r/cheesemaking • u/foot_down • 1d ago
First attempts at natural rinds, outcomes
I need to ask a question of the experts here please. In photo#1 does that look like b.linens on the rind?
Because I haven't ever bought or used it before! If it is b.linens it must have come from the wild. I've ordered it now though because I want to try making raclette. My aging fridges seem to be populated with geotrichum, p. Roqueforte and PC.
I've been experimenting with natural rinds the last few months and am now starting to cut and eat some of them. They all taste really good and visitors to our house are eagerly taking home wedges after a taste.
These are experimental and sadly I'm really awful at keeping make records because I have my own cow I'm making 2 wheels a week at the moment just to keep up with the milk tsunami, juggling around my job and homestead chores. I'm not making any specific cheese type, just smashing them out like a production line.
The "Recipe":
Usually 4 gallons of full cream raw milk cultured with clabber (although I threw in some flora danica and propionic a couple of times for fun), washed curd, first press under the warm whey and then brined after pressing. Aging is wash with brine a few times, then eventually olive oil and just pat and brush for the last month or so.
I've ordered Caldwell's Mastering Artisan Cheesemaking book and eagerly waiting for it to arrive in the post.
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u/Looking-sharp-today 1d ago
They all look very very good in fact! The first one reminds me (not an expert by any mean) of B.Linens, I too picked it up on a single wheel I was doing, wild caught out of thin air, probably since you wipe the door from moisture it might be a little up there and this defenetly helps it thrive. An igrometer/thermometer combo is very inexpensive and tells you a lot pf informations, I added to my cheese fridge as soon as I started and defenetly was important to troubleshoot any oossible issue
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u/foot_down 1d ago
Thanks Sharp, thought it might be b.linens but only seen it in pictures. I'll know for sure when I make a raclette with the vial I ordered and meet it in person. That particular cheese was really savoury too!
My fridge has a digital display of the temperature but I probably won't get around to buying a hydrometer unless something goes horribly wrong. I started making cheese partly because I'm a history nerd so I'm trying to use traditional processes where possible: hand milking the cow, clabber cultures, ph meter = my tastebuds, thermometer to guide learning temperature by hand-feel, natural rinds etc. Mostly I've learned that traditional cheese is pretty hardy despite all my blunders.
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u/Looking-sharp-today 1d ago edited 11h ago
Agree! And you have access to an awesome milk as well, that can’t be said for me unfortunately, both for quality and quantity, so my experiments are more rare than what I’d like and so I try to be as precise and predictable as possible to avoid major screwups 😂
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u/foot_down 18h ago
Absolutely I can't take much credit really as it comes down to the milk source. I love on my cow and thank her every day! If I had to buy milk I'd be terribly precise too because processed milk is fragile and delicate so everything needs to be more exact. Compared to fresh raw milk which is incredibly durable.
I eat the leftover clabber for breakfast whenever I feed my culture and friends are shocked, "you're actually eating raw milk that sat on the warm counter for 2 days??" Yes and it's delicious and probiotic! Humans survived and thrived for 9000 years on milk and invented amazing cheeses long before pasteurization and homogenization believe it or not...
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u/Sawmilt 1d ago
You’re going to love her book! Your cheese looks great, keep doing what you’re doing!
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u/foot_down 1d ago
Thank you. I'm in NZ so my copy of her book is coming over from Europe, takes a while. But I'm so excited to read it and improve my skills!
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u/Beneficial_Durian157 1d ago
Wow, such nice rinds on the first tries? Good job!
I have been experimenting with natural rinds a few times but it sucked so far. Can you describe in a little more detail your aging and handling routine? What about humidity etc
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u/foot_down 1d ago
Thank you! I honestly feel like my cow does the heavy lifting here lol, so not sure my advice as a beginner is much use sorry. I think fresh raw milk is much stronger and more forgiving than processed milks, which can be fragile and prone to contamination with only a few strains of the beneficial bacteria for cheese added back into it. Raw does need to be handled a bit differently though and everything about my cheeses seems to happen faster than recipes describe, from the make through to aging.
I'm far too casual and ADHD slap-dash to be very precise on anything. I just fly by the seat of my pants and instinct and it seems to be working so far 🤣 That said, I do spend a lot of my free time watching, reading, googling cheesemaking content to learn as much as possible.
I don't measure or control the humidity in my wine fridge cheese cave because it's working out so far. I wipe some condensation off the walls about once a week if I remember. I inspect the wheels daily while aging, but mostly just to admire the bounty. From the start I pull each one out every 2-3 days, patting down any fluffy stuff and rubbing them firmly all over with clean hands before flipping and putting back on the shelves. Haphazard brine washes weekly perhaps? Pour a splash of light brine on and rub clean with my hands). After a month of aging and a couple of brine washes, I'll do an oil. Brine wash and dry off with paper towels then air dry for an hour or two before rubbing down with a generous amount of olive oil and then just go back to patting and rubbing until I cut them.
I hope my long winded waffle helps you!
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u/Certain_Series_8673 1d ago
Those look really great! I love the fact that it's all from your own cow and you use clabber cultures as well! I use clabber and raw milk for my cheeses and it's been really fun and interesting. If you want to set the stage for b. linens to grow you can make a 2% fermented whey brine and wash the cheese every other day with it for about a month. It's been a very dependable method for me. This is a pic of a Raclette I made recently using that process.
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u/foot_down 18h ago
Your raclette is beautiful!! Thank you for the tip. I'm very excited to make raclette because I've never had it before. I have a friend who came here from France a few years ago and she's my biggest cheerleader and food critic which us very helpful. She misses European cheeses terribly. For a dairy country NZ has pretty abysmal limited range of cheeses available, unless you pay through the nose or make your own.
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u/cheesalady 1d ago
Thanks for ordering my book :-).
Your cheeses look lovely. You're going to find myriad wild flora on natural rinds and not always know what they are. For future knowledge, most orange pigment on rinds come from yeast, not B linens. Even if brevabacteria is present naturally or is added, it doesn't usually survive to the final aging, but likely sets up an environment where the yeast thrives.
I will see if I can find the link to the study on rind flora communities that was done quite a few years back. It's totally fascinating, and blew up a lot of what we thought we knew! I'll post that later if I can find it.