The county of Leicestershire is the bulls-eye of England; as landlocked and central as humanly possible. England is an old country rich in tradition. In Leicesterhire those cultural relics are lots of sheep, fox hunting, blue Stilton and red Leicester cheeses, and a love of stopping at traffic lights.
In this film, a theme park has all customers pay financially up front. And you can still see them in Leicestershire to this day. For wine pairings, a nice Bordeaux or Nebbiolo can work well. For cheese flights, Red Leicester is visually fun to work with. It is not yellow or white, unlike most cheeses. Remember me. Register Lost your password? Log In Lost your password? Lost your password? Please enter your username or email address. This cheese press is proudly made in the USA and built to last a lifetime.
Both easy to use and care for it is a wonderful investment for any cheese maker. I highly recommend making a large batch with gallons of milk and bandage wrap for aging. This cheese can also be waxed but it's just not the same. To make a smaller or larger version simply alter the ingredients proportionately. The press weight will be proportionate to your surface area. Begin by adding 2 tsp 10ml of Annatto Cheese Color. Mix the annatto well until it blends into the milk.
I found out the hard way that annatto needs to be fresh. I had some a year or two old and it did not color well. When using fresh, the color popped. If using Calcium Chloride, wait about 5 min before adding it to the milk. Most cold stored pasteurized milk needs it. Now heat the milk to 85F. Do this by placing the milk in a pot or sink of very warm water. If you heat your milk directly on the stove, make sure you heat the milk slowly and stir it well as it heats.
Once the milk is at 85F, the culture can be added. To prevent the powder from caking and sinking in clumps, sprinkle the powder over the surface of the milk and then allow about 2 minutes for the powder to re-hydrate before stirring it in. The milk now needs to be kept at this target temperature until it is time to increase for cooking the curds.
Hold the milk with culture quiet for the next 60 minutes to allow the culture to begin doing its work. It will be very slow initially but will soon kick into its more rapid rate of converting lactose to lactic acid. The milk now needs to sit quiet for 45 minutes while the culture works and the rennet coagulates the curd.
You may notice the curd thickening at about minutes, but allow it to sit quiet to develop a clean break. The thermal mass of this milk should keep it warm during this period.
It is OK if the temp drops a few degrees during this time. Once the curd has been tested for a clean break the proper firmness , then the next step is to cut the curd into small, even pieces to separate the whey from the curd mass.
One of the big differences between this and a cheddar process is that the curds are cut much smaller. To accomplish this, I begin with what I call the pre-cut, much like I see in Parma or in the Alpine chalets, but they do it with their main cutting tool followed by the final cut to size.
Now it is time to begin drying out the curds. This will be done by increasing the heat slowly to 95F. The heat needs to be increased slowly at about F 1C every 5 minutes at the beginning. The total cooking time will be 45 minutes, and may be extended slightly if the curds are still soft. The final curds should be cooked well through and should be examined to make sure that enough moisture has been removed.
A broken curd should be firm throughout and the curds should have a moderate resistance when pressed between the fingers. All of these variations make the cheese quite different from cheddar in the end, moister and a bit more crumbly. Once the curds have been cooked and settled briefly, remove the whey down to about 1" above the curd mass.
They should be allowed to sit in the whey for minutes and a gentle stirring will make sure that the curd mass can consolidate with minimal spaces between them. After this brief rest the curd is ready to be drained, but needs time remaining warm to continue the conversion of lactose to lactic acid.
Drain the remaining whey and pull the cloth tight wrapping the cheese into a consolidated block for its final rest.
Traditionally these blocks would have been much larger and had their own thermal mass to keep warm. With a smaller cheese I accomplish this by placing a gallon of warm water and a board on top of the resting curd bundle. If you cut a small piece of curd at this point you will notice that the taste is still somewhat sweet lactose. If you have a pH meter that can measure the curd pH go no lower than a pH of 5.
Too sweet or too acid and the cheese will be problematic in ripening. My yield for this cheese was about 6. This makes for 2 oz of salt or about 57 grams if you speak metric. Add this in doses and mix in well for each dose. The curds can now be transfered into a cloth lined cheese mold and be placed into a cheese press. The rate of whey running off begins as a fine stream while the initial flush takes place and quickly turns into a matter of drops and not a stream of whey being released.
This is a good rate of whey removal during pressing and will slow even more as the residual free moisture is released. The form should show tears of whey weeping from the form very slowly. When this stops you can increase the weight slightly. The cheese should be removed from the press, unwrapped, turned, rewrapped, and put back to the press at the above intervals.
To assure an even consolidation. At each turn you will notice the cheese has formed a smoother surface and rests lower in the mold. The cheese needs to get all of those little cracks and niches closed and sealed for a proper aging to work.
Note the color intensifying as the coloring is concentrated in the curd structure with moisture removal. Bandaging is the traditional method of finishing this cheese with a cloth protection for aging. You could wax but the end result would be quite different after aging. The cloth makes the surface much more breathable. Once the cheese has undergone a successful pressing it is time to apply the cloth binding. The bandaging is simply a cloth covering to bind the cheese and protect it during the months of aging.
Molds will grow on the surface but the cheese is totally protected and when the bandage is removed the cheese is clean and ready to eat.
The bandage is simply a light cloth that is cut for the shape of the cheese and applied with a slight coat of melted lard for adhesion. For the cloth a light muslin will do fine. I prepare my cloth by cutting circles about 1" bigger than the cheese diameter for overlapping. I normally cut about a dozen of these at a time. I also cut a large piece of cloth that is about " longer than the circumference of the cheese.
From this I cut 2 sections that are about 1" bigger than the height of the cheese. When ready to bandage melt a small amount of lard. Normally I render my own but for demonstration purposes I just use store-bought here.
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