Brie recipe
The differences of Brie and Camembert:
Origin:
Brie: Île-de-France
Camembert: Normandy.
Size, taste, texture:
Brie: 23-37 cm disk. Brie mellower taste, slightly nutty, fruity, buttery taste, firmer texture.
Camembert: 10 cm diameter, 3 cm high puck
its texture is almost liquid, it is slightly more acidic, it has a more sharp, mushroom like taste.
How to make Brie cheese?
INGREDIENTS:
- 10 litre cow milk
- 1 capsule Yobiotik Brie culture for 10 litres of milk
- 1-1,5 grammes calcium-chloride for 10 litres of milk
- 3,5 ml natural rennet 210 IMCU for 10 litres of milk
Pasteurisation: Before making Brie the milk is usually tempered, but it also can be made from raw milk.
heat the milk to 63-65 °C, and keep it for 30 minutes on that temperature.
1. CULTURING: Preheat the milk to 32 °C, then pour in the Yobiotik Bire culture that you have pre dissolved in a bit of milk. Mix the milk thoroughly, and let it rest for 30 minutes. I usually cover the milk with a lid, so it doesn't get cold as fast. Add 1-1.5 grammes of dissolved calcium-chloride to the mixture, so that the curdles release more whey.
2. COAGULATION: Add in the rennet and mix for about a minute. Cover and let it coagulate for 40-45 minutes. While waiting sanitise your moulds in boiling water to avoid infections.
3. CUTTING THE CURD: Check with your palm if the curd is solid enough, then cut it to 2-2,5 cm thick cubes. I use a curd knife to cut, it takes about 8-10 minutes.
4. POST-HEATING: Heat the curds to 38 °C under 15-20 minutes. Gently stir while doing so.
5. SEDIMENTATION: Let it rest under a lid for 10 minutes.
6. SHAPING: Fill a 1-1,5 kg mould to the brim (because a lot of whey will be released). Let them rest, flip them after 25-30 minutes. Be very careful, the cheese is extremely soft at this stage, and can fall apart easily. Flip the cheese in the next 24 hours about 6-8 times, so the whey is released evenly. The curd will shrink to 1/3 of its original size. This mean the cheese will become more and more firm and easier to flip. Make sure the room is between 20-23 °C while doing this step.
7. SALTING: Make a brine for the cheese. Measure 20 dkg of iodine free salt (cheese salt), then pour as much 15-16 °C water into the bowl that it is 1 litre all together. After dissolving the salt, soak your cheese for 5-6 hour for every kg. Flip it halfway through. OR: Rub the surface of the cheese with salt and let it sit for 2 days.
8. DRYING: Wait 1-2 days until the surface is dried a bit, so the mould can develop healthily. If it's too moist it can easily get contaminated by other moulds. Best to do the process in 16-18 °C, also make sure the air isn't humid too much, or the cheese won't dry fast enough.
9. AGEING: I really like the ageing process of mouldy cheese. It is very visual, you can see the cheese develop int to the queen it is. The white fur will cover the cheese in front of your own eyes. You will need 95-98% humidity, and 11-13 °C for proper ageing. The temperature must be stable! Keep the cheese on a screen or a mesh, flip it every day. On the first week you can flip twice too, it makes the mould develop more evenly. When you flip it be very careful not to rip the mould off. The damaged areas wont grow back! Always clean up the condensations, it's bad for the cheese if water drips on it.
Ageing time: 20-30-40 days depending on the size of the cheese. With the decrease of temperature the ageing time lengthens and the cheese will spoil faster.
A few tips:
Bitter taste is a common error in soft cheeses, it is caused by too much whey staying in the cheese during pressing. To fix this you have to increase the calcium content of your milk, usually with calcium-chloride. It's a problem at the beginning of ageing, so long aged cheeses won't have this problem. At the beginning of the ageing, the protein will breakdown into smaller polypeptides, which taste bitter. Later the polypeptides will break down even wore to amino acids, which are sweet, making older cheeses sweeter. In soft cheeses the breakdown is slower and they aren't aged for too long, so they are sensitive to this mistake.
Good luck, happy cheesemaking!
