Difference between revisions of "Home-made Gorgonzola cheese"

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Home-made Gorgonzola cheese

P.R. Knife-tip, used to treat 6 litres of milk (would probably do much more)

DVI - Knife-tip, used to treat 5 to 6 litres of milk (would probably do much more)

Press the sieve down and drain with a ladle - (different cheese, same theory)

Immediately after cutting the curds

A Chinese steamer makes a good cheese mould

View the hi-res. original to see the 'vein' piercings

Home-made Gorgonzola cheese - about this recipe

I dare not call myself an expert as I have only made one blue cheese before this attempt, however, I know what I like!

The beauty of making your own cheese is that you can get it exactly to your liking. Add extra cream and don't press the cheese too hard and you will obtain a wonderfully gooey blue cheese, akin to Saint Agur Blue cheese. I also found that with a gooey-runny blue cheese, you need to pierce the cheese more than once or twice to enable the veining as the holes tend to 'heal-up', it being so soft.

Servings

Makes 1 kg of Gorgonzola

Ingredients

• 4 litres full cream milk
• 1.2 litre double cream
• A little DVI starter (see picture)
• Freeze dried Penicillium Roquefortii (see picture)
• 2 ml rennet
• sea salt. Use absolutely no more than 2% salt to total weight of cheese.

Method

Prepare the Penicillium Roqueforti mould culture

1. Boil a little water and allow to go cold.
2. Pour into 150 ml of the cold, sterilised water into a lidded container.
3. Whisk up a small amount of freeze dried Penicillium Roquefortii (see picture) into the cold, boiled water so the powder is held in suspension.
4. Cover and refrigerate for up to 24 hours - use within 3 days

Setting the curds

1. Using a double boiler, warmed to 30° C add the cold pasteurised milk and slowly bring the milk temperature to 30°
2. Whisk the DVI starter into a little of the warm milk and re-introduce the milk suspension to the boiler.
3. Pour the Penicillium Roquefortii mould culture into the warm milk. Whisk to mix. Cover with a clean tea-towel and leave for 30 minutes.
4. Add 1ml of rennet to 1 tablespoon of cold, previously boiled water, mix well and add to the milk.
5. Whisk to mix, cover and leave in a warm place (about 22° C) until the curd sets.
6. Cut the curds onto 2.5 cm cubes and drain the whey. Try using a colander to assist draining, see picture.
7. Leave the cut curds for about 20 minutes for a nice strong cheese.
8. Ladle all of the cut curds on to a cheesecloth lined colander to drain. You may need to use 2 initially.
9. Pack the curds into moulds and allow to drain for 2 days at about 24°, preferably somewhere with a very high humididty (90%). A Chinese steamer makes a good cheese mould.
10. Turn the cheese regularly.
11. Once the cheese has firmed up a little, rub the surfaces with salt.
12. Regularly turn and salt the cheese for another 3 days, a total of 5 days from the start of draining.
13. Use a sterilised skewer to pierce the cheese to allow the mould to form. (See picture)
14. Leave to mature for as long as you can bear! A wooden or wicker plate is good for this as it won't make the cheese sweat. The ideal conditions are 10° C at 90% humidity. Turn daily if you can remember.

Chef's notes

Don't worry about the how much 'extra' water that you are adding through the various stages because as soon as the cheese separates, it will just be added to the whey and then discarded.