Coconut Yogurt, Chocolate Making, Drying Cheese, Testing two blue cheeses

Once again into the fray to try and make a yogurt like product from Coconut milk. Starting from scratch in went four small cans of pure Coconut milk i.e. no other additives. We have only found two brands that don't have additives Ayam and A&T. A generous amount of culture ex Cheeselinks and three tablespoons of Tapioca starch as thickener. We will see.

More chocolate making today. A big block for Jean in case she needs to make more Hazelnut Brownies which have been a huge success at morning tea. You have to have something to look forward to each day.

I made a standard issue block with roasted peanuts and then two small batches of samples. One batch was just chocolate with some Coconut flour for thickening and flavour. This wasn't refrigerated until the next day to ensure the flour full absorbed. And a small batch with just roasted Coconut chips/shreds. We are using only Dextrose for sweetening and keeping the levels lower than usual but adding more Cocoa powder to get that really chocolaty flavour.

The technique we use for drying cheese prior to cheese coating seems to work very well with the resultant cheeses not having excess moisture when opened nor being too dry. Once the cheese is brined it is put on a cheese mat to drain for 24 hours then a paper towel is folded to the size of the cheese and placed beneath to absorb liquid. Each cheese has two paper towels. One drying the cheese and one being dried before reuse. These two towels are alternated until the moisture on the towel does not form a full impression of the cheese. At this stage the cheese coating starts and when two coats are applied to the top half of the cheese it is flipped over and the bottom half done. And then finally the wax and label applied and into the cheese refrigerator to age.

Tonight we looked at two blue cheeses aging in the refrigerator. A stilton and a mock Roquefort.

The Stilton is just right. Fully ripened with not only good blue mould in the needle holes but also blue mould throughout the cavities. The mock Roquefort has good blue formation in the holes but has not fully ripened. You can see in the photograph how it is gooey around the outside but still a bit chalky in the centre. Another couple of weeks at least. It still tastes good though

Chipping and Mulching Prunings, Mock Roquefort

Finally, the 25 breeders across the river have commenced calving with one birth this morning. It was still groggy enough to let me put on both ear tags. In this herd we use a letter to denote the year of birth and this is H. The number that follows is from the NLIS (National Livestock Identification System) tag and in this case 101. Only hours old this little heifer now has both ears pierced. The schedule on the wall calls for commencement from 12th July 2013 but they or the bull  obviously didn't see that calendar. Although the other two herds have cows who look close they have not progressed.

Sunday has traditionally been the day we make cheese and having collected milk yesterday evening that tradition continued. The cream had settled and since the choice was a double cream blue i.e. mock Roquefort 9 litres of milk was bottled via a syphon from the bottom of the stainless vat. As usual 4 different starters were added plus some blue mould. Ended up with a few more rounds than was originally planned but it won't go to waste. The kitchen sink is a bit crowded with the Havarti still in progress but what's new.

Small rounds of double cream blue cheese

During the rennet setting time the mulcher was in progress and managed to get the Orchard pruning's mulched and into the NZ compost that was started last week. The cheese then needed some attention and that consumed the couple of spare hours before afternoon herd checks. There is still the Elderflower pruning's to be cleaned up which should provide almost enough mulch to finish off the NZ compost. But that will wait another day or two.