Saint Maure de Touraine Cheese Making Recipe

Acidify & Heat Milk

Begin by heating the milk to 86F (30C). You do this by placing the milk in a pot or sink of warm water. If you do this in a pot on the stove, make sure you heat the milk slowly and stir it well as it heats.

Once the milk is at 86F 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. Also you may add 1/16th of the Geotrichum mold to the milk at this point to encourage a natural surface rind.

Some folks do prefer to add the culture at 70-74F and this is also fine but will take a bit longer for acid production. The 86F we choose is to help keep the coagulation time in the 24 hr. range which works best for a daily production of this cheese.

Coagulation

No rennet is needed since this was already supplied in the chevre pack.

The milk now needs to set undisturbed for 18-24 hrs while the culture works in a major role and the rennet has its secondary role. During this time, sanitize your molds and draining mats in preparation for the curd transfer.

When starting the ripening at 86F, allow the milk to drop naturally to room temp (72F).

At about 5-8 hours you will notice that the milk has begun to thicken. Allow the coagulation to continue until you observe the following:

• First, a few small pools of whey rise to the surface
• Next, the pools begin to join into a thin layer of whey
• Finally, the layer of whey increases to about 1/8-1/4" on the surface

At this point (18-24 hrs) the curds should be ready for the next step.

Molding Curds

The curd for this cheese is never cut or pre-drained as in other styles of chevre or lactic cheese. The curd is carefully transferred to the small molds-as intact as possible. This will create the nice tight paste so characteristic of this cheese.

Begin by setting down the draining mats on a surface that will collect and allow the whey to run off (about 1.5 gallon of whey will be released from 2 gallons of milk).

Next, set the molds on the draining mats. These molds are VERY narrow and tall so are EXTREMELY UNSTABLE. My solution to this is to place all of the molds together and stabilize with a couple of elastic bands. I even use a 5th mold that never gets filled to provide a larger base area for more stability.

Now the fun begins! The entire curd mass needs to be transferred to these small opening molds with as little breakage as possible. Fill the molds in a "round robin" manner with a small spoon or scoop. Keep adding curd until full.

Once full, the molds need to settle for about 15 minutes and are then filled again. This will need to be repeated until all of the curd has been used up.

Some patience is required here and perhaps your favorite mantra, some good music, or even some personal meditation can help pass the time.

Draining Whey

Allow the cheese to drain 18-24 hrs. The curd will drop by 1/2-1/3 of the mold height. When whey stops dripping, they can be unmolded. They should not be turned until this time.

When the whey draining has slowed to only a few drips, the cheese can be unmolded. The long narrow shape will be quite fragile and can be very easily broken at this point.

Traditionally, what they would do before unmolding is to insert a piece of rye straw through the center to improve the handling and aging aspect. My straw came from a local farm (I also use this as a bed for aging my St Nectaire cheese) and I sanitize the straw with a bit of steam when sanitizing my pot and tools the morning of cheese making.

• The straw will strengthen the cheese like a spine for handling
• It can be used to avoid touching the cheese during the fragile surface molding
• It will provide some aeration to the interior of the cheese for better ripening during aging

Salt - Ash - Herbs

Salt should be added using a total of 1 tsp for each cheese. The easiest way I find is to sprinkle salt on a flat surface (I usually lay down a piece of waxed paper for this) and roll the cheese in this.

A small amount of ash/charcoal can be added to the salt as desired (1/8-1/4 tsp per cheese). I finished 2 of the cheeses I made with ash mixed into the salt. This mixture is spread on a flat surface and then the cheeses are rolled in it.

I also left one of the cheeses with no surface addition other than the geotrichum added to the original milk.

For a non-traditional approach and after the salt has been absorbed, the cheese can be rolled in finely chopped fresh herbs, small colorful flower petals, fresh fine dried hay, or even a selection of dried seeds or nuts. I find a variety of these beautiful presentations in Italy using the St Maure log format.

I have added some fresh herbs, finely chopped and spread out on the board, then rolled the final bare cheese in this. We polished this one off within 7 days of the making.

Aging

Cheese will need to dry off 2-3 days before moving to the aging room for the desired time.

The cheese can then be placed into your aging space at 52-56F and 90-95% moisture.

They will need to be turned daily and should be ready for the table in 6 days to several weeks.

Over the next few weeks, a natural mold will develop on the surface. The ones treated with ash will reduce the acidity and the mold surface will develop quicker.

Finished Cheese

Once the surface develops its natural mold, it will begin producing enzymes that ripen the cheese. You will notice the photos below from left to right show increasing stages of ripeness. Notice how the enzymes transform the paste from outside - in, over time.

The new cheese is removed from its mold, sprinkled with charcoal and salt and allowed to mature for a minimum of ten days. After ten days the exterior of the cheese is pale cream in color, it has a soft delicate texture but the characteristic mold has not yet developed. During the aging process, the cheese is turned every day by hand and the pale mold begins to grow. After three weeks, the mold has darkened and the cheese has lost some of its weight and size. After five weeks the mold becomes more pronounced, but with a dry appearance and the pate has a firm texture with a round, balanced flavor. At each stage they will have a very different texture, flavor and aroma. Your best idea of when to eat them would be to make several and try them at different times during this aging cycle. My favorite is when they are about half transformed.

A word of caution on these wonderful cheeses. They do want to be treated well. Too much moisture or heat will turn them into a very strange runny mass of weeping cheese.

So that's it for this recipe. I thought it to be a simple straight forward cheese when I started but, as per usual, once I started with the research, things began to roll along, I hope you enjoy it.