Cheese making; the science of

Labarbapostiza

I want to make some cheese. Blue cheese; specifically.

I've been taking a look on the internet, for recipes, videos, etc. The nuggets of wisdom have been mixed in with nuggets of something else; example; a woman who believes pasteurized milk, is the product of cows who eat grass in a pasture, and not in a shed.

And other nuggets....often requiring specific steps, not always in the same order, and specific temperatures, storage, etc.

Cheese has probably been made for thousands of years, as has leavened bread and beer, all requiring fungi. From what I can gather, the process was similar to making leavened bread, as the bakers and cheese makers had no idea what was actually happening, a bread maker would keep alive their culture of Saccharomyces cerevisiae, keeping a piece of the risen dough back, instead of baking it, and use it as a starter for the next day's bread. So, the process for cheese was similar; keeping a piece of finished cheese as the starting culture for the next batch.

The recipes to make blue cheese vary from the very simple (but maybe leaving out critical details), to the very complicated, requiring lot's of specialist supplies, and steps that may not be completely necessary. I want to try the simplest approach, with just enough science so it doesn't turn into poisonous bacterially infected gunk. If a pre-modern illiterate French peasant could do it, I should have a slight advantage, at least.

There's an easy way to make curds, which is essentially what many non-aged soft cheeses are. You should try it, if you haven't. Boil milk. When it comes to the boil, throw in a teaspoon of salt, then a table spoon of vinegar, or a few spoons of lemon juice. The acid precipitates the curds. Strain out your whey through a cloth and you have your curds, which you can eat as is. I was surprise how much I got from a litre of milk.

I want to make these curds to make blue cheese. But I'm not sure it will work. I plan to get some blue cheese from the supermarket, crumble some into a cup of milk, culture it, then pour it over my curds, put in a mould, and then leave to age.

I'm not sure of the rustic method. Was it just throwing a lump of blue in a warm and unhygienic milk bucket, and scooping up the solid muck after a few days, pressing it into a shape, and leaving it in the barn for a few months.

Here's the science bits I need to know.

The fungus in blue cheese is penicillin Roquefort. I know a bit about yeasts, but nothing about penicillins. If I make my curds by boiling the milk, I obviously can't start the culture in the milk before I boil it.

I need to know some things about penicillin. Someone who's studied their biology would know.

1. Is penicillin tolerant of acid...if I'm going to use vinegar. What would the difference be between rennet?.....Does rennet produce acid that precipitates the curds? ........Rennet appears to work at low temperatures, so you don't need to boil to get your curds, allowing you to culture the milk.

2. What's penicillin's favourite temperature? If I want to get the culture going in my cup of milk, do I need to warm it. What's too hot? What's too cold?......I don't want to put my mould in the fridge only to find it's too cold, and has pump the culture to sleep.........Is there any way of telling my culture in a cup is working. It's easy with yeast, as you see the CO2 bubbles.

3. Is penicillin anaerobic? If it is, it means I could put my cheese in an air tight container, and have to worry less about it getting infected with other things. If it does need air, I can try using plastic bags contain an air pocket.

4. Does penicillin care about gravity?........Lot's of recipes call for turning the cheese over, even each day. If I don't will the penicillin grow unevenly?

5. How tolerant is it of salt?


6. Any other useful information would be appreciated.


One thing that struck me about cheese. The antibacterial properties of the fungi are so obvious, but it took so long for the penny to drop, and for antibiotics for medicine to be developed.

locum-motion

Labarbapostiza wrote: »

...example; a woman who believes pasteurized milk, is the product of cows who eat grass in a pasture, and not in a shed...

Wow. LOL. Well, not quite literally, but I did smile!

Labarbapostiza

locum-motion wrote: »

Wow. LOL. Well, not quite literally, but I did smile!

There's more. Right after she said pasteurised milk was milk produced from cows who ate grass in a pasture...she paused, thought for a moment, and said "Not to be confused with"...(You can tell there is a little more confusion going on here)...."Not to be confused with pasteurised, which is something icky they do in factories to milk". You have to be very careful, the internet is a minefield of information.

But there were more videos I watched, and each expert didn't seem to understand what was really going on in their process. Like, carefully sterilising equipment, to make air holes in the cheese so air can circulate. Air is not sterile, it's especially full of things like fungus spores and bacteria, which destroy beers, wines, milk, etc.

I'm going to experiment. I'm trying what I believe to be the ancient peasant method, with a little more hygiene. I've taken a litre of milk in a plastic bottle, warmed it up, and then crumbled some blue cheese into it. Now I've sealed the lid again, and I'm going to leave the plastic bottle in the kitchen, and hopefully, after a few days I'll get curds that are infected with the penicillin Roquefort, whose toxins will kill bacteria, and hopefully produce some kind of blue.

This is an interesting site.

https://sites.google.com/site/lowmoonglowing/penicillin


Does yeast have a similar antibiotic toxin to penicillin's?

FISMA

Labarbapostiza wrote: »

The fungus in blue cheese is penicillin Roqueforti.

You mean penicillium, not penicillin.

There are many molds in the penicillium family and If I remember correctly, the antibiotic penicillin is not derived from the Roqueforti strain.

Have you considered taking a formal cheese making course? Should give it a shot as it would help clear up man questions which sadly, I cannot!

All I can recommend is a nice Manchego cheese with a good Weiss or Hefeweizen beer...

Markcheese

Yup there are plenty of weird practices, odd habits and counter intuitive things going on , oddly in good cheese most make a difference ...
There are many many different rennets, starter cultures,secondary cultures, innoculants depending on your required end result , and I'm kind of doubting that curdling a litre of shop bought pasteurized homogenized milk and chucking in a bit of cashel will get you much of a result...
Get a bit of rennet, you don't need raw milk (easier though),but don't use homogenized you'll need some form of starter as you said but I doubt one from a different cheese type will do it,
Do sterilize everything (except the milk :-)) , you're effectively creating conditions for bugs to thrive so you want the ones you add to have a free run ...
Cheese making 1 part science 1 part magic..

Labarbapostiza

FISMA wrote: »

There are many molds in the penicillium family and If I remember correctly, the antibiotic penicillin is not derived from the Roqueforti strain.

I had no idea what was in cheese until recently. I knew it was some kind of fungus, but didn't know it had anything to do with penicillin.

What I did know was fungi produce toxins to kill bacteria, so the bacteria does not kill them.

The fungi in cheese obviously has some kind of antiseptic effect, otherwise opportunistic bacteria would gobble the cheese up, or make it too septic with bacteria for it to be consumed by humans.

Have you considered taking a formal cheese making course? Should give it a shot as it would help clear up man questions which sadly, I cannot!

Ah but the fun of experimentation. It's a puzzle. You could do a course in how to solve the Rubiks cube, but where would the fun in that be.

Labarbapostiza

Markcheese wrote: »

There are many many different rennets, starter cultures,secondary cultures, innoculants depending on your required end result , and I'm kind of doubting that curdling a litre of shop bought pasteurized homogenized milk and chucking in a bit of cashel will get you much of a result...

I'll tell you how the experiment has gone so far. I started it Thursday night, so we're on about day three. The milk is in a transparent plastic bottle, so I can see what's happening inside.

I started by heating the milk, by standing the open bottle in a saucepan of hot water. Then I crumbed in some blue cheese and sealed it, and I haven't opened it since. By the next morning, something was beginning to happen. Bluish green patches had begun to appear on the plastic near the top of the bottle, and it had curdled there. By the next day, the bluish green patches had grown to create an inch deep ring of blue/green on the plastic, and curdling had spread throughout the bottle. Today, the curds have completely separated from the whey.

What I'm waiting for now, is to give the mycelium time to get fully rooted throughout the curds before I open the bottle and expose them to the air. If my theory is correct, at that point the blue cheese mould will be the dominant infection, and it will kill off any airborne bacteria. Then I'll strain the whey out.

Get a bit of rennet, you don't need raw milk (easier though),but don't use homogenized you'll need some form of starter as you said but I doubt one from a different cheese type will do it,

The purpose of the rennet is to quickly curdle the milk at a low enough temperature the cheese culture isn't killed. That I don't have any rennet ready to hand, gives me an opportunity to experiment; to see if I can skin the cat another way. I was thinking initially to make curds by boiling milk and adding vinegar, then having a separate culture in a cup of milk and pouring that over the curds, but then I thought, what the hell, why not try do it all in the one bottle.

Do sterilize everything (except the milk :-)) , you're effectively creating conditions for bugs to thrive so you want the ones you add to have a free run ...

Yeah, that's where I got the brain wave to try and do all the initial curdling and culturing in the bottle.

Cheese making 1 part science 1 part magic..

Yea, but I think the magic in some cases might be the ignorance of good hygiene, which seems to be the case with a soft cheese they make in Serbia from boiled curds, where the recipe I've seen doesn't require adding a culture, but I've tasted it, and it's definitely fermented.

I have a another that French cheese that smells of smelly feet, might just be that.........And I may make that an experiment, depending on the success of the current attempt....I'll give it to friends to try. And if they don't die, I might even try it myself.


I'll let you know how this one goes. I'm keeping the bottle closed until at least Thursday.

Labarbapostiza

Funny how when you want something to turn mouldy, it doesn't.

I opened my milk bottle and poured out most of the whey, because I read of the industrial process for culturing penicillium, and it requires air (sterilised air in the industrial process - not something easy to achieve in a kitchen.

So far, I'm not seeing the blooms I'd like in my milk bottle. I had it exposed to light (not sunlight, just kitchen light), would that inhibit blooms?

I've now put my sealed milk bottle in a dark press, to see if that will have any effect.

In the mean time I have started another experiment. I made spaghetti the other night, using a glass jar of Tesco's pasta sauce. I'm familiar with this sauce going mouldy quickly if I just use half a jar. After emptying the jar into my cooking, leaving just the stuff that gets stuck to the sides, I took some small shavings of blue cheese and dropped them into the jar, then sealed the jar and put it in the press. That was about three days ago. Tonight I've checked and reasonably large blooms have developed, where the specks of blue were dropped.

I'm wondering, should this thread actually be in the biology forum? (I didn't know they had their own forum, until after I started this thread. )

Markcheese

I've never actually seen mouldy milk, not saying it doesn't happen though...
Would the acidity in the whey be hampering your experiment...
Anytime I've made cheese it's been about separating curds and whey ...

Labarbapostiza

Markcheese wrote: »

I've never actually seen mouldy milk, not saying it doesn't happen though...

Yeah....milk putrification ...usually it gets beyond unbearable before you put it out of your misery...........

But...I found something interesting on Wiki. The wiki for whey has something about the preparation of "blue milk"....It's milk with a blue fungus on top, and then heating and drinking the whey.....It's not all that reliable....it has the curds sinking to the bottom on heating.

Would the acidity in the whey be hampering your experiment...

That could be an issue....I don't have beakers and pH strips. If the whey is too acidic, and the pencillium can't cope with it, that could be an answer as to why it started quickly, then stopped (or has appeared to stop).

My experiment with the leavings in the jar of Tesco's pasta sauce is going gangbusters. I only dropped in tiny scrapings of blue cheese, but now the mould (after four days) has nearly covered the tomato sauce in the bottom of the jar..(it's definitely the cheese).......It's an experiment worth trying, if you're looking to try culturing your own blue mould.

Anytime I've made cheese it's been about separating curds and whey ...

Yeah, I can make curds very quickly, with some boiling milk and a few teaspoons of vinegar. And then straining.............What I'd like, which would be super duper easy blue cheese making...Is to use those kind of curds, but get a culture like in the bottom of the pasta jar going. ....Getting a large bloom into the curds, to nix any unpleasant casein loving bacteria getting a chance.

Cost of experimentation so far; 70c.....For a litre of Tesco's creamfield's milk

I have a hunch....this is going to work. (I may need to buy one or two more jars of Tesco pasta sauce, put some damp bread in, and get a few teaspoons of dried blue spores to nuke my curds).

Labarbapostiza

Update on project so far.

As well all know in scientific endeavours most experiments fail, this odyssey being no different.

My sealed milk bottle experiment, I have accepted to be a failure. No blooms after several weeks, so I've binned it.


My jar curds experiment. That was making curds with boiling milk and a few spoons of vinegar. I placed the curd in a jam jar with some of the blue culture from my pasta jar. After close to a week I decided the experiment had been a failure, as the bloom hadn't spread throughout my curds, and they were beginning to smell (bad).

Not deterred, I considered as many possibilities for the failure as I could. I didn't wash my curds for the jam jar, could the vinegar have inhibited the penicillium.


The latest experiment began Sunday evening. I made curds from a litre of boiling milk and a few spoons of vinegar. I strained the curds, then dumped the whey. I heated a saucepan of water and dumped my curds in, to give them a wash. Then strained them.

The next step, I took a lump of Cashel Blue cheese, about a teaspoon size, and mushed it in with my warm curds, sprinkling a few crumbs on top. I placed the curds in an open Tupperware container (Ideally for unintentionally growing mould), and covered with ten foil. Checked the curds on Monday; nothing. Which disappointed me, as crumbs in pasta sauce bloom visibly over night. Checked the curds on Tuesday; again, nada. Though my hope was diminished, I did not abandon it. Checked today, Wednesday, and viola.....about half the surface of the curds is now covered in a blue tinged mould.

Cost of experiment so far; 1.50.........I'm not including the cost of the Cashel Blue in my experiment, because I ate most of it. It goes really well on hot potatoes with butter. And as a condiment with meats.

Labarbapostiza

It's Thursday.

There is a strong smell coming from my curds, I'm not sure if it's the pencillium or something bacterial. But hopefully my blue mould will kill the bacteria, if it is there.


Here's the photo of today's. I'm not sure what I should do next. Press it into a shape or leave it as is. Cover it in salt, I believe though we are finally on the road to success.

Markcheese

Looks like pretty mouldy stuff ... Glad I don't have to try it ...
Try to get some raw milk (at very least unHomoginised... ) add some kind of culture (yogurt or and butter milk) to bring the acidity up quickly (I have used soured raw milk ) ,and get some rennet /junket . That'll give you decent /unsour curds... A good place to start...
What you're making is a bit cottage cheeseish ...(easy to sour as well) With it being quite wet it'll be difficult to get veins of blue through it... (Needs air, I think salting helps develop the blue as well..

Labarbapostiza

Markcheese wrote: »

Looks like pretty mouldy stuff ... Glad I don't have to try it ...

It's meant to be mouldy. That's a sign of success...the mouldier the better. The last batch of curd I could only get to go sour (no blue blooms). The blue mould is the penicillium Roquefort used in Cashel Blue.

Try to get some raw milk (at very least unHomoginised... ) add some kind of culture (yogurt or and butter milk) to bring the acidity up quickly (I have used soured raw milk ) ,and get some rennet /junket . That'll give you decent /unsour curds... A good place to start...

The technique I'm using at the minute; boiling milk, then a few teaspoons of vinegar, is giving me sterile curds....there isn't much acetic acid (vinegar) in there in the first place, I think it may wash out easily. I'm not sure how P.Roquefort feels about acid. But I found a really good cheese making web site, where I read over various recipes. I believe basic farm house cheddar, is taking souring curds; like butter milk curds and straining and aging.

What you're making is a bit cottage cheeseish ...(easy to sour as well) With it being quite wet it'll be difficult to get veins of blue through it... (Needs air, I think salting helps develop the blue as well..

No, it's not cottage cheese. I just left the curd like that because I wanted the culture to get going more than anything else. (remember this is an experiment). If you look at a shop bought blue, you'll see cavities that look curd shaped. The blue mould does need oxygen - so it's not pressed tightly. And where some moulds grow in; Brie mould is sprayed on the surface of the cheese and works in, the blue mould must grow out. Another factor, the blue colouring is just the P.Roquefort fruit, the fungal mycelium, which is the rest of the plant are not visible to the naked eye. Ideally, they'll grow throughout the curds, eliminating any other infection,

The salting. I don't know how resistant to salt the p.Roquefort is. One recipe I watched the video, had lumping salt on the cheese roll at about 14 days. Water's affinity for salt, means it will all be drawn into the cheese and distributed. The salt will also draw water in until the salt/water mix in the cheese will be at an equilibrium with the atmospheric humidity.

I am engaged in experiments, to get a feel for the whole thing. Cheese making appears to be more about gardening than cooking.

Have you ever done a blue?

Eventually I'd like to try making a Camblu. That's a little more complicated than a plain blue.

http://www.cheesemaking.com/Camblu.html

Toby12345

Are you still making cheese?

Labarbapostiza

Toby12345 wrote: »

Are you still making cheese?

This particular experiment ended in a slightly unnerving, if not terrifying unfavourable experimental result.

I'm not sure what happened. My mixture took on a pungent odour, and seemed very active with something. I packed the cake in tin foil, and then left it for a few weeks. Whatever was in the cheese mix, managed to eat through the tin foil.

I am suspending cheese making experiments for the moment, until I am in a better position to know what went wrong, and maybe have better facilities.

Toby12345

I see.

I will be dabbling in some blue cheese making in a while myself. I will keep you in the loop. Its a interesting pastime .

Markcheese

Was talking to someone who makes paneer cheese and he does similar to your self - ( boils milk adds vinegar ) and presses -
He reckons the cheese won't age because no culture in the milk - and no salt either- (salt bath'd cure it :-) )

Labarbapostiza

Markcheese wrote: »

Was talking to someone who makes paneer cheese and he does similar to your self - ( boils milk adds vinegar ) and presses -
He reckons the cheese won't age because no culture in the milk - and no salt either- (salt bath'd cure it :-) )

I wouldn't really call it paneer. Paneer you don't make any attempt to age, you use straight away. There are other cheese that are very similar but they're slightly aged. But, "aging" would apply differently to different cheeses. I think Feta is just sheep milk kurd that's been soaked in a salt bath, I don't think there's anything else to it (but the I don't know). I've had homemade soft cheese from the Balkans. I'm not sure how they do it.

My last experiment was just too uncontrolled.

At least I've learned now a few things that do not work.