Recipes - Camembert

This is a  recipe for the cheese I have most recently made; Camembert
Camembert cheese has a soft and gooey inside surrounded by a harder white mould crust. It is a delicacy in many countries, including France, where it originated.
Camembert Update 1

Click here for a full history of Camembert

Ingredients

• 2L of Whole Non-Homogenized milk
• 1ml of rennet diluted in at least 4l of cooled, boiled water
• Approximately 1/4 a packet of Penicillium camemeberti starter culture
• Approximately 1/4 a packet of Mesophilic starter culture
• Calcium chloride (if using homogenized milk)
• 1 tablespoon of cheese salt
• Double boiler (What is a Double boiler)

Equipment

• Draining spoon
• Jug
• Teaspoon
• Thermometer
• long bladed knife
• Pippette
• Measuring Beaker

Method

Step 1 - Sterilizing Equipment

• Set up a bucket or large container (I generally just use a small basin, fill it with cold water and add the correct amount of sterilization tablets)
• Keep all equiptment

Step 2 - Incubating the milk

• Pour milk into the double boiler and add the calcium chloride(if using homogeized)
• Heat the milk to  32C using the boiler
• stir in Penicillium camemeberti and Mesophilic starter culture
• Turn of the boiler and let it sit with the lid on for 45 minutes
• Mix in the rennet for 2 minutes using an up and down motion
• Now leave for a further 45 minutes

Step 3 -  Cutting the curds

• Now cut the curd into 1 cm cubes
• Sowly stir the cubes with the drainnig spoon for 15 minutes
• Now put the lid on and let it sit for a further 15 minutes

Step 4-  Daining and milling the curds

• After, pour as much of the whey as you can down the drain without losing any of the curds
• Scoop the curds into the mould (put moulds near sink as it will drain)
• leave to sit until mixture subsizes, then use the rest of the mixture to fill to top of the mould

Step 5-  Moulding and Pressing

• Camembert is a softer cheese and will age best if you use a different method of pressing. This method involves placing sushi mats or "chuxs wipes" on either side of the mould and flip every hour for four hours (Example at 9 mins 50)

Step 6 - Ageing the cheese

• After 5 hours, remove the cheese from the mould and place into a container (like the one below) with a small dish of water leave the cheese foe 8 days
• Once eight days is up take out your cheese and wrap it tightly in cheese wrap or baking paper and place in the fridge
• After roughly 5 weeks the cheese will be ready to eat.

A trip to the Dairy

On Monday I travelled to a dairy in a neighbouring  town where I bought 14Litres of  Milk straight from the cow, for 50c a Litre!!  The man there was very helpful he even excepted my challenge of getting the milk into my 2 Litre bottles using a 10cm diameter hose!! Afterwards he let me feed the calves :)