As I mentioned in the topic “Cracked the Jack” I was going to make Gouda with dried Stinging Nettles in it this weekend.
Here some pictures about the two wheels in the brine and the two drying after the brine, with a beer can as reference for the size…
Unfortunately when I went out to the farm to by the milk it was raining, otherwise I would have taken pictures from the neighbourhood over there.
For the cheese I used the normal recipe for Gouda from “Making artisan cheese” from Tim Smith, but recalculated for 4.3 gallon (about 16 liters). That gave me two completely filled 1 kg Gouda molds. They stayed in the brine for four hours because of their size. The 16 kg wheels they make on farms will stay in the brine for one day.
As you can see the cheeses are already pretty dry after one night.
I found a very “minimalistic” Gouda recipe in an old flyer, I will post that in the recipes.

Very nice looking, better start collecting my own Nettles LOL.

The cheese is lovely. I don’t know what stinging nettles taste like, so I will have to go pick some, now that I know which weed they are. If you only have one cheese press, how do you press two separate cheeses from the same recipe? I have that Artisan cheese book by Tim Smith too. I think he says to let it sit in the cave for 3 weeks before waxing it like Ricki Carrol says. I am going to vacuum seal one of mine and wax the other two, but I’m not waiting 3 weeks. That way I can see if I can taste the difference.

The long run is when u taste the difference unfortunatly.

If it takes 3 months to get ready, isn’t that long enough? I put them back in the cave without anything after I attempted to smoke them Sunday. I figure I will wax and seal this weekend. I did dump the water out of the pan in the cave though, they were molding up with it in there. It’s a good thing cheese making is not a hectic hobby. I might do it today, I could wait a few more days…

From my trials, its well forth waiting the 6 months other then the young cheeses to be eaten so.

Fortunately I don’t have to pick the nettles myself, I buy them from the same webshop I get my other cheese making stuff from. You have to use 7 gram per kilo cheese, boil them for 10 minutes to sterialize and then wait anouther hour to use them, so they are completely soaked.

Normally I coat my hard cheeses when the bottom stays dry after half a day and I let them dry after brining outside the cave. I’m used to turn the cheeses in the cave every morning before I go to work and every afternoon when I come home.

About the pressing: yes, this size of moulds won’t fit next to each other under my press, but fortunately I can stack 2 of them on top of each other.

How long I keep them in the cave? Hard to say: The smaller the cheese, the quicker it ages. I have no idea how fast the waxed cheeses mature compared with natural rinds or coated cheeses. I like the normal Gouda to be quite old, commonly cheese with herbs are eaten a bit younger. And my wife likes the cheese a bit younger than I do…

I can’t believe u can use stinging nettles in anything. They grow here and boy when u even brush one it hurts like crazy. Can’t imagine how u would even pick them. Even if u use gloves the stingers stay on the gloves to get u later.

Leather gloves and a quick dip in boiling water and their good to go. Common in food in Europe, their are even nettle eating contests in Britain (Pub against Pub).