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This is a post about making cheese. It’s also a post about patience. The two go hand in hand really. Here’s what Guns ‘n’ Roses had to say about patience:

Said, woman, take it slow

It’ll work itself out fine

All we need is just a little patience

Said, sugar, make it slow

And we come together fine

All we need is just a little patience

With lyrics like that it’s obvious the Gunners were hobbyist cheesemakers!

Patience… it’s a virtue, right? It shares a Latin root with the word ‘passion’ and no, not passion like we saw on Melrose Place in the 90s… the suffering kind.

I’m suffering at the moment. Today I spent several hours making the beginnings of what I hope will be a delicious camembert cheese. If I had made a cake today I would know by now whether or not my cake was a flop or a huge success and I’d know this because I’d have tried it. Maybe even eaten all of it. I haven’t eaten any of my cheese and I won’t for many, many weeks yet. It might be my finest culinary moment. It might be a biohazard. Literally. I’m suffering not knowing!

As I’ve mentioned previously I’m a Biology teacher so I have a special interest in the Science of cooking. Cheesemaking is an ancient biotechnology and the practice of making cheese predates recorded history. It probably started rather serendipitously around the time animals were domesticated, when farmers tried to store milk in a vessel made from the gut of an animal. The rennet from the gut would have caused the milk to set into curds and whey and the rest of course is history.

Hopefully soon my students will be attempting this ancient biotechnology and entering their cheeses (camembert) in a cheesemaking competition. They will be doing this in 6 stages:

• Making starter cultures
• Coagulating milk
• Cutting curd
• Hooping
• Maturing
• Wrapping

Using mostly household equipment:

In the last 24 hours I’ve completed steps 1-4 to trial the process before unleashing my students on it. The maturing of the cheese will take several weeks and during that time I will go out of my mind worrying about my cheese-babies I will document the progress of the cheese here.

I can’t share the exact recipe I followed because it’s been entrusted to me by a pro and I promised to keep it secret-squirrel but I will share the general process I followed. If you’re interested in making your own cheese there are plenty of books out there as well as several online resources where you can find recipes.

So without further ado… making camembert cheese!

Making Starter Cultures

The day before you plan on making cheese you need to make the starter culture. UHT milk is used for the starter and to 1L of UHT milk (pour out 100mL first) you add your lactic acid bacterial starter according to directions on the packet or in the recipe. Depending on the starter you may be required to just leave it overnight at room temperature or keep it in a warm water bath at a certain temperature. The bacterial starter I used was a thermophile (‘heat lover’) so I had to keep it at 38 degrees Celsius overnight. I used a water bath which I borrowed from school. Other people have used fish tank heaters, Bain maries, yoghurt makers etc for this same purpose (and throughout the process where gentle heat is required).

In the morning when you check on your starter you should be able to notice that the milk has thickened and smells sour, like natural yoghurt. This is because the bacteria convert the sugar in milk (lactose) to lactic acid. Lactic acid is responsible for the sour taste and characteristic texture of yoghurt.

Coagulating milk

A small amount of the starter cultures and a sprinkle of white mould spores are added to pasteurised but unhomogenised milk which has been gently warmed. Unhomogenised milk is available in most good supermarkets and delis e.g. Barambah organics make an unhomogenised milk as do Cooloola dairy which was recommended to me as an excellent milk for cheesemaking.

The milk is allowed to ‘ripen’ and near the end of the ripening period rennet is added. Rennet is a naturally occuring complex of enzymes produced in the stomachs of mammals to help them digest milk. The most important enzyme in rennet in terms of cheesemaking is a protease (breaks down proteins) which causes the coagulation of milk. This results in solids (curds) and liquid (whey) i.e. the stuff made popular by Little Miss Muppet!

Now if mammal stomach isn’t really your thing rest assured vegetarian rennet derived from either plants, fungi or genetically modified yeasts are available and this is what I used.

Coagulation starts occurring almost immediately after adding the rennet – the speed at which this occurred was quite a surprise!

The mixture is allowed to ’set’ for about half an hour after which the curds are cut.

Cutting the curd

Using a sharp knife the curds are cut into approximately 2cm cubes. This is done to facilitate the whey removal process by increasing the surface area of the curds (Surface Area:Volume ratio – another biological concept!). The curds are also rested, then stirred carefully a couple of times to allow sufficient whey removal.

Now this is where I think I might have gone a bit wrong… my gentle stirring was still a bit rough and my curds broke up. How adversely this will affect the taste of the final product won’t be known until it’s consumed I’m afraid… in 6 weeks or so… remember I said this was an exercise in patience? However given that  it’s the size of the curds that affects the firmness of the cheese (smaller curd cubes will produce a firmer cheese) I think it can be predicted that my cheese will be quite firm!

Hooping

The last step of the process was hooping the cheese. This involves separating the curds from the whey and placing them in a plastic ‘hoop’ which is inverted a number of times over several hours to remove the last of the whey from the curds. Even whey drainage will ensure an even shape.

The cheese is kept overnight in a humid environment and in the morning is floated in a brine (salt water + a little vinegar to acidify) solution, dried and finally kept in a plastic maturing container (a Decor brand microwave container is good) to grow a good covering of white mould which is the ‘rind’ of the camembert cheese.

So that’s where I’m up to on my cheesemaking journey. How am I feeling? Quite frankly, nervous. I’m going solo on this one having never been to a cheesemaking workshop before but I have been corresponding regularly with an industry expert which has given me some reassurance. And even if I don’t nail it this time I’m ready to give it another shot very soon. And I can because I’ve got enough microbes in my freezer to make about 30 kilos of the stuff!

One last but very important thing… hygiene and sanitation are absolutely paramount in cheesemaking. You want your cheese to be filled with the right kinds of microbes – not the bad food spoiling, food poisoning types! The recommended sanitiser for use in home cheesemaking is diluted household grade bleach (active ingredient hypochlorite). Bleach is the right stuff for the job because it doesn’t have an ongoing sanitising action i.e. it won’t kill off the good microbes in your cheese. All equipment needs to be sanitised in the bleach solution (6mL bleach per Litre) for a minimum of two minutes with the exception of anything that touches the rennet which will be boiled. This is because bleach will damage the rennet. Your hands should be sanitised before and during the cheesemaking process. Alcohol based sanitising gels are ideal.

Stay tuned for cheesemaking updates!

Want to know more or after specific recipes? These three online resources are bound to help:

• Cheeselinks – where you can purchase all your cheesemaking needs including kits for beginners and a cheesemaking recipe book. My kit came with a recipe for camembert and a heap of helpful hints!
• Home Cheesemaking – has a good step by step guide for camembert and a discussion forum attached
• Cheese Forum - several recipes listed and a  comprehensive forum for cheesemaking discussion