Long Whey To Go: Caerphilly

This is a working class cheese from Wales. When I grew up a "Cornish Pasty" was a great alternative to a "meat pie" for lunch. But my lunch at school was a very different lunch from the people who invented "dirty hands eating".

Cornish Pasty

The Pasty was a food of the Coal miners. A meat and vegetable filled pasty parcel with a thick hard crust on one end was an ideal food to hold in one coal black hand and eat a hearty meal underground. The cheese was often wrapped in cabbage leaves. The same was true for Caerphilly Cheese (pronunciation). Named after the region in Wales this salty cheese with a tough natural rind did not spoil and was a good part of a meal, replacing the salts lost through hard work underground, and like the Pasty, the rind could be discarded once soiled by coal black hands.

So as you sample this full cream, salty cheese, think of the miners peering at their lunch through the light of their helmet candles, with black hands - eager for their cheese and pasty.

Caerphilly

The Recipe - makes approx 1 lb wheel

Thanks to fellow Aussie

Cheesmaker Gavin http://www.littlegreencheese.com/2011/07/caerphilly.html

for suggestions

1 gallon full cream milk

1/8 tsp calcium chloride solution in 1/4 cup non chlorinated water

1/8 tsp Mesophilic Starter

(LL) Lactococcus lactis subsp. lactis

(LLC) Lactococcus lactis subsp. cremoris

1/8 tsp liquid vegetable rennet ( any rennet will do) in 1/4 cup non chlorinated water

1 table spoon salt

Directions

Heat the milk to 90 F

Add the starter and let rest and develop for 20 minutes

Add Rennet with stirring and 2 minutes and let rest at for 40 minutes or longer until you get a clean curds break

Cut the curds into 1/2 inch pieces

Heat slowly to 92 F with constant stirring and hold for 40 minutes

Drain the curds into a cheese cloth lined colander

Once the curds have drained, cut and "Cheddar" the curds three times in 15 minutes (To "Cheddar" the curds you cut them into 1 inch slabs and stack them up in the along the side of the colander. This helps the syneresis (release of water from the proteins)

Crumble the curds into bits about 1/4 - 1/2 inch

Min in 1 table spoon of seal salt (yes this is a very salty cheese!)

Place the cheese cloth into a mold and press - I use a 5 inch open bottomed mold

Start the press cycle

5 lb for 10 minutes - remove salt the ends, flip and rewrap

10 lbs for 30 minutes - remove salt the ends, flip and rewrap

20 lbs over night for 12-16 hours

Ageing

Place on a board and draining mat for air flow at room temp (65-75 F) for 2 days till dry to the touch turning a few times a day to allow even drying and fat distribution. The cheese quickly formed the start of a dry rind.

Place in a "cheese cave" - in my case the crisper draw of the fridge at 50 F and >85% humidity for min 3 weeks.

Turn every few days while ageing and if molds develop wipe with a saturated salt solution.

Curds after 40 minutes at 92 F

Drain Curds

Cheddar the Curds

Crumble and salt

Press

Remove salt and flip

Overnight press in "Patented" Cheese press!

Ready for ageing

UPDATE September 4th

After three weeks in the 55F cave at 85% humidity the cheese has a sold yellow hard rind and I am thinking it is a week away from being cut. Often this cheese is eaten at the three week mark but I think I will develop the flavor a bit more.