Making homemade Stilton cheese is quite affordable with a rather limited and not very expensive set of ingredients and accessories. Moreover, if you are a connoisseur of this type of food and understand a lot about them, once you have tried your own Stilton, you will completely forget about buying such cheese in chain stores.
It is necessary
A saucepan for 9 liters of milk, 8 liters of milk itself, a special bag for cheese mass and draining of whey, 1 liter of cream (optimum fat content - 20%), mesophilic starter culture, rennet, calcium chloride, moldy culture Penisillium Roqueforti, cheese mold for 1 kilogram, cheese press, thermometer, a few spoons
Instructions
Step 1
The last step of the first part of this recipe involved settling the curd in a saucepan after stirring for 5 minutes. At this time, prepare a colander, strainer, or steamer top next to the pan, where it will be convenient to place a bag for draining the whey. Place the container of your choice on top of another saucepan or deep bowl.
Step 2
Do not be alarmed if you cannot immediately put all the curd in the bag at once, as it thickens significantly in a matter of minutes after the whey drains. Be patient.
Step 3
Once all the curd has been collected, wrap the bag and tie the top. Leave it on for 10-15 minutes to drain more whey.
Step 4
Then place the cheese under a press with a weight of 2.5-3 kg oppression. Leave the whey to drain for another 10 hours, but remember to turn the bag from one side to the other several times to keep the mass as dry as possible.
Step 5
In 10 hours, the cheese mass of the future culinary masterpiece will be very well compacted and reduced in volume. Remove it from the drain container.
Step 6
Cut the mass into 1 centimeter cubes into a deep bowl, or simply tear it into small pieces with your hands.
Step 7
Add salt. For such a volume of future cheese, you will need about 1/3 of a tablespoon. Remember that this type of cheese is not soaked in brine, so the added ingredient will be the final ingredient. Mix the mixture well.
Step 8
Take the prepared cheese mold and place the salted mass in it. Try to make the packing tighter, without gaps, but also without strong pressure, since the necessary conditions for the growth and successful life of the Penisillium Roqueforti culture are the presence of gaps and niches inside the cheese head.
Step 9
Then put the mold under the press for 5-6 hours with a weight of 3 kilograms. After this time, deliver the cheese, turn it over and put it back in the mold. Press the same time with the same weight.
Step 10
As a result, you will end up with a small cheese head. Not very dense, with an uneven surface, but still quite stable and non-dripping. Place it to dry in a bowl where the cheese will sit for another 3 days at room temperature.
Step 11
This is what fresh, freshly dried and initially warm blue cheese looks like. The latter is absolutely invisible at this stage of preparation. Do not forget to turn the cheese head every 5 hours to dry it evenly.
Step 12
After three days, prepare a container with a lid, on the bottom of which place several layers of paper towels, and on top of them a drainage mat through which the cheese will breathe without touching the paper. Close container well and place in refrigerator. For the first week, change the towel every day and wipe off excess moisture inside the container, and wipe the surface of the cheese with a piece of salt gauze dipped in brine. The portion of the latter is 1/2 tablespoon of salt per glass of water.
Step 13
For the second week of ripening, continue rubbing the cheese with the solution. At this stage, the aroma of this variety becomes noticeable, which cannot be confused with anything. Do not try to rub the surface thoroughly with a generously moistened piece of gauze, as this action is intended not to salt the cheese, but to give it a very tender crust.
Step 14
In the third week, it is no longer necessary to wipe the cheese, since a small crust formed under the influence of salting becomes noticeable. Take a long knitting needle and punch many holes through the cheese head. Leave it to mature in the refrigerator for another 3-4 months, change the paper towel a couple of times a week and turn the cheese head over.
Step 15
After this time, you will have a very aromatic cheese head with a brown crust. Wrap the cheese in foil, store it in the refrigerator and enjoy it with wine or port.
