Edible, homemade camembert

I just wanted to share. After 5 weeks of waiting, I tried the first of my camemberts, and it was good – something I haven’t got to say about much of my cheese lately. We ate it as part of a massive lunch the other day and my friend took the above shot.

After 6 hours out of the fridge, it had become really soft, spreadable like thick cream cheese although not as runny as mayonnaise. I would have liked slightly more ooze but I’m not complaining. The flavour needs to develop more. It had a good hint of ammonia and a bit of a kick but it was still a bit bland, almost supermarket cheese like. I’m not sure how to develop that, but I’ll have a think before in my next batch. The rind though, it was perfect: white, paperthin and downy soft.

The other news is that our fridge broke. By broken, I mean it is stuck at around 12C. This explains why our milk kept going off, and why my last few cheese batches had problems –  my rennet was being kept at too high a temperature (although I think it might also have been past its use-by date).

The good part of this is that the broken fridge is now sitting at the almost perfect temperature for maturing cheese. I’m pretty sure my boyfriend thinks I did it deliberately. In there is the second camembert, which I’m going to mature to about 7 weeks to see the difference, and a blue which is now about 4 weeks old. It’s just starting to get some blue mould so I’ll post about it too shortly. I made it at my cheese course, which was excellent. I have some photos that I’ll try to put up in the next few days.