"Brie"

Nov 18 2006

Brie and camembert are technically the same, Camembert is a small cake about 4 inches and brie is a large pancake. I used the culture from a bought french Portneuf Brie. According to the Glengarry recipe the start temp is 88F for Brie instead of 84F for Camembert.

4L Homo milk 3.5%

250ml 35% whipping cream.

MA4002 starter culture.

Portneuf Brie culture.

1/4 tsp calcium chloride.

1/4 tsp Bio rennet.

Added both cultures to the milk/cream and waited for 90 min, then added the rennet. Noticed that the coagulation my be firmer as the culture gets a bigger head start. I always so far have prepared the starter culture the night before.

The base recipe I'm using is one I got from Glengarry cheese making supplies, they have it that you add the rennet at the same time as the cultures, I did this for the first 3 and thought that the solidity was not consistent, maybe my mixing techniques, however with this being the fifth time,(started doing this on the fourth time) I waited 90 min before adding the rennet in, I noticed that their was more separation of curds and whey.

Making a Liter batch of starter at a time, I use half for 2 batches (2 being the most in a day) then refill it for the next 2 batches.

having done this a few times I'm slowly getting into the swing of it. use my kitchen sink as the bath, in this case it was 89F and the milk was at 84F, things tend to balance out as the water cools.

Temp at 84F, brie is supposed to be at 88F according to the recipe, so hopefully it was around their in the 90 min. as the bath was around 89 initially. having left the milk with the starter first for 90 min shows a separation already of the liquid, was a bit of a pain to cut since it tried to spin :)

Curds were nicely defined and I drained off what I could.

Place in colander to drain then into moulds with water tubs on top to help it drain overnight.

This morning removed the cakes and salted them with sea salt :)

Nov 20.

Adding "Brie" culture from source I'm trying to create, edging the bets :) Already showing fuzz if you look closely from just apply the night before.

Nov 21.

The culture added is growing rapidly on its original source, probably the excess moisture inhibiting the growth on the rest of the cheese.

Nov 22

The growth has been rapid in one day :)

Nov 23

Furr power LOL. One thing I noticed, its very difficult to take a picture of the furr in focus, have tried numerous times, so its not that I'm lazy LOL.

Nov 26.

Flipped it on the 23rd. nice thick furr.

Nov 27.

Starting to perspire like my Camembert did, sounds like its doing a burst of energy during its transmutation. Ripening temp is 9c-47F , be interesting to see if the other do the same.

12-25

Merry Christmas's :) checked out the progress. Still some solid matter, yet very tasty.

Jan 17 07.

The second cake I have has now been cracked :) very nice and smooth and yummy.