Ramsey. This is a screenshot from one of 4 movies Ramsey’s little sister, Scarlett (8) filmed of him making a blue cheese.
Ramsey is 13 and he is getting an early start at becoming a master home cheesemaker. He recently completed his first cheese – Bleu d’Auvergne, one of Jim Wallace’s recipes at our website, cheesemaking.com. This is considered an advanced recipe.
Screenshot from Jim Wallace’s recipe for Bleu d’Auvergne
He was originally going to make cheese for a French project at school, but it took too long to research and make in time, so he did it for fun instead.
His father told us,
“He is a very determined boy for his age. Once he gets a project in his mind, he wants to perfect it. When he found this recipe I pointed out that it’s says at the beginning, that this recipe is advanced and you should have experience with other cheese making. He wanted to start at the top though. I warned him, but he persisted and came out successful!”
He bought his milk from the grocery down the street. Because it was pasteurized, he added calcium chloride to the milk.
When he was done making the cheese, he had a question so he wrote to Jim (jim@cheesemaking.com), attaching a picture to his email.
After 1 week in the cave
He was concerned that mold was forming on the surface after only one week of ripening. Jim assured him that this was normal and that his cheese was looking good.
During the course of their exchange, Ramsey shared his intentions,
“I am making the cheese for fun but I may turn it into a business and sell it at the farmer’s market. I want to be able to make it into a profitable business and to learn to make all different types of cheeses from around the world.”
He also likes to cook other things like pizza, and cassoulet.
Movies by Scarlett:
Unfortunately, we couldn’t embed the movies, but the links are here along with a few screenshots from each one:
“I felt very ridiculous when I was buying this milk at the store.”
He couldn’t believe all the milk in that very full pot would ever fit into the large mold specified in the recipe. (His sister theorized that perhaps the milk would shrink?)
You can see that he did a fine job of cutting the curds.
He drained them for a few minutes before pouring them into the mold.
All that milk did actually fit into the mold!
Flipping the cheese. This is always a challenge but Ramsey pulled it off.
He prepared the cave to have the high level humidity required – 93%.
The first day of 3, he carefully salted the cheese, a little bit at a time.
The second day, he poured the cheese into a pile on top and spread it out. (Experience yielded a shortcut.)
Before revealing the cheese after 1 week in the cave, Ramsey shared his fears that it was blooming prematurely. However, he had sent a picture to Jim and Jim had said it was fine.
“It smells terrible!”
He poked the holes in the top and bottom.
And, finally, it was ready to age for 2 months
We’ll be keeping up with Ramsey’s progress and we will let you know when you can buy his cheese.
