non-evil cheese!

[eub]

Cut one open of the 1/21 "random-temperature farmhouse Cheddar". It did not go evil! (The one other aged cheese I tried doing, the Monterey Jack, did go evil -- still had a friable fresh-cheese texture, and started by tasting like a fresh cheese, but then with a building bitter edge that made you wash your mouth out.) This one actually tasted recognizably like a flaky mildish Cheddar -- "with a note of cream cheese", Sheryl said -- a little bit Cheshirey, maybe?

Its surface, under the wax cladding, had purple and green and pink mottlings that did look rather on the evil side, and smelled a bit off, so we trimmed them. Some may just have been migration of the black wax coloring? Only the purple is my guess.



cheeselog, 21 Jan:

My instant-read thermometer is reading crazily, so I'm just guessing temperatures. Switched from "traditional cheddar" to "farmhouse cheddar" recipe as shorter and involving less technique that might be shot to hell by wrong temperatures. Cheesecloth of curds is now draining -- stockpot not deep enough to hang the curds from a wooden spoon across without their touching the bottom, and the best I could find was to set a Re'an patchbay box across each side to prop the spoon up.

2 gal Darigold
5:15 starter (too cool?)
6:10 1/4 tsp CaCl2, 1/2 tsp rennet
7:15 clean break. cut 1/2", heat.
7:45 curd still soft. more heat.
8:30 drained. broke up, 3/4 T salt.
9:25 pressed half-batch 1 w/ mortar + CLR
9:35 += CRC, O-chem
?? can't figure out what I'm saying I did with half-batch 2.
~30 hours pressed with "all wt".

Aged in the cheese cupboard until now.

Comments

[cheesepuppet.livejournal.com]

....but then with a building bitter edge that made you wash your mouth out.

Aiyeee!