Hi there!
Last weekend I made my first batch of Camembert. I made the modern Camembert which uses the thermophilic culture.
I am having trouble maintaining the temp between the recommended 11 and 15 degrees while it is maturing. It is fine at night,
But during the day is is between 15 - 21. I have them in the coolest room in the house with the curtains closed. They are on wire racks
one with a plastic inside of a salad spinner (looks like a large cheese hoop) and the other covered with the plastic bowl of the salad spinner. One has wet paper towel for humidity and the other has a sml bowl of water. I am trying to control the temp using icepacks and then covering the lot with thick towels. This works quite well, but I have had to keep going out and then when I get back the temp has risen - due to being unable to change the ice. I am on day 3 of the maturing and they are due to be turned. I have a nice layer of white mould on all of the cheeses. They look great!!
What do you think? Have I stuffed them by letting it get too warm? How do I know if I have bad bacteria on them? Any ideas of how to keep them constantly cool?
(I don’t have an esky or a spare fridge)
U might try making a cooling box by guying cheap 12” ceramic tiles and enclose an area with them. The dif temps will change the taste but then thats the thingk with home made cheese, can work out for the best. If theirs “Black” molds then remove them with vintager.
Cheers!! I’ll give it a bash! I’ll assume it was vinegar that I remove the black moulds with. (just checking its not some product I haven’t heard of!) Do I just dab it with a cotton bud with vinegar on it. So far I had 2 tiny spots where the cnr of the wire rack joined. Thanks for your help! I really appreciate it!
Well I wrapped my cheeses on day 8 as they had an excellent covering of white mould, however I decided to let them mature at the higher temp as I didn’t want to keep making it fluctuate too much.
I managed to keep them at around 20 degrees. Due to maturing at a higher temp I decided to try one after 1 week. It was actually really good. The density and texture was of a cheddar, however it had quite a deep flavour with a definite camembert twang. It was much much better than I was expecting at that stage! I am really quite proud…
I still have 3 more and I thought I would try one every week. I made this with organic pateurised but non-hom milk.
A thought I did have…...I don’t know much about bacteria that cause food poisoning, in regards to cheese. Am I right to try them at any stage once they have a good rind, or do I need to wait a certain amount of time? I am also breastfeeding my baby and don’t want to pass on any potential nasties. None of us have keeled over so far…...but I only thought of it after I took it to mums for her to try….
Congrats!!!
The mold issue was one of my main concerns when i started thats why I started with Camembert/Brie figured the mold would protect it from nasties. Be careful not to age too fast, it may develop ammonia smell.
I’m assuming because it had only matured for a week…..it is my first camembert, so I don’t really know how long they take to soften up. We had a look at a big flat one that we made and that was slightly softer and had started to go to that nice soft camembert consistancy right in the middle. The flavour wasn’t as good as the first one though. Of course, I could be completely wrong….and someone else may be be able to enlighten us as to why!!
OK.. well I tried my other cheeses and they never softened up. Would this be due to the higher temp or would this just be the result of the recipe that I used? (The modern Camembert recipe from “Home Cheesemaking.”) The rind went really solid and the flavour went downhill after the first week. It didn’t get the ammonia smell but it just smelled a bit musty.
1- ur cheese did not reach to proper pH (arround 4.7) , molds need acid to live on it ...
2- ur cheese mold turned hard, because not enough humidity in the ripping process ...
3- or u ripe it under 6C or above 15C
They looked like proper camembert on the outside. They all had a great covering of white mould, but I didn’t worry about the humidity once I wrapped them. While they were ripening I had a bowl of water in with one (which left condensation on the top of the ventilated container) and the other I put wet paper towel around the edges of the container (the inside of a salad dryer) the outside started going hard in the 3rd week of being wrapped. I wrapped them in cheese foil but I wasn’t sure whether to wrap them in the perforated one or not - so I tried both.
Does that shed any more light on it….....? Do I need to something different with the humidity?
1- temp of 20C is to to high for camambert, this caused the smell (musty).
2- was the bowl closed, only water arround is not enough, u should cover it., u should get arround 90%.
3- your problem is that your cheese did not developed enough acid to enable the mold to soften ur cheese… see point 4 bellow
4- u should use NON thermo culture, u should use meso so can provides acid developement in the first 48hours (in 20C). before u move it to 12C
Ahhhhhhh…..thank you very much!!
That explains it all…
I’ll try the other camembert recipe next time. The one I used said to use the thermo culture, but the cheese wouldn’t be as good - but it would be easier and a good one to start!
Obviously not in my case!!
thermo works at higher temp over 25C, so when u kept ur cheese at 20C, this will not work.
meso can still work from 15C to 39C or so , best is 20C to 35C.
without proper lactic Acid, white mold will not grow if the cheese not very very sour.
Then the white mold change and remove the acid and turned the cheese to sweet creamy
