Valtellina, Italy; Strong aftertaste for this 12 months aged cheese, there is another common version aged for twice the amount of time, gets crumbly and delicious but we went with the slightly youger version;

After supporting other independent knifemakers from Europe met here on reddit in the past, seeing the work done by Yann at u/Carkhass I had to ask him about his chefknives and possibly a knife made to my request..to my surprise I met one of the kindest and most helpful maker you can immagine, and on top of that I discovered that he has his shop in Lyon (France), coincidentally one of our upcoming destinations during the last trip we just took from Italy.

Seeing that as an occasion to get the knife with my own hands, we quickly scketched an idea based on my requests! Yann was extremely kind getting all my needs into account, very patient for sure, from shape, overall lenght, thickness and handle materials. The time frame was tight (less than 1 month) so I was pleased to see what came out of his shop.

BLADE SPECS

• Steel used is carbon steel C125U (63HRC) with his signature hamon finish;
• 2mm spine thickness and a 90° straight choil, with a distal taper towards the tip (these were some of my requirements);
• Maximum height at 45mm on the heel;
• 17cm of usable cutting edge (another requirement, I love shorter knives and I based this dimensions on one of my most used ones);
• Slight convex grind (for a better food release);
• Slight belly on the edge, for occasional rock-chopping;

HANDLE SPECS

After seeing some Dunn Bladeworks designs, especially with dual tone contrasting woods, I asked for a way to replicate that and the solution with the available material came down to:

• Guyanese boco with sapwood, very dense, takes a nice polish as well;
• ‘Tsuki’ handle system;
• Black G1O spacer;
• Carbon fiber pins;

The very cool thing about the handle is also that he was able to keep the scales as a bookmatch pair so they account for the blade in the middle and then flow from one side to the other, really fine detail.

EXTRA

When talking about material and designs, I asked if it was possible to have a little scrap from the same wood used for the scales, hoping I could make a small knife rest out of it.

The material was not that much to begin with but he told me he could try to reserve a small chunck. Instead, he totally blew me away giving me directly a knife rest already made, chamfered, polished and with rubber liner underneath! This was an unexpected and really appreciated gift.

Overall I am very pleased with this blade, it is light, as requested, very well balanced, extremely thin and sharp and crazy reactive. After my very first use I had the crazyest color development on a blade so far, it reacts with everything, I've cut mostly vegetables and potatoes.

The last picture is after cutting some red onions and some chicken breast out of the oven.

This knife is a joy to use, food releases very well thanks to the geometry of the blade, feels natural and I am basically already used to it since it's largely based to one of my most used knives I already had. HERE a quick video I took of the very first cuts beeing made.

You can find more informations about his work HERE !

Also, while at his shop I was able to also see his other handmade knives, all share the same attention to detail and cleanliness.

While traveling through Frnce in the last days, I casually stumbled without searching 3 of the main stores dislocated in south France, the first in Chambery (of course), the next in Lyon, and finally the one in Annecy!

Of course I had to buy a small souvenir

Hello fellow cheesemakers!

Just came back from holidays, and had to check my newest experiment.

Here is the state of my corrent wheel: posted on here before, after a solid week of ripening at room temperature, then punctured and this is now after 10 days wrapped in cloth in the cave; this is what my stilton inspired wheel is looking right now, in the next few days I’ll be at home and I”’ll take a closer look on how it behaves, so far so good it looks like 🤞🏻

Yesterday evening we had some nice and simple pork loin, cooked for 1.5h @ 62C (142F). Since it was predicteably too much for two people, i left the rest in the fridge for today’s lunch. I decided to cut it by hand instead of with the slicer, just for fun, while still cold so it was easier to manage.

A drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and some freshly cracked black pepper to garnish go a long way..super simple but I thought was worth sharing 🫰🏻

Yesterday we decided to make some fresh pasta, as we kind of usually do on sundays, but with a twist :
We ended up making a version of fresh pasta that incorporates spinach as the secondary binder and color driver. We simply modified our usual fresh pasta dough recipe replacing 1 egg for 100gr of blended cooked spinach.

For 2 people we used:

- 100gr semolina flour
- 100gr whole wheat flour
- 1 large egg
- 100gr cooked spinach (blended)

We were very happy with the consistency, not too wet, not too dry, we added a tiny bit of flour during the milling procedure to achieve the usual texture, to me it was feeling a little moist but that is not a huge deal usually.

This time the experiment was the pasta otself so for the sauce we made a very simple clam and anchovie sauce, with a good amount of extra virgin olive oil to create the emulsion, topped with some capers and zest of a lemon. Nothing fancy but very rewarding.

Ok this has to be flagged as an experiment. I followed NEC for my first Stilton inspired cheese, followed all the pH marking to a T and everything worked like a charm, I am very pleased about the texture, the consistency, the method seemed to work beauttifully.

Where is the experiment side? Instead of using P.Roqueforti like the recipe suggested, I made my own clabber using italian gorgonzola and whole milk, 2 days on the counter and then used the strained liquid to kickstart my stilton ispired cheese.

The main difference I see is that my gorgonzola does not have P.Roqueforti, or at least, it is to my knowledge that what I am working with is P.Glaucum. Gorgonzola and Stilton are way different cheeses but the initial aging phase is fairly similar, I am planning to make it age for some days at room temoerature until the grey veins start to appear in the bigger cracks, then wrap it, wait again, puncture it, wait again, and see what come out from there.

It should defenetly have a quicker maturation compared to a traditional stilton cheese, this could give me a good hope into making a proper one soon.

Hello everyone ✨

Since recently asked, here is my usual loaf of home made bread, using 100% whole grain rye flour, divided in half for the starter, and half for the final dough.

I am not a baker myself, but I like to make cheese, and what is left from making cheese is sweet whey, that I again process to make ricotta, and the final liquid goes in in place of water into bread making, to avoid waste and give a little more of a complex flavour, as well as good nutrients.

My bread is also full of soaked toasted seeds that gove the little extra dense crumb but add so much flavour to an already very complex bread. We all love it at home. Making like a loaf simply allows for better slice regularity, even if from the outside I like a round bread more usually.

As some as you good souls might already know, I hosted a lunch on sunday noon, at my place, with friends and relatives, and my girfriend thought it was the best time to share my very first aged cheese (posted on this sub a couple of days ago as well).

I was nervous, I am so new to all of this, the very first wheel was already under the belt, we had it last month and was really good, but this one? Looked great, smelled awesome, but who knows what lies underneath? After all it is just my second wheel ever..but we decided to give it a go and what a relief, the cheese was good, most of the guests were not expecting such a treat. They gave me great feedbacks, everyone asked how I made it, how long it was aged, and so on. I was over the moon. We shared then some prosciutto crudo (typical), some home made rye bread and we opened a nice bottle of red wine from Calabria.

But since I was on an experiment spree, I thought: “why not doubling down?”

And so exactly one week ago, I preciously decided to make my very first *stracchino cheese*, very popular fresh and creamy cheese from my region…and it was a huge hit, especially for a cheese that only needs 5 days to mature. It was amazing, some guests are really into this kind of fresh and spreadable cheese that you can see in the video attached and they were extremely well pleased.

I personally think it was an amazing experience and now I am looking forward to my next shared wheel of cheese.

Today was finally time to taste a slightly longer aged caciotta, basically the same recipe as my very first one, same procedure, but since they were the very first ones it was important to taste as we go, so I can identify early noob mistakes.

This ine turned out great as well, exactly what I’d expect drom a couple months old cheese. Soft inside, nice thin and hard skin, everythings worked out well.

Tomorrow we will have guests for lunch and everyone wants to have a taste of this, we opted to open it up today just to be sure nothing was horribly wrong and to not serve unidentified stuff to our guests..you know, still at the very beginning here

As someone active on this sub might already know..We finally opened my very first brié! Turned out as I hoped, better than i expected, creamy inside, thick, hearty outside fluffy crust, we loved it!

This went as expected, it was straightforward to make and age, 1 week in the cave to get the mould started and then 2 weeks straight in the regular fridge in the dedicated container.

It was amazing, we really need to make more.