casein point

JOWETT CHEESE LTD.: Chapter one "Build A Dairy", almost completed. Chapter two "Cheesemaking" is beginning

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 06:17:32 +0100

JOWETT CHEESE LTD.: Chapter one "Build A Dairy", almost completed. Chapter two "Cheesemaking" is beginning:

Today was an incredibly monumental day for the JC project: it was the first time I’ve brought milk into the dairy… And bringing milk into the dairy means cheese is being made!

I did the milk run to Gorsehill Abbey at sunrise, arrived back at the dairy in record time and without a drop of milk…

Turkish artisan cheese shop in the eastern town of Edirne near...

Sat, 10 Nov 2012 06:11:11 +0000

Turkish artisan cheese shop in the eastern town of Edirne near the Bulgarian-Greek-Turkish border, which prides itself as the home of Turkey’s ”White cheese”.

INDIA

Sun, 09 Sep 2012 14:55:36 +0100

soon to be blogging Turkish and Indian cheeses

As well as making burrata today (see below), we also created...

Thu, 08 Mar 2012 19:29:00 +0000

As well as making burrata today (see below), we also created some lovely mozzarella. Thank you Italy

Burrata. Mozzarella for adults. Imitating leather medieval...

Thu, 08 Mar 2012 19:26:00 +0000

Burrata. Mozzarella for adults. Imitating leather medieval pouches of gold, these wonderful cheeses not only taste incredible but are also incredibly fun to make. Inside the mozzarella ball lies a pool of fresh cream and strips of stretched mozzarella. Once made, they are tied up, put in bags and either kept in ice cold water or eaten immediately with fresh tomato and basil. Traditionally they are tied up with the leaves of the asphodelus plant.

I can’t wait to get hold of some buffalo milk at my local farmers’ market in Stoke Newington and make some more. In my days as a cheesemonger, on the day that the Italian delivery arrived we had customers waiting impatiently to get hold of burrata as it has a limited shelf life and we could only buy in a certain amount.

Stomachs. Loads of em. Our booty from the Ludlow/Jongia Dairy...

Thu, 08 Mar 2012 18:40:00 +0000

Stomachs. Loads of em. Our booty from the Ludlow/Jongia Dairy symposium earlier this week. Never before have I been so excited about having a bag full of dried stomachs (abomasums) to take home. Actually never before have I had a bag full of stomachs. Now what to do with them?…..make cheese?

If this week has taught me anything it’s that you should...

Sat, 03 Mar 2012 09:35:47 +0000

If this week has taught me anything it’s that you should not despair when things don’t quite seem to go as you would wish. Just hold tight and it’ll all be fine. Now back to the cheese

Week 2, top left - hairy as a beast (scared?)

Week 3, top right - hold on…starting to look surprisingly attractive

Week 4, bottom - drop dead gorgeous

What a funny world bacteria and mould can be. Just when you’re thinking that your bin’s not big enough for your latest failed experiments, the god of microflora waves his magic wand and lets the happy moulds win in the battle of good versus evil. We devoured a quarter of this whisky washed cheese this evening which I thought was quite reserved Since posting this blog, I took our cheese to be inspected by our tutor for the week, Ivan Larcher. Within a second of looking at it, he knew that we had used too much starter due to the open texture of the pate. The blue moulds were forming because the lower pH of the cheese (more acidification from LABs) had created the perfect environment for them to grow rather than a pH of closer to 5.5 which is what’s needed for B.linens to grow. The open texture had also allowed whey to precipitate through the cheese and created a damp underside every time the cheese was turned.

Ivan Larcher at SAF

Sat, 03 Mar 2012 01:37:28 +0000

see below for some pictures of the ewes and cows milk lactic cheeses that were made under the expert guidance of Ivan, ‘the cheese ninja’.

Dalmatia saint pierre, et voila

Sat, 03 Mar 2012 01:33:47 +0000

Dalmatia saint pierre, et voila

Photo

Sat, 03 Mar 2012 01:32:26 +0000

Seeing as I’m being a bit lazy and, of course, wanted to...

Sat, 03 Mar 2012 01:29:01 +0000

Seeing as I’m being a bit lazy and, of course, wanted to promote the wonderful new blog on the bloc, I thought I’d let Ladleandknead do the talking. Here’s what we got up to last week at the school. An understatement to say how blown away we were by Ivan Larcher’s technical know-how and lactographic wizardry….

ladleandknead:

Three fantastic days of lactic cheesemaking with Ivan Larcher, learning from one of cheese’s modern day experts.

Working with sheep and cow’s milk we made some wonderful Chaource, creamy filled Nivernais, some petit Crottins and beautiful ash covered Pouligny Saint Pierres in the shape of pyramids.

Abomasum experiments

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 22:34:27 +0000

Abomasum experiments at The School of Artisan Food. (An abomasum...

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 22:33:00 +0000

Abomasum experiments at The School of Artisan Food. (An abomasum is the 4th stomach of a ruminant from which you procure rennet, itself from the magical enzyme chymosin)

In the interests of turophilic research and the eagerness of the students to understand a little bit more about the magic behind cheese making, we embarked on a day of trials with a calf abomasum.

We decided to start with 5 bowls of unpasteurised milk each 2litres and heated them all to 32ºC. We then added 0.15g R704 starter culture (a fast acidifier) and left them for an hour. During that time we divided the abomasum up into different sized pieces.

A - 1.25g abomasum in 125mls tap water (12ºC left for 2 hours, then 5mls of liquid added to the milk without the abomasum piece)

B - 1.25g abomasum in 125mls water (12ºC left for 1 hour, then 5mls of liquid added to the milk without the abomasum piece)

C - 2.5g abomasum (dry, mixed in the milk for 30 seconds using a sieve)

D - 5g abomasum ” ” ” )

E - 10g abomasum ” ” ” )

While we were waiting for the milk to turn to curd, we kept the bowls sitting in a bain marie style on the draining table so that they would maintain their 32ºC temp. The first to coagulate was E in 50 minutes, the second was D in 1hr 05minutes, the third was C in 1hr 50minutes, the fourth was A in 2hr 20minutes and the last was B which hadn’t coagulated by the end of the day so we left it overnight in the room (29ºC) and I came in the next morning to cut the curd. The next morning it had coagulated but it was an incredibly fragile curd. The rest of the curds were ladled the previous day into coulommiers moulds and had settled nicely. I salted these at 1% and turned them. They each weighed between 235 -245g. The following day I came back to turn the unruly B and salt it. It hadn’t sunk very well in the mould and had a weight of 365g. They’re all now happily curing away in our maturing rooms at 12ºC at 85% relative humidity. We’ll wait a week or two and then have a taste of the first cheeses any of us have made with our own home made rennet

This is what happens when you don’t wash your cheese...

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 18:11:00 +0000

This is what happens when you don’t wash your cheese curing cabinet after washing your previous cheeses in a blue cheese rind. The blue dots are vestiges of penicillium roquerforti. The white fluffy mould I believe is called poil de chat (cat’s hair) although as I didn’t put it there on purpose it could be anything. There are actually fluffier cheeses at the back of the cabinet but they seem quite happy and I’m content to let them keep on ‘maturing’ at least until I make another batch at which point said cabinet will get a thorough scrub down! Luckily the ones at school don’t look anything like this although I think these have got quite a bit of character.

Study: Goats Can Have "Accents" | NBC Chicago

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 23:43:00 +0000

Study: Goats Can Have "Accents" | NBC Chicago:

murrayscheese:

Oi! Oy’m a goat frum Angland!

Seeing as I’ve been feeding goats every day for the past week I wonder if they’d respond differently if I speak to them in a German accent during tomorrow morning’s breakfast feed. Sam, the billy has a completely different baaa to his harem of 14 ladies. Much lower and surprisingly quieter. ”Researchers found that as goats grew older and moved with different herds, their voices changed to adopt the specific call of their new herd”….

Source: http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/weird/Goats-Have-Accents—139439808.html#ixzz1mkwFDkCR

Kefir

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 21:19:00 +0000

So I’ve been going on about how much I want to make kefir...

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 20:49:00 +0000

So I’ve been going on about how much I want to make kefir and, what do you know, my housemate Tom comes back from working at a bakery in the south-west with a jar full of kefir grains. Queue next stage of experi(fer)mentation.

There are numerous tales as to the origin of kefir and its history is pretty vague, but most sources agree its birthplace was somewhere in the depths of the Balkan-Caucasian mountains. Kefir grains are supposed to have developed spontaneously having been kept in natural animal gut linings such as the intestine and bladder or pelt-made receptacles. The wonderful thing about kefir grain is the fact that you can’t just go and make your own, you can either get kefir starter powders or if you are lucky like us get given kefir grains from somebody (or buy them off the internet). As you use kefir grains to inoculate your milk, they will grow in size. The more you inoculate and ferment, the larger the grains grow and you can then give your friends some of their own to do just the same. Kefir grains actually have nothing to do with cereal grain like wheat or oats and look like miniature florets of cauliflower. They are soft, slightly sticky, gelatinous and have a kind of springiness to them as well. They are brilliant little things, made up of colonies of yeasts and bacteria that coexist in a symbiotic relationship and are ridiculously good for you. The main bacteria is lactic acid bacteria like you find in cheese including Lactobacillus delbrueckii and Leuconostoc (my nickname at food school). These work with the yeasts such as Saccharomyces cerivisiae (the main yeast used in the brewing of beer and baking), Saccharomyces kefir, Kluyveromyces marxianus and Pichia fermentans to give kefir its beneficial properties. Much of the microflora is inhibitory towards food-borne pathogens and can supposedly reduce symptoms of lactose intolerance by providing an extra source of Beta-Galactosidase (an enzyme that breaks down lactose into more easily digestible monosaccharides such as glucose and galactose). Kefir has a huge list of nutritional benefits including relief of intestinal disorders, reduced flatulence (here’s hoping), it creates a healthy digestive system and contributes towards a healthy immune system. The list of benefits is staggering but I’ll leave it for you to find out more.

If you want to get hold of some, here’s a website with a list of people around the world who are willing to either sell or give away their kefir grains. We’ve just had a glass of kefir made from yesterday’s inoculation of unpasteurised milk and we’re all wide eyed and bushy tailed (it’s also about 2% ABV which is no bad thing):

http://www.torontoadvisors.com/Kefir/kefir-list.php

In the photos are: top left - kefir grains washed and ready to be added to milk.

top right - grains sitting in a litre of fresh unpasteurised milk. You can use any milk really but unpasteurised is full of amazing bacteria that get fresh with the kefir grains when they meet. Leave the kefir in a warm part of your room and they will ferment away happily and be ready within 24-48 hrs

bottom left - pour the kefir through a sieve (preferably non-metallic but I don’t have a choice at the moment)

bottom right - kefir grains left in the sieve ready to inoculate your next batch. Hopefully you’ll have a delicious, silky, slightly sour and mildly alcoholic super drink in the bowl below.

If you’ve just received your kefir grains and they have been travelling for a while, you may need to do this process 2 or 3 times before the milk starts thickening up. Enjoy the yeast feast

Massive massive massive thanks to Cheesenotes for letting me...

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 23:13:00 +0000

Massive massive massive thanks to Cheesenotes for letting me know about this radio interview with Paul Kindstedt regarding his new book. For anyone that doesn’t know Paul Kindstedt, he really is a god in the world of cheese literature. If you are interested in making cheese and want to know more about the science behind it all but don’t want to trawl through endless mind numbing text books on the chemistry and microbiology of cheese, look no further. American Farmstead Cheese is fantastically well written and packed with information. A rarity in this specialist subject. His new book Cheese and Culture (A History of Cheese and it’s Place in Western Civilisation) is out in the UK on 28 March 2012 *rubs hands excitedly and runs to the fridge for cheese*.

cheesenotes:

On the latest episode of her podcast Cutting The Curd, Anne Saxelby talks to Paul Kinstedt about his newest book, Cheese and Culture, due to hit the shelves in the Spring. Kinstedt is PhD Professor at UVM and co-director of VIAC and author of the required-reading American Farmstead Cheese, which includes a chapter on the history of cheese from which this book was expanded.

Update: You can now pre-order the book on Amazon!

Cutting the Curd - Episode 90 - Cheese History with Paul Kindstedt

Anne Saxelby and Sophie Slesinger are joined by author Paul Kindstedt, who’s latest book “Cheese and Culture: A History of Cheese and its place in Western Civilization”, explores the 11,000 year old history of cheese! Tune in to learn about everything from maritime trade, ancient pottery and religion as they relate to cheese on an especially historical episode of the best Cheese radio show in the world! This program was sponsored by Hearst Ranch.

You can listen to it here, but you should really subscribe to it via iTunes or listen via the Heritage Radio Network, home to many other great foodie podcasts in addition to Cutting The Curd.

Through the wonders of Pinterest, I found another guy making Mysöst who added cream to the reduced...

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 17:13:00 +0000

Through the wonders of Pinterest, I found another guy making Mysöst who added cream to the reduced whey. As you can see (if you click on the link) it gives a spreadable fudgy texture to the end product.

Source: thepurloinedletter.blogspot.com via Luke on Pinterest

It's not your sost, it's mysost

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 18:25:00 +0000

Having sold gjetöst (a goat’s milk version of this Norwegian cheese) in a previous life and watched the vast percentage of people recoil in disgust or at least surprise, I wanted to try and make my own! I happen to like it but then again I happen to like everything. Mysöst (also known as Brunöst which literally means brown cheese in Norwegian) is a traditional cow’s milk ‘cheese’ made using the whey from a previous cheese make. The idea is to reduce the whey over a hot stove for however long it takes and not burn everything as you’re doing it. The resultant sludge gets blitzed in a mixer, reduced further, transferred to a mould and left to solidify in a fridge overnight. Mysöst is not too dissimilar to fudge and it’s cousin Gjetöst has a wonderfully caramelly goatiness to it. Traditionally it is eaten at breakfast time on a thin slice of bread or cracker and a steaming cup of coffee. There is a saltiness to mysöst that together with the sweet fudginess can be a bit off putting. All you have to do is tell yourself you’ve never had anything like it before, nod your head whilst eating, smile and take a gulp of coffee. Then repeat process until you like it. I’m a fan and that’s why I decided to give it a go and make it. The whole process from 8 litres of whey to mixture in the mould took about 6.5hrs. It’s also a fantastic way of dealing with excess whey after the cheese make. Wahey…………