Step 6: Stir the Curd
You've just cut your
curds and you will immediately begin to see them start to expel their
golden yellow whey. At this stage, no matter how clean your initial
break was, the curds are still very delicate. You will want to wait
10-15 minutes before you begin to stir, other wise curd crumbles will
flake off, making your job more difficult later. At 10-15 minutes,
insert your ladle carefully and give a mild lift to the curds that
have now become submersed by the whey. 5-10 minutes after that, give
another gentle, but slightly more active stir - watch and see how
vulnerable the curd is to flaking off . If you are doing okay, you
can then begin to stir every 3-6 minutes, for a minute or so at a
time. While you engage in this stirring watch the curd, it will be
visibly shrinking as the volume of whey grows. If the curd begins to
break up at any point, your being a little too aggressive, just ease
up and let it catch up to where it needs to be. At 45 mins into your
stir, you can be going in every couple of minutes, and beginning to
think about forming your cheese.
Forming the Cheese
Step 7: Make and/or Clean the form(s)
If you are actually
milking a dairy critter, or plan on making cheese on more than an
experimental basis, I recommend purchasing a cheese form from either
Dairy Connection or
Ricki Carroll. The
food-grade polypro options will work well, I recommend asking staff at
either of these businesses for the larger sized molds around 10-12",
but the 8" molds listed on the website will work. If you don't want
to make this investment right now, any food grade plastic tub can be
used. Simply light a candle to heat a nail and make wholes ~3/4"
apart, scrub clean and bleach sanitize when done. No matter what you
use, make sure it is clean and ready to use by the time your curds are
ready to be formed.
Step 8: Judging when to "hoop" or transfer the curds into the form
This is the most
technical part of the process, critical to the success of your blue
cheese. Remember from above, that you are primarily a farmer of the
fungi - you are building a house of cheese for your mycelial friends
to dwell within and create their fantastically flavorful metabolites.
The more "rooms" that you can build into your cheese house, the
happier your blue culture will be to take up residence inside. Just
as a builder of human homes must ensure the integrity of her building
materials prior to construction - so to must the cheese maker ensure
that his curds will have integrity prior to hooping. At any time
after 45 minutes into your stir, take your form, or a smaller cup with
drainage holes, and scoop some curd into it. Flip with over into your
open hand and watch what happens. I sort of look for the same
physical qualities I would in a healthy garden soil - good solid
clumping, but with aggregates that readily break apart when nudged.
As you let the clump of curd cubes break apart into aggregates, look
for spaces in between the cubes. You want to see distinct cavities as
opposed to the curd sealing itself up. If the curd does not have the
integrity to maintain these little air spaces, it is not ready -
continue stirring and test again in a few minutes. When you feel
confident that the curd will maintain some air spaces, fill your
form(s) in layers, building curd on top of curd - careful not to press
or add any pressure to the newly forming cheese.
An alternative or complementary technique is to model the story of
that original lovestruck Italian casaro that mythically discovered
Gorgonzola. If you find that your hooping technique is not giving the
open architecture required to support the blue culture try blending
two days worth of cheese makes into one. Make another batch again the
following day, this time cutting up the first make and sprinkling it
in layers as you hoop. The firmness of the first make will help
create the openness in your cheese just as it did for our
Mediterranean apprentice so long ago.
