At long last, cheese.

This afternoon it became too much to bear. I had to try some cheese.

About a month ago I started a batch of Gorgonzola style cheese with some blue mould from my trip to Glenngarry in early March. The recipe calls for at least another 30 days of aging, but not to worry. Using some curd left over from making three wheels of what will hopefully turn out to be that tasty Italian blue I haphazardly pressed a little experimental wheel.


























Hoping to end up with a crumbly, Stiltonesque cheese, I tried to get a good amount of moisture out of the curd. I pressed the curds with a moderate amount of pressure for 24 hours then let the resulting wheel sit at room temperature for the mould to take effect. It was with surprising speed that the pale blue veins crawled through the little cheese wherever a crack had formed. I waxed it and threw it in the back of the fridge with little hope of an edible result.


So it was with low expectations that we sliced open the little orange wax covered wheel early this afternoon. The firm curd inside is still moist with little veins of blue mold. Creamy in texture it has a pleasant acidity and very mild blue cheese bite. We agreed over bites of the hamburgers on which it was crumbled that the outcome was very tasty indeed.




In the spirit of Paul's beer making, lets call it "Beginners Luck Blue".

Curd: 'Wheying' in on Curd

I love cheese. I have always loved cheese.  As a kid, I loved things that resemble cheese, but no longer consider cheese. I used to eat American cheese slices out of the little plastic wrapped packages as an after school snack. Yes, I am ashamed. In interim years, I have discovered such wondrous creations as French Munster, Italian Tallegio, and Spanish Valdeon. More recently, the delicious local cheeses of Monforte Dairy, and numerous other local and small-scale producers, have made me think that maybe this is something that I could do myself.

I finally decided to make cheese at home after watching the process on the BBC's the Victorian Farm, a great documentary series that recaptures daily activities of our recent ancestors. Seeing the simple, relatively inexact conditions under which the researchers worked, inspired me to try my hand at cheesemaking. My first attempt was a pressed ‘farmhouse’ cheese from Gramma's copy of Joy of Cooking (see Paul’s earlier post). We used buttermilk as a starter, dried rennet tablets, and a very questionable pressing method. The result was not great.

I have since received some help from the fine people at Glenngarry Cheese. They are located in Lancaster Ontario, where I recently visited.  I was expecting to purchase some quality bacterial starter, liquid calf's rennet (that’s the good stuff) and a cheese mold. When I arrived, they greeted me with such inspiring enthusiasm, and a whirlwind of information and encouragement. They were thrilled to hear that I had decided to join the ranks of the cheesemaker.  We talked for over an hour about the major do’s and don’ts that a first timer should watch out for. They also had all of the key ingredients that I could not find elsewhere. Thank you Glenngarry Cheese.

With the completion of the cheese press, and all the proper ingredients we decided to make one of my favourites, Traditional Cheddar. We won’t know how it tastes for another nine months (it's meant to be aged), but it definitely looks like cheese, and has a an aroma that I can confidently say, smells like cheese. I’ll keep you updated.

Curd: Making The Cheese Press

Our first foray into making cheese was a clumsy affair. We used a recipe from mine and Dave's grandmothers copy of the Joy of Cooking, one of our go to books. Our cheese press was comprised of a coffee can, a circle of wood, and several bricks gathered from the backyard. The process went well and seems to have produced something resembling cheese, its still aging and we should be able to taste it in another week or so. We attempted to dye the wax on this cheese with red food colouring which obviously didn't provide an even coat. We also had difficulties with the bricks used to press the cheese when they toppled over in the middle of the night.

We decided our next attempt at cheese making will need a proper cheese press. Dave came up with some plans and we have started putting it together in our dads wood shop. The materials used for the press will be entirely plywood scraps gathered from old projects. So far we have glued together the base of the press and the arms but will have to connect it all together. We are still undecided on what to use for weights at the end of the lever.

I can see a lot of benefits from producing our own cheese. One obvious benefit is the enjoyment of the cheese making process. Another benefit is not having to spend the fortune it costs for the hard cheeses I use in every day cooking like parmigiano reggiano, piave or toscano. To do these more complicated cheeses we are going to need bacterial cultures that we are still in the process of acquiring. I've been talking to the artisan cheese makers at the Wychwood Barns Farmers Market to see where they get their cultures or if I can get some from them. Ruth Klahsen from Monteforte Dairy has been particularly helpful. I am also trying to find some raw milk sources, hopefully my buddy Leland who is expecting to get some goats on his farm near Cambelford this summer will have excess milk.