I made a smoked gouda in June. I’ve tasted it before and I liked it, but now when I taste it, there is a bitter after taste. I was going to share it with some other people tonight, but I don’t like how it tastes.

too much or old rennet?

May be to much smoke/smoking that intensified during the time.

I had a quick look at the book “About artisan cheese” which is for decades a standard book for Dutch artisan Gouda cheese makers. It contains a complete chapter about all possible defects and I’ve translated the part about bitter taste:
Quote:
During ripening of the cheese bitter flavors will develop. Most of the times these flavors will be unnoticed among the other flavors and also they will be broken down again during ripening.
In cheese with a high percentage of moisture the ripening can be disturbed and too much bitter flavors can develop. Some cultures do not break down the bitter flavors enough and too much rennet can also cause this effect.
Advise:
- More intensive and longer handling of the curd to get a dryer curd.
- Raise the temperature of the curd with the second adding of hot water up till above 97F so less rennet will be captured in the cheese
- Use a good working culture
- Raise the ripening temperature
end quote
I hope this will help you for the future. Also one thing I learned from this book, is that there is a difference in recipes for Gouda cheese when you make the smaller “Baby Gouda” or cheeses above 3 kilo. This has to do with the ripening process and the biochemical balance which is better in bigger cheeses (I noticed myself the same effects with making bigger volumes of wine and beer).

Herman,

The book you referred to, “About Artisan Cheese,” sounds like a great reference volume for any of us to have on our shelf.  I’ve Googled the title, but come up with nothing.  Is it still in print, or is it only available in Dutch?

The original dutch title is “Rondom boerenkaas” and it is only available in Dutch. It’s a publication of the “dutch union of farm diaries” (hope I translated that correctly, “diaries” sounds to me like stomach problems…).
I have the book but found a newer copy as a pdf on the internet. I recommended it a while ago to a South African cheese maker because he spoke south african which has it’s roots in the dutch language. It’s over 200 pages and is covering production, administration, regulations and even floor plans for small and medium cheese “factories”.
Whenever I read on this forum about defects that people have in there Gouda cheese, I’m quite willing to look it up and translate the text. I’m busy with some construction work at home, but later I’ll look for the differences in recipes for the “Baby Gouda” or so called “storage cheese” and publish that here.

That was real helpful. It is my first attempt at Gouda, so the process was different to me. I used Dave’s Gouda recipe off of this site, and I tried to get all right. I will copy Herman’s information into my cheese log with that recipe so next time I make it I will try those things.

I thought of the apple wood adding the bitter flavor, but I couldn’t tell if that was it or not.

The cheese was really moist, and Herman’s book says that the high moisture could cause the bitter flavor.

I read on the internet that some bitter flavor was normal and would be balanced out with the other flavors, but I didn’t think mine balanced out.