r/cheesemaking

Ready just in time for Halloween!

Here we are, during this utiful weekend I took some time to make a nice new wheel.

It was made as an italian toma, with a blend of cultures from piemonte (the region where this style of cheese is popular) but this time with a twist:
I wanted a more yellow colour, so I used a pinch of safran added to the milk to give it a nice bright yellow hue, and after some salting/drying of the wheel today I used a blend of spices to try develop some flavours on the rind. The wheel was developed using the “stufatura” method, as we do with generic caciotte from around Italy, and so it did not require any pressing. The knit I got was very satisfying, after a solid 2h (~ish) in the hot chamber the curds came toghether and the procedure stopped when I hitted the 5.2pH mark.

Made with 6L of low temp pasteurized milk, non homogenized, sourced from a local farm.

Last picture is the dry toma, before the spices, and a nice weight of 830gr (1,83lb), not bad for the amount of milk used.

Request for a sanity check as this is only my third wheel and first that doesn’t seem fully knitted. Just confirming this appears to be safe… no off smells and texture seems fine. Ignore the pattern from the vacuum seal bag at the bottom.

Cut the wheel and vac sealed at 3 weeks. It’s been in a mini fridge cheese cave at 50-55 degrees (f) and floating around 80%RH.

Guido’s hard Italian. Low temp pasteurized whole milk from a local creamery with a bit of crushed red pepper.

Learned too late that I should have baked the crushed red to sanitize, but the holes don’t really seem to be near the pepper flakes.

Flakes were added to the drained curd before pressing.

I've ignored the wheels for too long now (1-1.5 months) and this is what they have become. It's Cheddar, Parmesan - style and Gouda-style wheels. They had aged for a few months before this happened - so the rind is dry and hard enough that the molds might not have penetrated inside. How do I begin the cleaning? Do I dry brush it off first or use brine+vinegar solution with a brush or with a cloth? Or do I wash it with brine (pour over)?

I'm also thinking of vacuuming them after drying. Since it's been quite a few months, it won't affect the flavor much is what I'm thinking.

Please advice.

Hello guys!

After four months of wait I opened this great Gouda. It came out pretty well, way smoother and creamier than previous batches I’ve made before. Despite having chilli inside, i could only taste its flavour when I specifically bite the red chilli.

The cheese’s coverage is beeswax I personally melted from the combs. Perhaps that’s the reason of the smoothness 🤷‍♂️

Everyone liked it at home!

What you guys think??

So, as you can see in the photos I have a tomme blowing issue. I changed milk supplier to try and avoid this (new supplier does not feed their cows silage).

At this point I suspect the issue is resulting from a pressing problem.

For this batch the pressing was done using whey drips from the mould as a telltale for correct pressure. 1x 30 minute light press, then 3 x 1 hour press with gradually increasing pressure (increased pressure of press until slow drip of whey appeared from mould then left). Then left it overnight for circa 16 hours at very hard pressure. Temperature overnight probably dropped to around 12c at lowest point. A slight curvature developed in the units after about one month so we were anticipating this before we cut them open.

The batch we made after the batch pictured had a different press schedule does not appear to have any blowing (very flat top and bottom after three months). For that batch we followed the same pressing for the first 3.5 hours but then we left the units overnight in the mould but not under any pressure. The curd surface did not look as smooth but they were well-knitted and seem to have avoided this issue.

All that makes me suspect that we have pressed too hard for too long on the batch pictured, and that keeping a warmer overnight temperature might be a factor too. We did not test for pH, but will do so for our next make (I have seen recipes with a target of 5.4). For next make will follow a much lighter press schedule (including an in-whey pre press) and monitor pH.

By the way, we have a cheese pH tester. To measure the tomme wheels does one insert the probe into the cheese or is it ok to rest it on the outside to get an accurate read?

Hello fellow cheesemakers,

I’m encountering an issue where my cheeses seem to have a light covering of white mold over them. I was wondering if:

- this is “normal” for home made hard cheeses (a Gouda in this case)
- how I should deal with this (apply apple cider vinegar and then a layer of butter, before vacuum sealing)?

For context, I’ve added pictures in the post. These cheeses were made roughly a month or so ago and have been vacuum sealing in my fridge since; I followed the New England Cheese company’s Gouda recipe for all of them. One of the cheeses is also a different color as I took it out of the vacuum bag maybe a few days ago to scrape off the mold with a knife.

Please let me know if you have advice on what to do about the cheese and the mold—and how to treat it!

I reduced a half gallon of whey slowly over about five hours. Then incorporated the reduction back into four gallons of milk. The hope was a nice caramel flavor in a young cheese. Not at all what I got. It has a strong umami type flavor and is a lot more complex than it should be at three months. The surprise is a delightful grilled cheese sandwich toastyness. Very unexpected. The texture is not grainy like I was worried about and it didn’t over acidify. I was curious what concentrated lactose would do in the paste. I did try to keep the acid at bay in the make and salted early. Super weird cheese. The kids demolished an entire wedge already. So it’s a solid thumbs up from them.

After a few conversations with my goat milk provider, and a home test that had a negative result for mastitis, they contacted their vet who found a "high bacterial load" and had milk samples sent off to a semi local, agriculturally focused university for further testing, and after about a month we learned that one of their animals did have mastitis. So, unfortunately, I'm cutting the cheese early and tossing it, as it is not necessarily safe to eat.. and it's extra sad because it's coming along so nicely, and it smells (and tastes 😬) delicious.... but I don't want to give anyone (including myself) e. Coli or other harmful/fatal bacteria. Cheese down. R.I.P.

After a course of antibiotics for the goats, and building their own milk supply back up, I will be offered milk again should I want it. And they plan to more regularly test for mastitis moving forward. With any luck, I'll be making again soon.

Hi! I attempted making a Gruyere type cheese. It aged exactly 5 months. I thought because I pulled it after 5 months and didn’t let it go longer, that it would’ve been more of a semi firm. Creamier or buttery. It was not bad at all. But it was more firm and dry than I expected.

I did decide to melt some, and the flavor on that intensified and it tasted great! So perfect I think for a grilled cheese.

I guess I’m just wondering where I went wrong.

I did do a natural rind for this and aged it in a temp controlled environment.

Hey all! I am looking for some affinage advice on aging a farmhouse Wensleydale. I am trying to achieve a style similar to Stonebeck, which features a lot of distinct cracks and fissures on the rind.

Picture one and two are mine, three and four are Stonebeck prior to, and during aging, respectively.

Stonebeck binds their cloth neat meaning they don't use lard, butter, or any fat to adhere the cloth. They simply stitch it tightly around the sides, leaving the top and bottom faces completely exposed to the elements.

My question is, How do you manage and control mold growth without the protective fat barrier? How do you prevent aggressive, unwanted molds from taking over the exposed top/bottom and sneaking deep into those rind fissures? Binding with a fat like lard to fill up those holes would make sense, but they don’t apply any fat to the binding!

What specific humidity levels and airflow settings prevent the exposed faces from drying out too fast while keeping the mold balanced?

Does this style require heavy brushing, or do you let a specific microflora establish itself naturally to block out the bad molds?

Thanks guys!

Edit: I’ve spoken to Gianaclis Caldwell (u/cheesalady) about this topic this morning. Thanks Gianaclis! I’ll use some of her words as she gave me permission and she’s much better at phrasing digestible Cheesemaking sentences.

“From the looks of the above photos I suspect they do very simple rind care, like occasionally patting down the mucor. The different molds are likely coming from the milk and residential Flora in the aging space.

The raw milk they're using is likely a great source for protective bacteria, given what they say they graze the cows on. I bet they don't use teat dips either! They're going to be molds coming from the farm side this way as well.

My biggest question for the kind of wild affinagein the picture is how they deal with cheese mites. It's a big problem for all bandage wrapped cheesemakers. If you know, let me know too.

I was going to say too, and I don't know where your aging space is at with its population and how long it's been in use, but it takes a lot of cheeses and a decent amount of time for everything to establish and equalize. Then you're going to get the effect of terroir.

One of our cheeses, Elk Mountain, was in a study of rind mycology that they did at Cornell University. In the end, they asked us if we added fusarium. They said they saw it mostly only in European cheese rinds. We didn't add anything, so the conclusion was it was prevalent in our surrounding forest and was coming into the milk and aging space naturally. It was just a terrific reminder of the things that are out of our control--things that can be to our benefit if we don't fight them!”

I have made a good bit of fresh cheese, but am pretty inexperienced with aging. I’m hoping to get some critique or insight into the rind on this cheese. Is it looking good? Horrible? Unsafe? I’m not thrilled about the dark green spots, but I don’t know why exactly.

They are goat milk Tommes, approximately 3 months old.

Appreciate any comments

Indian here, from from what i looked up online buttermilk means something slightly different here, and "buttermilk" cultures aren't available to buy here, but buttermilk does mean chaas/lassi here, so do i 0 just use that instead?

if i am completely talking wrong, could you please suggest me substitutes for this?

In my last post, many people were interested in what the process was like, and here it is today.

Last Publication

Note:

Since this is a 100% artisanal process, we do not pasteurize the milk, as that would take a long time and require the use of lactic acid bacteria or organic acids; to save time, we use organic acids and then let the natural acidification process continue.

Let’s remember that the production of a cheese from the pasta filata family is a complex process of de-calcifying the casein in milk, carried out in several ways, including:

- Natural acidification

- Induced acidification (using lactic acid bacteria)

- Complete acidification (using organic acids)

All of the above methods serve to denature the available protein as well as develop aroma and flavor; and once the appropriate pH is reached, chymosin must be added.

The process are the same to any way of acidication, the difference between each way in the speed of acidification and development of favor.

First Step:

Filter the milk to remove any foreign objects, so we can keep the milk clean.

Second Step:

We must adjust the pH using organic acids to a pH of 5.6–5.65 (acidification should be done when the milk is cold, around 15°C, since higher temperatures will cause protein precipitation).

In my case, I use citric acid diluted 10 times with water.

Third Step:

Heat the milk to a temperature of 37–38°C and add 0.02% calcium (based on the milk, dissolved in water); finally, add the chymosin and let it curdle for 20–30 minutes.

Four Step:

We cut the curd with a curd knife and let the whey drain off; we begin the heating stage, bringing the temperature to 40–42°C while gradually draining off the whey. We stop once the curd is covered with whey and let the acidification continue.

Last Step:

When the curd reaches a pH of 5.2–5.1, it’s time to melt it by adding water at 80–90°C while kneading.

Cool it in cold water, then sprinkle salt on top.

Definitely the best cheese I’ve made in this style. Dense, sliceable and elastic. Lovely little spicy kick in the rind. There is a nice contrast in flavor from the center to the rind. This is a smaller wheel so I aged it for just nine weeks to preserve a little moisture.