Cheesing about.

Long time no post! It seems like an eternity but it was just ten days ago. I wanted to post about stracchino and a couple of caciotta experiments that I have performed but I still haven't got around organising myself and I don't have the pictures at hand. Also I had to stop making fucking cheese day and night or I'd have become like the dude in the picture above!
So I thought I'd just post a quick one to point you all cheese-mongers in the direction of a very nice blog run by the people of the New England Cheesemaking supply company.
The blog is here: http://cheesemakinghelp.blogspot.com/ and focuses on crazy people like us who started to make cheese for fun and developed quite a business with time.
I also want to spend some link-love for the guys at "Small Farm Supplies" who have pretty much all you need for a small holding and making cheese at very interesting prices, they are quick and very helpful. Not very strong on the cheese culture starters but hey, you can't have everything.
For an excellent review and explanation of starter cultures check out the Cheesemaker, excellent website because it gives a very good description of what each culture does and also gives the exact composition of bacteria in each one of them.

Little M. liked it

If it is true that I am usually the most strict judge of my own work, it is also true that self-reference is no good if you want to improve your act. So I brought samples of the lactic cheese I prepared last week to the Brother's place. The Brother is usually very fussy about food and especially about home made stuff and he has gained the nickname of "Son of Capitalism and ready made food". The Brother liked it but even more impressive was the thumbs up given by Little M.
Little M. is Brother's elder son and of course my nephew and "the grandchild of Capitalism and ready made food".
Whizzie keeps insisting that he is in reality my secret child, but Little M. is fussy about pretty much anything edible and was really impressed with the lactic cheese and kept shovelling it down his own throat, trying the three different spice associations (thyme; rosemary + garlic; sage + onion) and repeating the whole process all over again just to make sure he got right the one he liked most.
So, Little M. says the sage and onion one is the best but he liked very much the other two as well and he'll let me know about the bland one + honey for breakfast (but he's waiting for your honey Whizzie!).
Chipmunk, the younger nephew, was just not interested in these cheesy stuff, he's superior to these mortal things.
Then we also tried to make stracchino although the kids lost readily interest in the process and the whole thing was a complete failure.
Once home I tried again and this time I got it right. It's still maturing and I'll be posting about it soon.

Lactic cheese.

This is possibly the easiest cheese recipe ever, you don't even need rennet to do it and it's delicious. It takes a couple of days but the effort involved is minimal.
First thing you need to do is to prepare your mesophilic starter. This is a compound of bacteria that ferment milk at room temp. You can do it by leaving milk at room temp for 24 hrs or by inoculating a little bit of milk with the content of a probiotic drink or a yogurt. It needs to be brought to room temperature well in advance (in the morning) to give a chance to the bacteria to start working. Lactobacillus acidophilus does a great job and you find it in most probiotic drinks and some yogurt but if you want to use professional stuff you can buy a proper starter like this one (it's enough to inoculate 150 liters of milk). If you go for yogurt or some probiotic drink, make sure there is no Bifidobacterium because in my short experience it does not allow the milk to curd. Streptococcus thermophilus and bulgaricus are ok as long as there is lactobacillus acidophilus. So, second thing you need to do is to bring a liter of pasturaised milk to 21°C in the evening and add a couple of spoons of the mesophilic starter you prepared in the morning. Leave everything at room temp and the bacteria will use the lactose in the milk producing lactic acid as a byproduct wich will lower the pH causing the milk to curd (usually between 8 and 12 hrs but could take up to 24). The amazing thing (to me) is that you get a very firm curd without rennet. So it will have probably curded by morning but if you dont have time to do anything, just leave it for when you come back.

On day 2 cut the curd along the two dimensions in cubes of 1 cm or 2. Then cut along the 3rd dimension orizzontally as in the pictures.

 

Let it rest for an hour.

 

 Drain it in a colander with a cheesecloth or just a cloth that can let the whey through. Preferably in a kitchen cleaner than mine!

 Hang it preferably in a cool room. The first time I did it I left it at room temp in the kitchen at 17°C and it came just fine. Let it drain for at least 24 hrs.It will be soft, spreadable and juicy.

 

 Eat it as it is or add herbs!

I have actually prepared 2 litres and got roughly 7-800 grams of it and I prepared some with sage and onion, some with thyme and some with rosemary and garlic. If you do too, it would be good practice to sterilise the herbs in a closed jar by boiling and to let cool, add then the cheese by mixing it with a sterile spoon. It will last longer. I also left half of it as it is, it's super yummy! It will keep in the fridge for at least a week.

PS. If you have dogs, they love whey, it is a good although poor source of protein and you should feed it to them.

The cheese fever.

Oh dear! It is difficult to explain, this cheese fever that suddenly gets you, that makes you get up early in the morning to check on the strater cultures, that makes you look at your first creations aging in the cellar like if they were pets needing your love, that makes you feel like you don't have enough time to try all the recipes you'd like to try ...
I have been compulsively buying on the internet and off the internet, in the real world, I have been buying different thermometers, cheesecloth, starter cultures of all kinds, cheese moulds and alternative pressing methods, dreaming about ways to do things... Oh my! And it is soooo gooood!
First pictures in a few days.

He's gone.

 

What a fucking piece of shit. He has wasted so much of our time and money. It was about fucking time he got defeated by his own mistakes, drowned in his own shit, betrayed by his own puppets. It will take us at least 20 years to get back some credibility and to fix all the damage he has done. I'm happy he is gone but I'm also sad that it took so long.
I made cheese tonight, I think it could well be considered the first cheese without him as a prime minister!
Bye bye, Berlusconi.