With work that's just for fun,
And a sharing of dinner, laughter, and cheese.
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This morning Benjamin made the yoghurt and gave me a little time off. It was really nice and I slept in until 7. That's right, practically a lady of leisure. I did a little work in the cave later on, just because it needed to be done and we don't want to get more behind. The blue cheese was well ready to be pierced and the cheeses that needed a wash were piling up. So I got some of that sorted. Rather than being waxed a while back, the first gouda I made became a natural rind cheese. However, instead of salt water we are washing it with balsamic vinegar. I'm really excited to taste it when it's ready in a couple months. In the afternoon, I got to spend some time back doing farm stuff. Andrew and I put up some fencing, moved some cows, all that fun stuff. I also helped Ross with the milking and it was great to be involved with everything again. As we were bringing the cows in, Kelly even came right up to me to have her ears scratched. No one bothered to tell me that this little guy was born 5 days ago, so I saw him for the first time today. Meet Andy. And meet this random bird who came up to me during milking. Lastly, we separated 20 piglets that are going to be picked up by their new owners in the morning. I really wish I could have gotten a picture of Ross buried in a pig pile, but alas I did not have my phone on me.
I definitely enjoyed my time ruling the cheese domain, but it's nice to have Benjamin back (putting things in their proper order, to be honest) and to be able to mess about in the dirt with the animals again. I was so worn out yesterday, working 27 hours in two days. But I made it through another farmer's market, and picked up Benjamin from the bus depot in the evening. He got right to work and went to market this morning while I made a batch of cheese. It felt rather relaxing after two market days, just me alone with the milk. I made a small (50 gallons is small, right?) batch of Temple Mountain, which is our Alpine-style cheese. (Think gruyere.) Every time we make a batch of cheese, any notes we have get jotted down for future reference. It's much more accurate than just assuming it's the same as what it says on the recipe, since things always happen. Maybe the milk was heated two degrees higher than it should have been, or the curds were cut a little small. These aren't things that always matter, but when your cheese tastes oddly bitter 6 months later, it's helpful to be able to look back at what happened. (There's really not much hope of remembering what you did 100 batches ago.) Annyway, I was checking through Benjamin's old notes on this cheese since I hadn't made this one myself before. Even when I'm following a recipe, sometimes I'll wonder exactly how long coagulation has taken in the past, or how many wheels Benjamin made with this much milk. It's quite useful to be able to check up on those things... ...which is why finding these notes from February amused me. Benjamin said he must have been too tired to be writing in English. Obviously, there were notes of other batches that I could read, so I didn't have any trouble finding what I needed. I just enjoyed finding this gem.
(Since most of the pertinent information is the numbers and I know what generally gets written down, plus the sprinkling of English words, I am actually able to glean a lot of useful info from this.) A long market in Copley Square, Boston. I started packing for it at 5am and finished unpacking at 10pm. A long enough day for me.
Once I was done trying to drive in the maze of the city (and traffic patterns aren't really meant to accommodate people driving on the sidewalk), the market was in a really pretty place. Apparently it's some kind of popular place, and the church is really famous. (Trinity Church, I think?) There were a lot of people and they ate a lot of samples. Another big cheese day, with 85 gallons of milk accumulating since I emptied the tank on Tuesday morning. I made a batch of gouda, and it went off without a hitch. I'm starting to get much more familiar with the routine, and keeping track of everything that's going on at once. I do still need practise using the dutch press, though. After the last turn, I apparently had an incident that led to most of my wheels coming out quite crooked. Le sigh. Nothing can be perfect. In other news, rhubarb can be used to make a delicious and refreshing drink! Especially welcome now, as it has been quite warm here the past couple of days. Combined with the massive amount of humidity in the cheese room, I'm constantly slightly damp.
Today could have gone better. I didn't read my recipe carefully enough and accidentally put in the wrong culture, which was very upsetting. However, at moments like that, one has no choice but to carry on and see what happens. Usually when something goes differently than we've planned, Benjamin says "Maybe it will be the best cheese ever." So I said that to myself and went ahead with my work. I had 75 gallons of milk this morning, and meant to make Manchego. I don't know enough to say how it's going to be affected by my mistake, only to know that the two cultures I mixed up are for very different things. I guess I'll see what Benjamin says, and ultimately, what happens to the cheese. I consoled myself with fresh cheese curds for lunch, which was delightful since Manchego curds get cut very small, which makes them extra squeaky. Other than my mistake, the process went rather well. I ended up with 75 lbs of cheese, divided into 5 wheels. They are now residing in the brine, and will remain there for a little more than 48 hours. And it's rhubarb season! The plants are growing right next to the apprentice house, and I've been impatiently (and vocally, probably to Jacob's annoyance) awaiting their readiness. I had a busy day, but couldn't resist whipping up a cobbler for dinner. I made ice cream last week from Zoe's milk, and the combination was delightful.
Look! More yoghurt! Isn't it fun? I also made another batch of camembert. I'm much happier with this one. So far it seems like I got the texture spot-on, which is very satisfying. So, because it's such a soft cheese, the curds get cut much larger than for a hard cheese, handled less and more delicately, and don't get heated at all. My mistake last time was cutting the curds too small, which causes them to expel more whey and become firmer. After the cutting and the little bit of stirring, the curds get transferred to the molds. If you've done everything correctly, they should be soft enough to scoop up with a pitcher and pour smoothly into the rounds. It was at this point last time that I noticed something was wrong, as they were much clumpier than they should have been. This time the pouring went quite well. The mini cheeses are then left to drain for 3 hours, after which they have lost quite a bit of whey and are just firm enough to stand on their own. They have to be flipped to facilitate even draining. They are barely solid enough to pick up very gently. It's like holding a handful of jelly. But after a bit of practise you get used to it, and it's actually a pretty fun task. So I flipped them once already, and will flip them again just before I go to bed (which is quite soon) and then once more early in the morning. They could stand to be flipped once more tonight, but since I made them after yoghurt, it's much too late for that.
Well, I dropped Benjamin off at the bus station early this morning, and thus began my week as cheese master. No cheese needed to be made today, so I spent my time catching up on all the little stuff before the craziness starts tomorrow. Lots of packaging still needed to be done, so that took up most of the morning. Feta and quark always get pre-packaged when they're made, so I finished up both of those. We cut the hard cheeses to order at the market, but also sell them in the farm store in 1/4lb wedges, so those need to be done occasionally. It gives me good practise on estimating what sizes to cut, because of course it's fun to show off at market and be able to cut to exactly what the customers ask for. Remember that camembert I made a couple weeks ago? Today it was also ready to be packaged. Once it's drained and salted, it goes on trays in the cheese room and then we flip them every day as the rind develops. Once they're completely covered in the lovely white fuzz that is Penicillium Candidum, they get wrapped in a special breathable cheese wrap and put in the cooler to finish aging. After about 6 weeks in the cooler, the proteins on the inside have broken down, leaving a soft, gooey center that is highly prized by many. The sheep's milk camembert that Benjamin made Friday has now been transferred to the cave to undergo the same process. However, it should be noted that it was made in a different style, so the cheese already seems completely different and will have a much different end result. You can't tell from the pictures, but the curds have crumbly, almost chalky texture rather than the jelly-like wobble of the previous batches.
I had my first big cheese day with Benjamin gone at market. To be honest, it was a bit of a struggle, and there were some things that could have been done better. But it also could have gone much worse; all the milk became curds and nothing important was dropped on the floor. There was cheese on pretty much every surface in the cheese room, what with all the milk we've been getting recently. Feta was waiting to be packaged, Benjamin had a sheep's milk Camembert draining first thing in the morning. The first thing I did was hang the Quark to drain, and there were 4 wheels of blue cheese to be taken out of the molds and salted. All of these things were hanging around while I was trying to make Fontina, leaving me with barely half a table to work with. But it got made, and took up the rest of that table space. Overall, I think it went pretty well. I made cheese, and didn't destroy the cheese that was already made. I'll put this in the success column.
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