Carbonzola

At 6 weeks it was excellent!

When we lived in Belgium, this cheese was responsible for at least 10lb of weight increase and who knows how much cholesterol.

Carbonzola - as the name suggests is a hybrid cheese - a camembert inoculated with  Penicillium roqueforti mold , the same mold used to make a range of blue cheeses such as Roquefort and the Italian Gorgonzola. What you get is the best of both worlds. The taste and aroma of an early and mild blue with the soft creamy texture of a camembert.

Normally Camembert has a Fat to Protein ration of 0.9, achieved by the addition of about 2 tables spoons of heavy cream per gallon of full cream milk. See the Camembert blog for details.

In this case I am making it with a ratio of 1:1 - using just full cream milk. If you want the uber rich version - add the cream. Also I have chosen to use as my Penicillium roqueforti source, a nice piece of Gabriel Coulet Roquefort - a dreamy French sheeps milk semi soft blue - perhaps the very best of its type - see more details in the Tasting Notes section of the blog.

As you will see the Penicillium roqueforti is added while the curds are being added to the hoops so for this batch I am going to make one Camembert and one Carbonzola from the same batch.

In the past I have made two small 5 oz Camembert's from one 1/2 gallon - so we will see how much we can fit into the molds by dewatering a bit first and then trying to build two 8-10 oz wheels. We will also see if I can make them without cross contamination.

For this batch

Recipe

You will need:

1 gallon of full cream milk - I chose Whole Foods 365 Whole Milk

Calcium Chloride solution
Mesophilic Starter - pinch
Penicillum Candidum - pinch
Geotrichum Candidum - pinch
For this recipe I used a combined pack
Calf Rennet powder - 1/8 tsp
Penicillium roqueforti from Gabriel Coulet Roquefort sheeps milk cheese

Draining mats
Camembert forms 4 inch

Method

Heat milk to 90 F
Add 20 drops calcium chloride solution in 1/4 cup non coordinated water
Add
Mesophilic Starter - pinch
Penicillum Candidum - pinch
Geotrichum Candidum - pinch
Mix and hold at 90 F for one hour
Add Calf Rennet powder - 1/8 tsp in 1/4 cup non coordinated water
Mix for 2 minutes and then leave undisturbed for one hour

Once you have a clean break confirmed cut the curds into large 1 inch pieces and GENTLY mix the curds for 5 minutes and allow for some whey separation. Drain about 1/4 gallon of whey. Then using a spoon transfer curds to the hoops placed on draining mats. Fill hoops to half full.

For the Carbonzola

- blend a teaspoon of Roquefort cheese vein with water to a paste.
- drizzle this paste over the 1/2 full hoop

Then - continue to fill the hoop to the top and allow to drain for 30 minutes.

Flip hoops and allow to drain for one hour

Flip hoops and allow to drain for one hour

Flip hoops and allow to drain for 3 hours

Flip hoops and allow to drain overnight (12 hours)

Remove from hoops and salt all sides with one tablespoon of cheese salt

Place in cave at 95% humidity at 50-55F for 8-12 days to allow white Penicillum mold to grow on the surface. The mold should start to appear at days 6-8. Turn the cheese daily.

For Carbonzola - at day 5 - remove cheese from cave and pierce wheel through the side (horizontal) with a clean skewer every 1/4 inch. The idea is to allow oxygen to reach the roqueforti molds that require oxygen to grow. This will produce the blue veins in the cheese. Place back in the cave.

Remove one the cheese has a good white coating. Wrap in breathable cheese paper and transfer to a colder cave at 45-50 F to age for 3-5 weeks.

Prep the tools

Prep the tools

Cut the curds

Stir for 3-4 mins

Remove 1/4 whey

Prep the hoops

Do not eat all the blue!

Make a slurry

Add blue slurry

Fill hoops

After overnight draining - remove from hoops and salt all sides and air dry for the day. Notice the front wheel is the Carbonzola. You can see some flecks of blue.

After 12 days at 55F the Camembert foreground and Carbonzola had an excellent healthy white growth coat and were ready for wrapping and storage for three weeks at 50F

Using a wooden skewer holes were poked through the round from sides and top to allow air access for blue growth

Ready for wrapping and storage at 50F for three weeks

At 6 weeks - perfect

Carbonzola - suggested recipe

For later reference - this great soft blue was a staple for us when we lived in Belgium - it on the must make list

Making Cambozola Cheese



 Cultures needed for a one or two gallon milk batch.
-Mesophilic Starter Culture (MM100-101 series or MA4000-4001 series or MA11-14-16 series) 1/3 tsp.
-Penicillum Candidum 1/16th tsp.
-Penicillium Roqueforti 1/32nd tsp.
-Rennet(dissolved in a little amount of cool water). Use amount per stated on rennet package. Use any type of rennet.
-Calcium Chloride/optional/use ¼ tsp.(1.25ml) in ¼ cup of cool water.
-Non-iodized course salt

Milk:
Raw milk or 1 part heavy cream to 7 parts skim milk or non-homogenized whole milk.

Procedure:
Heat milk/cream to 85f (29.5c). Maintain this temperature throughout the process. Sprinkle the Penicillum Candidum and Mesophilic Starter Culture onto the warmed milk, allowing the dry cultures to thoroughly hydrolize. Then add the rennet and stir for a few minutes. Do not add the Penicillium Roqueforti  at this point.  It will be added later. Then gently stir the milk 2-4 minutes using top to bottom strokes. Allow the curd to set and test for clean break after about 60 minutes. After getting a clean, gently cut curds into ½ inch (1.5cm) cubes. Stir curds in the whey for 2-4 minutes. Drain off nearly 80% of the whey from the curds using either a colander or draining bag for 25-30 minutes. Now ladle the drained curds in your camembert moulds until they are half full using about 50% of the curds. Sprinkle a very small dusting of P. roqueforti mold powder (about 1/16 tsp.) on the top of the curds.  Ladle the rest of the curds into the half full Camembert moulds. Let the filled
 moulds drain for 16-24 hours at room temperature until you see no additional draining. Turn the moulds over during this draining period multiple times so they drain uniformly. Once your cheese are drained and firm enough, take them out of their moulds and place them onto a draining mat/platform for salting. Lightly sprinkle about 1 tsp. of course non-iodized salt on all sides of each cheese. After salting, the cheeses can be set aside to age. The temperature should be 50-54f (10-12c) in your aging room. Cover your aging container when the cheeses no longer look excessively moist, making sure there is no moisture touching your cheeses. Flip your cheeses daily using clean hands. The white mold should begin to appear within 3-6 days, maybe a bit longer if the temperature is colder. After you see a good covering of white mold bloom on the cheeses, use a clean knitting needle or clean thin Phillips Head screwdriver, poke about 10 holes through the top of each cheese. These holes
 will air and help in the development of blue veining. Continue to age at 40-50f. You may have to re-poke holes if additional white mold bloom covers the holes. About 10-14 days after the first poking, wrap you cheeses in White Mold Paper and continue to age until you like the flavor. When the center of the cheese is a bit soft to the touch it has completed aging.  You can cut one cheese in half to see how ripe it is. A longer aging period will result in a stronger blue flavor.

Note:  Sometimes due to the fact that the holes may cover up even after you poke them, there is another way to get the blue mold to grow inside the cheese.  After a couple of days of aging when the cheeses are quite firm, using clean fishing line or some kind of clean string, cut the cheese in half horizontally.  Using a fork, scratch up the inside center of both halves.  Then, sprinkle a very tiny amount of the blue mold powder onto one of the halves.  Place the two halves back together and set aside to age.  Since the blue mold needs to grow, the small amount of air now inside the cheese will allow it to blue inside.