Man of Honour
- Joined
- 16 May 2005
- Posts
- 31,297
- Location
- Manchester
This was our first attempt at making brie. It had many ups and downs and there are a few things I'd do differently in future but the end result (so far) is starting to look like actual brie so I'm hopeful that this technique has worked 
Ingredients (to make 4 small brie wheels):
8 pints of full fat milk
Some animal rennet
Some mesophilic culture culture (we cheated and used yeo valley natural yoghurt)
Some penicillum candidum culture (ordered this from ebay. You don't need much)
Calcimum chloride (optional - helps firm up the curds)
Sea salt (and a grinder)
Equipment:
Giant stew pan
Themometer that can measure 20C-100C
Cheese cloth
A few 2l bottles of coke (empty...glug glug glug)
Wire rack for draining
Some plastic carrier bags
Method
Empty the milk into the stew pan and heat it to 32C.
Add two heaped tablespoons of the yeo valley yoghurt, a good squirt of rennet (mixed with a tablespoon of bottled or boiled and cooled water as usual) and just a few granules of the penicillum candidum. Optionally, add the calcium chloride in the same quantity/water mix as the rennet. Mix thoroughly for at least 1 minute.
In your sink, fill about 2.5 inches deep with water that is also 32C.
Place the pan in the sink/water bath with the lid on and leave for the enzymes to do their magic.
In the meantime, grab your empty coke bottles and get ready to make cheapo makeshift moulds out of them. Cat optional.
Cut the tops and bottoms of the coke bottles off and then again in the middle. Once done, poke a ton of holes in the sides of the bottles (I used an old metal skewer heated over my gas hob). Eventually you'll have a selection of cheese moulds ready to go.
Place the moulds on a layer of cheese cloth (ghetto method: cheap pillow cases cut up and boiled a lot to remove chemicals/sterilise) on top of your draining tray. A lot of whey is going to leak out of the bottom of this so you need to keep that in mind when you position it.
Now that is done, go back to your curds and slice them into squares. Put the lid back on after doing this and leave them for another ten minutes. This helps expel a little more whey.
Now you need to use a slotted ladle to lift out the curds and into your moulds. You should try to avoid lifting out whey as much as possible during this process. I did a terrible job of this and also as my moulds were a little wonky I spilt curds everywhere the first time I tried it. Le suck.
Finished result will look like this (on the right is some I prepared earlier /bluepeter):
At this point you need to cover the moulds (I just draped the spare cheese cloth over the top) and leave them for about 24-36 hours. At the end of the this period the whey will have mostly drained out and the curds will be ~1/3rd of their original size. Below is a picture of them at about 18 hours.
Finally the curds will be firm enough that they can be removed from their moulds.
At this point, grind a load of salt onto a chopping board (a thin layer covering it) and then roll the finished curds in the salt. You should lightly cover the entire surface. In the below picture I used ground pink salt as it was all I had to hand - hence the discolouration.
Now place the bries back on the draining rack and cover the entire thing with a plastic bag. The bag shouldn't be touching the brie but it should be mostly (not completely) sealed so that the atmosphere in the bag is quite moist. You need to keep this at ~12C for a week or two whilst the white mould colonises the cheese. Every day you should turn over the curds. They will smell a bit.. cheesy And will be kind of slimy. This is normal. You should also 'rub down' the mould once it start to grow. Just gently rub your hand all around the brie to stop the mould getting too 'hairy'.
After a while the mould will have almost completely covered the surface. You can then move the brie to the fridge and let it age. At this point you can probably just turn it every other day for the next week or so - then once a week thereafter.
From what I've read it should take about 30 days for the brie to be ripe enough to be enjoyed and around 45-50 for it to be super ripe and suitable for people that love their brie. I've not tried mine yet as it has only just got to the point where it is mould-covered.
You can also see that my brie wheels collapsed a little. I think this was due to me taking them out of the moulds too soon. Lesson for next time
Ingredients (to make 4 small brie wheels):
8 pints of full fat milk
Some animal rennet
Some mesophilic culture culture (we cheated and used yeo valley natural yoghurt)
Some penicillum candidum culture (ordered this from ebay. You don't need much)
Calcimum chloride (optional - helps firm up the curds)
Sea salt (and a grinder)
Equipment:
Giant stew pan
Themometer that can measure 20C-100C
Cheese cloth
A few 2l bottles of coke (empty...glug glug glug)
Wire rack for draining
Some plastic carrier bags
Method
Empty the milk into the stew pan and heat it to 32C.
Add two heaped tablespoons of the yeo valley yoghurt, a good squirt of rennet (mixed with a tablespoon of bottled or boiled and cooled water as usual) and just a few granules of the penicillum candidum. Optionally, add the calcium chloride in the same quantity/water mix as the rennet. Mix thoroughly for at least 1 minute.
In your sink, fill about 2.5 inches deep with water that is also 32C.
Place the pan in the sink/water bath with the lid on and leave for the enzymes to do their magic.
In the meantime, grab your empty coke bottles and get ready to make cheapo makeshift moulds out of them. Cat optional.
Cut the tops and bottoms of the coke bottles off and then again in the middle. Once done, poke a ton of holes in the sides of the bottles (I used an old metal skewer heated over my gas hob). Eventually you'll have a selection of cheese moulds ready to go.
Place the moulds on a layer of cheese cloth (ghetto method: cheap pillow cases cut up and boiled a lot to remove chemicals/sterilise) on top of your draining tray. A lot of whey is going to leak out of the bottom of this so you need to keep that in mind when you position it.
Now that is done, go back to your curds and slice them into squares. Put the lid back on after doing this and leave them for another ten minutes. This helps expel a little more whey.
Now you need to use a slotted ladle to lift out the curds and into your moulds. You should try to avoid lifting out whey as much as possible during this process. I did a terrible job of this and also as my moulds were a little wonky I spilt curds everywhere the first time I tried it. Le suck.
Finished result will look like this (on the right is some I prepared earlier /bluepeter):
At this point you need to cover the moulds (I just draped the spare cheese cloth over the top) and leave them for about 24-36 hours. At the end of the this period the whey will have mostly drained out and the curds will be ~1/3rd of their original size. Below is a picture of them at about 18 hours.
Finally the curds will be firm enough that they can be removed from their moulds.
At this point, grind a load of salt onto a chopping board (a thin layer covering it) and then roll the finished curds in the salt. You should lightly cover the entire surface. In the below picture I used ground pink salt as it was all I had to hand - hence the discolouration.
Now place the bries back on the draining rack and cover the entire thing with a plastic bag. The bag shouldn't be touching the brie but it should be mostly (not completely) sealed so that the atmosphere in the bag is quite moist. You need to keep this at ~12C for a week or two whilst the white mould colonises the cheese. Every day you should turn over the curds. They will smell a bit.. cheesy
And will be kind of slimy. This is normal. You should also 'rub down' the mould once it start to grow. Just gently rub your hand all around the brie to stop the mould getting too 'hairy'.After a while the mould will have almost completely covered the surface. You can then move the brie to the fridge and let it age. At this point you can probably just turn it every other day for the next week or so - then once a week thereafter.
From what I've read it should take about 30 days for the brie to be ripe enough to be enjoyed and around 45-50 for it to be super ripe and suitable for people that love their brie. I've not tried mine yet as it has only just got to the point where it is mould-covered.
You can also see that my brie wheels collapsed a little. I think this was due to me taking them out of the moulds too soon. Lesson for next time