Home-made Gorgonzola cheese

From Cookipedia

Revision as of 14:42, 16 January 2014 by Chef (talk | contribs)

Home-made Gorgonzola cheese
Electus
Servings:Makes 1 kg of Gorgonzola
Ready in:30 hours plus maturation period
Prep. time:29 hours
Cook time:25 minutes
Difficulty:Difficult

This recipe needs advance preparation!

View the hi-res. original to see the 'vein' piercings
Draining the curds
Immediately after cutting the curds
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)

Prepare 24 hours in advance!

Remember, you need to prepare the freeze dried Penicillium Roquefortii 24 hours in advance of making the cheese. I always forget. Maybe this note will help next time. = 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 more than one piercing session to assist the veining as the holes tend to 'heal-up', with it being so soft.

Follow-up notes: This has turned out to be a nice cheese. Not overly soft, but it has a very smooth creamy texture with a softer flavour than my Home-made Stilton-type cheese

Ingredients

Ingredients

Printable 🖨 shopping 🛒 list & 👩‍🍳 method for this recipe


Mise en place

Method

Setting the curds

  1. Using a double boiler pre-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 - this may take 2 to 3 hours.
  6. Cut the curds into 2.5 cm cubes and leave for 30 minutes. Ideally a grid-shaped cutter should be used for this but I have found a long bread knife does this quite well. Cut in a cross-hatch pattern from the top and then diagonally sideways to cut the 'cubes.
  7. After 30 minutes, drain as much whey as you can. Because this is so creamy, it is not as easy as thinner curds so most of the draining has to be done in cheesecloth-lined colander.
  8. Ladle all of the cut curds into a cheesecloth lined colander to drain. Leave until they have reduced by 50%. This may take up to 4 hours.
  9. Pack the curds into one cheesecloth lined mould and allow to drain for 2 to 4 days at about 24°, turning often, preferably somewhere with a very high humidity (90%). A Chinese steamer makes a very good cheese mould, though it does need lining first.
  10. I originally used the weight of a bottle of wine to 'press' the cheese, but now I just keep turning the cheese. Its own weight seems to do the trick, though it may take a bit longer.
  11. Once the cheese has firmed up a little, remove from the cheesecloth and rub the surfaces with salt.
  12. Regularly turn and salt the cheese for another 3 days, a total of 5 to 7 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 steamer or a 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 how much 'extra' water that you are adding through the various stages because as soon as the cheese separates, it will just become part of the whey which is then of course discarded anyway.