Food

Stilton

I’ve made my first Stilton! I followed the recipe on Jack Schmidlings cheese recipe page. I’m interested to see how it turns out; but having a two month wait to get feedback is a little nerve-wracking.

Stilton I: Cleanliness is next to GodlinessIt’s important to have tools cleaned and sanitised.

Stilton II: Curds and WheyThis is the milk, with the culture, rennet and mold. It has already started to coagulate together.

Stilton III: Meet the Ghetto CheesepressAfter the culture and rennet have done their thing, the curds are ‘cut’ then allowed to rest; then placed in cheesecloth to drain. This gets rid of most of the whey. Next, the curds get squished for a couple of hours in this jury-rigged cheesepress.

Stilton IV: CurdsThese are the curds once they’ve been pressed, then broken into pieces to be salted before being placed in a mold (It turns out that a 500g yogurt container is pretty much exactly the right size for the amount of cheese produced by two litres of milk).

Stilton V: A Mighty Fine Hunk of CheeseThe next day, the cheese was unmolded. I opted to split this into two shorter rounds – it seems to be a bit easier to handle that way.

Chevre Phase II

Last night, I did the first part of chevre making: heating of milk and the addition of cultures and rennet. Tonight, I embarked on the second part of chevre making: draining off the whey (and making ricotta, as a nifty side benefit).

Chevre II This is what I came home to. The milk turned into distinct curd and whey parts. Astonishingly so.

Chevre IVI spooned some of the curds (and a bunch of whey) into a cheese mould. This was full, and what you’re seeing is about an hour or two of draining. There’s still quite a bit of whey to drain off.

Chevre V: Finished CheeseI had a bunch of curds and whey left; so I put them into a colander with cheesecloth. The cheese I drained in this manor was ready in a few hours.