Neil..
Since you are our resident surface ripened expert, I decided to post this question to you.
Last week I made a batch of Camembert that looked as if it might be my best batch to date.
The curd I got on this batch was my best ever, by far.
Please take a look at the attached photo and let me know if you’ve ever seen anything like this.
A few days ago, this cheese had a very nice coating of white fuzz. The mold started growing at day three and continued to grow for the next several days.
Then, all of a sudden the white started to disappear and this wrinkly, brain looking rind started to form on the cheese.
I will say that this was by far the wettest curd I’ve ever seen on a Camembert.
When I removed the molds, the cheese would barely hold together, in fact I was very leary about even trying to turn the wheels in fear of them falling apart.
I got 5 wheels out of this two gallon batch whereas normally I would only get 4.
Two of the wheels look decent, meaning they still have a white coating and feel quite firm.
The other three all have this same texture and the white mold has disappeared.
I will probably go ahead and wrap all of the cheeses, but I really don’t know that I can ever give these nasty looking cheeses a taste.
I’m really just curious as to how they ripen, more than anything else.
If you have any ideas (or anyone else), I’d love to hear them.

Dave

Oops..
I see that I didn’t attach my photo to the above post.
Here it is:

Hi Dave,

I have made a lot of of surface ripened cheeses since I started this crazy hobby..it has been my primary focus.  I saw this and I have a number of comments/questions.

What temperature did you ripen/process the curds at?  I know most of the literature has a range of 86-90F for this type of cheese.  I have found that the higher end of the range generally works better for me than the lower end.  What size did you cut the curds, and how long did you let them rest before stirring?  Did you check the temperature when you cut the curd to be sure it hadn’t dropped?  If so, you can put your pot in a water bath and get it back up to 88F or so to help release more whey while you stir.  The fact that you got 5 cheeses out of what I assume was a 2 gal batch, and the fragility of the cheeses when you unmolded them indicates that they still retained too much moisture.

How much time passed and how many times did you flip them before you unmolded them.  Generally, I don’t unmold my camemberts until 16-24 hours after I fill the molds, and typically flip them 5-8 times.  At flip 3 or 4 I will sprinkle a little salt for 2 flips ti help drain whey.

What is your initial ripening temperature?  If you start growing surface mold at 3 days I think that your temperature and possibly your humidity are too high.  I expect to see the first bloom of candidum at 5-8 days, and then usually 4-5 days after that I wrap.  BTW, I didn’t mention it explicitly but there is the salting after unmolding and before putting in the ripening “cave”.  This is something I am still working on but I think about 1% by weight is a good starting point.

Depending on the moisture level of the cheese and the thickness of the cheese, and putting them in the regular fridge at 38F or so after wrappin, I find it takes anywhere from 4-10 weeks for the cheese to ripen.  Most of them get eaten while still slightly underripe in the center, but I find that it generally better than overripe.

I find your case here interesting in that some of your cheeses look normal and some have this wrinkled rind.  Some of my first camembert attempts ripened like this and it was a combimation of the moisture level being too high and the initial ripening temperature being too high.  It will be interesting to see how yours evolve.  Don’t be surprised if they turn stinky and/or ammoniacal.

I am trying to figure out why some look normal and some not.  When you fill the molds, do you fill one and then move to another or rotate around the molds a ladleful at a time?  I do the latter.  Depending on how well things were mixed and how quickly the initial set of the rennet takes place, there can be a stratification of the composition of the milk.  If you didn’t stir the curds after cutting and you filled the molds individually, there could be a composition variation.

If I had to make specific recommendations based on the limited information before you respond, I would say 1. Process at a slightly higher temperature.
2. rest the curds for 15 min after cutting, then stir gently nfor 10-15 min, then rest for 10 min or so and drain whey before molding. 3. Salt a little bit while flipping to help release whey. 4. Ripen at a lower temp.

as this question directed to only Neil, then we will wait his answer to you Dave

Nabil,

That was my initial reaction also until I read the end of Dave’s post.

Likesspace - 28 January 2009 01:14 AM

If you have any ideas (or anyone else), I’d love to hear them.

Dave

I would be interested to hear your opinion on this, and I am confident Dave would as well.

Tom,
First of all, thanks a lot for the reply. This batch has me baffled to say the least.
I will try to answer all of your questions, but I’m pretty sure you are right about the moisture content of the cheese being the culprit.
I think what is happening is that the interior of the cheese is shrinking due to moisture loss.

Here are the specifics of this make:

My curd temp was 90 degrees and remained at 90 degrees right up to the time I cut the curd.

Normally I ladle the curd without cutting (according to a Ricki Carrol recipe) but this time I did cut it into approximately 2” squares. I really figued this would help expel more of the whey, but it seems to have had the exact opposite effect.

I did not give the curd a rest period and this could very well be the root of the problem. The curd was very soft when it went into the mold and never really seemed to drain as my past batches have.

I flipped the wheels every hour for about 4 hours and then let the wheels remain in the mold overnight.
The next morning I did remove the wheels from the mold and then turned them by hand for approx. 6 more hours. I did salt the cheese as soon as I took them out of the mold, but they never did dry out like they should have.

My initial ripening temp was always between 50 and 55 degrees. I have them in a “cold room” (actually an unheated closet) in our house.
During the winter months this room always stays between 50 and 55 degrees and I’ve found it to be a very good room for the initial ripening in the past.

The cheeses that look nasty, do have a strong ammonia smell coming from them.
The other wheels (the ones that are still growing mold) do not have this smell.
The wheels that look “okay” are not perfect examples but they look so much better than the others that it makes them look really nice.
I did notice while flipping the cheese that 2 of the wheels were fairly solid (drying better than the others) and one other was somewhat less moist.
The other two wheels actually felt like they were soaking wet and I’m sure that these are now the worst examples.

As for filling the molds, I alternate between the camembert molds, filling each a ladle full at a time. I really have no idea why some of these turned out better than the others.

You have given me some very good tips which I will try on my next batch.
This is rapidly becoming my favorite cheese to eat so I’d really like to perfect the recipe.
I will say that my last batch (which is now ripe) turned out fantastic.
All but a very small place in the center has that nice liquidy texture.

As I said, I really do appreciate your input and I would also like to hear Nabil’s advice as well.
I posted this specifically for Neil since he seems to check this site often and does make a lot of this style of cheese.

I’ll keep you updated on my future progress and will let you know what I decide to do with this batch.
Right now I’m thinking of trashing the really bad examples while trying to salvage the other three.

Dave

Thanks for the vote of confidence but im no expert.
We talked about something like this long time ago and if it spoiled then its a bacteria common to when food goes bad and a funky wrinkle mold happens, looks like brain material. So keeping the nose to the cheese to detect off smell is important and sprinkling salt on top might change the surface if it is bad. However from the picture it does not look like its bad and maybe u stumbled onto another transformation like “Wrinkle Chevre”

Here is a write up;
————————————————————————-
Americans tend to think of chevre, or French-style goat cheese, as a creamy and spreadable product, a cheese moist enough to dollop in soft clumps on a pizza. But that’s fresh chevre. A chevre destined for ripening, such as a Chabichou du Poitou (sha-bee-shoo dew pwa-too), develops a rind and becomes drier and firmer with time, eventually becoming hard enough to grate.
The Poitou region of France is southwest of the Loire River, in the modern political entity known as the Poitou-Charentes. This is goat country and the source of the petite Chabichou, a 5-ounce cylinder, taller than it is wide, with a wrinkled bloomy rind. Chabichou du Poitou possesses AOC (appellation d’origine controlee), or name-controlled, status, so regulations govern where and how it is made. Some farmstead production with raw milk persists, but what we see in this country is largely made from pasteurized milk in cooperatives, such as Sevre et Belle, or in large dairies that pool milk from many sources.

Like many other traditional French goat cheeses, Chabichou is made with minimal rennet. Instead the milk is cultured and allowed to sour slowly, over 20 hours or so, during which time flavor-producing bacteria proliferate and acidity rises enough to curdle the milk. Cheesemakers add a touch of rennet to achieve a firmer curd, but it’s effectively the high concentration of lactic acid that coagulates the milk. The soft, moist curds are ladled directly into molds without cutting them first, and they drain without any pressing. After a day or so, the fresh cheeses are unmolded, salted and transferred to drying rooms to ripen for anywhere from 10 days to two months.

I have seen pictures of Chabichou with plentiful blue-gray molds on the rind, but I have never seen the cheese that well developed here. Typically, the rind will be off-white and deeply wrinkled. The cheese I purchased at Whole Foods recently was firm to the touch and probably several weeks old; inside, it was dense and compact, although still creamy and palate coating, with a translucent ivory band just under the rind. The aroma was subdued, maybe faintly goaty, the flavor mild and neither aggressively salty nor tart.