Three baby Wensleydales, plain, cranberry and orange, dried and ready for waxing.

I’d read somewhere that the cranberries are prone to ferment during aging, so I poured boiling water over them to kill off any nasties and to wash off the oil that the label said was added to stop them sticking together.

For the orange, I soaked 30 gm dried orange peel in hot water overnight and ended up with a bowlful of peel, far more than I needed for the cheese; and a lot of the flavour seemed to have gone into the soaking water, so I decided to use that. I added a few drops of annatto to intensify the colour, and intended to let the curds sit in the orange-coloured/flavoured water while I dealt with the other two cheeses. Unfortunately my hand slipped as I was pouring, and most of the soaking water went over my work surfaces and very little onto the curds. Dang! I also added some orange-flavoured salt and just a sprinkling of the peel for atmosphere (?).

Like the Cheshire, these little cheeses did not want to knit, and you can see that even now the cranberry has crevices, but the other two seem to have knit quite nicely.

Fingers crossed that the fruit doesn’t do anything untoward while the cheese is aging. And now I need to find myself a use for all that unneeded reconstituted orange peel. Maybe a cake or a pudding.

An experiment you might want to try is get rock salt and add the cranberries to it and wait a month. the salt should dehydtrate them and imbue them with some ati bacterial properties. Also the possability of placing dried cranberies in salted water and hydrating them will preserve them.

very nice looking cheeses

You mean add the salt to fresh berries? The ones I used were dried but not very hard - the kind you can nibble on as is.
Looking back, it may have been better if I’d mixed the salt with the berries before I added them to the curds.

in old Egypt they packed bodies in rock salt to dry them out and preserve them, I thingk it will work with fruit as well lol

Denise,

My but you’re the busy one!  I would enjoy Christmas at your house.

A thought for the orange peel.  You might try Neil’s suggestion, or you could try to just let them dehydrate on their own.  Or perhaps you have a dehydrator???  If you want to use some of it, here’s an idea.  1 c. sugar and 1/2 c. water - boil until sugar is completely dissolved.  Then add some orange peel and let it simmer a couple minutes.  Makes a great syrup for pancakes.  You can even put some of the orange peel into the pancake batter for more flavor.

Well, just before Christmas the cranberry Wensleydale developed a bit of puffiness under the wax so I unrobed it, wrapped it in greaseproof paper and put it in the fridge. It seemed I caught and stopped the berries fermenting just in time.

Due to the vagarities of the calendar and the fact that Christmas is not a holiday here in Japan we were able/obliged to repeat our ‘Christmas dinner’ several times with different family members as and when they appeared, and lots of people got to taste the Cheeses. Everyone enjoyed them, but what pleased me most of all (apart from eating cheese myself) was my 3-year-old granddaughter tucking in with relish and telling everyone, without any prompting from me, how tasty the cheese was; and my 87-year-old traditional Japanese mum-in-law who does not like cheese pronouncing the fruity cheeses very tasty and asking for more. Result!

When he left us after the holidays our son took back with him a bagful of cheeses, so now the cave is looking a bit more spacious and in need of refilling. Any suggestions what would be a good cheese to make using buttermilk starter?

Great to hear about your success !!

What about a gouda

Well, Denise, I almost wish I had your Christmasses.  Sounds like you have figured out how to extend the holiday season and enjoy your family over a longer time.  I only had 2 Christmasses this year.  One with my family, and one with my wife’s family.  I’ll go along with Neil’s suggestion:  Gouda is always a good one.  And I’d recommend Dave’s recipe from here on the forum.  It turns out quite well.

Have a great New Year!

I’ve not made a Gouda yet, or any curd-washed cheese, so it looks like a good choice, thank you for the suggestion.

As ever, an answer to one question raises more questions: Dave’s Gouda recipe calls for M100 mesophilic culture, but I want to use the buttermilk that was included in a mixed bag I got from the Cheesemaking site. (I’ve used up all the ordinary mesophilic) Can I use the buttermilk powder as is, just like an ordinary culture powder - sprinkling it on the milk then stirring it in - or do I need to inoculate a litre of milk first and use the resulting (reconstituted?) buttermilk? (and freeze the rest?) If so, how much would I need for 16l of milk? Would I leave it to ripen for the same length of time as a powdered culture? The recipe talks about pH values, but Santa didn’t bring me a pH meter

If you were nice, instead of naughty, santa may have supplied the pH meter.  Did you get the lump of coal????

I’ve never used the buttermilk culture, so I can’t answer your questions definitively.  If I were trying it myself, I would use a heaping 1/4 tsp of culture (which is what I use for 4 gal.), and let it set a bit longer than the recipe calls for.  I’m thinking you’ll end up with a slightly different taste.  You don’t want it to be really hard - Gouda should be somewhat soft and have a spongy feel to it out of the press.  The key is to press under whey as the recipe says.  I usually drain off the whey to the curd level, then cover it with a perforated cutting board - cut to fit the pot it’s in; and place the weight on the perforated cover.  I don’t have the proper weights, so I used 3 - 2 liter bottles of soda.

Give it a go.  I think you’ll like it.