Jason

Make Brie Cheese

September 11, 2018 by Jason Leave a Comment

Brie cheese is pretty easy to make once you are set up to maintain the aging environment. Like most mold-ripened cheeses, it has to sit in a higher humidity to allow the white coat to develop. I have made brie from a number of recipes, but the one that consistently yields my desired results is the Brie Jim Wallace over at New England Cheesemaking.

Since recipes are all over, and cheesemakers don’t usually deviate from the recipe at hand, I’ll spare you of the ingredients and general process since this is all documented at the link above. However, I do want to spell out some parts of the process making this cheese that you should pay attention to.

As I mentioned… it’s easy to make Brie. However, if you are a beginner, Brie is not the cheese to start with. It’s not considered advanced, but it takes a dedicated environment to produce what these soft cheeses want to become.

On some cheeses, you cut the curd, but in the case of Brie, you ladle out thin layers into the mould. This helps preserve the whey and butterfat that you want to maintain in this cheese. How fast the whey drains from the curd dictates the acidity (among other things) and dryness of the cheese. You’ll fill up the mould, and then you need to leave it time to sink down before ladling in more. There will be flipping and allowance to drain over the first day or so.

For cheesemaking, I now use the Anova immersion circulator and I don’t know what I’d do without it. You can really control the temperature, including holding the same temperature for as long as you need, and also manage the ramping of temperatures needed in most cheesemaking. If you’re really a techie, here’s the Anova Culinary Sous Vide Precision Cooker w WI-FI and Bluetooth, the same unit, but has Wifi.

After the cheese has been salted and air-dried, it is important that the cheese is put in the right temperature and humidity. Recipes talk about the surface of the cheese not being too wet or dry. We want it just perfect to allow the bloom of the desired yeasts and molds.

As the white mold grows, you’ll “pat” it down each time you flip it to allow it to make somewhat of a skin that becomes the familiar white coat. Here again, humidity is critical. I have made Brie so many times and have had various results until my knowledge of things became more solid. If the white mold is growing too fast (typically from too high of a humidity,) it can introduce a strong ammonia smell to your cave… and of course, the taste of the cheese! I usually make a few small rounds that I can cut and sample during the journey to affinage. We’ll often think of a cheese needing time, and patience when really, some may just need to be eaten while they are still delicious.

Fact is, Brie and most soft cheese are to be eaten sooner then aged hard cheeses. Brie has become one of those cheeses that I’ll make when I want to enjoy something sooner.

The first picture below is labeled as a “failed brie.” That’s right. sometimes, things just don’t work out. The curd on this particular one hardened up a bit… maybe because (as you can see) the shallow depth of the cheese. It likely dried out a bit more, but I wouldn’t rule out another flaw in the process. The end result, however, turned out to be a pleasantly sharp “hard cheese.” If I knew how I did it, I’d totally do it again.

I’d love to hear your questions… or even your stories about Brie.

Brie just starting to develop the white coat.

Nduja is a Spreadable Salame

April 28, 2018 by Jason Leave a Comment

Don’t let the moldy casing fool ya. The magic is inside. This has been drying for a while now. I just uncased a few more, rolled them in more Calabrian pepper powder, and vac sealed for some additional time in the fridge. It should be very spicy. We’ll know more later. I still have a larger caliber (about 2 pound) stuffed in a beef bung still in the drying chamber.

This is Nduja. It is a fermented, cured, spreadable salami. The highlights of Nduja is that it is typically spicy hot, made from a variety of Calabrian peppers, has a much larger percentage of fat than lean pork, and of course, it’s spreadable. One might even dispute it is salami. It’s still hung up to dry a considerable amount before cutting open and knifing it out.

The high-fat content is what makes it spreadable. The high-quality pork I started with had beautiful, stark white fat and the animal was harvested only a day earlier. I brought it home, sorted out 70% fat back, and 30% belly (which is about 50/50 lean/fat). So that brings us maybe closer to 80% fat! I used a 1:1 ratio of sweet and hot Calabrian pepper powders, and elected for Aleppo pepper instead of cayenne.

I got all of the fat close to frozen and made sure the grinder, attachments, and trays were super cold too. This is to prevent smear, especially since it was going through the grinder twice. I ground the fat first, then the belly separate through my medium die. I hand-mixed the farce, then folded in the spice mix. The white fat soaked up the brick red color of the pepper powders. I then added in the starter culture along with a 1/2 cup of dry red wine. I took all of that and put it through the grinder using the small die. It was closer to a paste now but still around 42F or so.

I put it into my stuffer (that was also pre-chilled in the freezer) and stuffed into 4 hog ends and 1 beef bung. I still have to truss them up, but there’s time since they will sit at 80F and 80% humidity for 72 hours to ferment, then go into the drying chamber for a good while longer. This will be an interesting one. I found myself salivating thinking about how it should taste when it’s done.

After watching and reading the many variations of how people make it, here is what I ended up with.

80/50 fat/lean pork
.25% #2
2% kosher sea salt
.3% dextrose
.9% hot Calabrian pepper powder
.9% sweet Calabrian pepper powder
.5% Aleppo Pepper
.01% B-LC-007 starter culture.
120ml dry red wine

Venison Neck Ham or Pepper Loaf

December 31, 2017 by Jason Leave a Comment

I tried a new variation on the neck roast from a deer I took this year. I always make it a point to harvest the neck roast from any deer I take and I take the time to get all of it and keep it as the biggest piece I can. If it comes out decent, I’ll try something new with it. But in most cases, it comes out kind of scraggly and it’s ground along with the skirt meat from around the rib cages into sausage meat.

This year, I got it out in mostly one scraggly piece of meat. I took it and the skirt meat and weighed it out. I made up a spice mix (below) and added it with the meat, and tossed it in the fridge for a couple weeks, turning and massaging it every other day.

Venison Ham (It tasted like pepper loaf in the end)

2280 grams of venison neck and skirt meat
2.25% kosher salt
.25% Cure #1
2% turbinado sugar
12 juniper berries, crushed
.5 Blk. pepper
.50% basic steak seasoning

Add all spices to the meat, massage and add into plastic vac bag, scraping all of the spice and salt into the bag as well. It’s ok to wash the bowl out with a bit of distilled water just to drain ALL of the spices/salt into the bag. Seal and put in fridge for 7-10 days (or as long as you want if you are using EQ).

When I found a moment, I got it out, rinsed it off, and laid it on some clean dry towels just to soak up as much water as possible. I laid out a few layers of plastic wrap and I spread the neck roast out like a big carpet. I got out the transglutamase (TG, meat glue, that will bind proteins together) and sprinkled it directly on to the meat in a liberal fashion. I layered on the skirt meat and alternated sprinkling the TG. I was looking for a uniform thickness of meat that I could roll up in the plastic wrap like a big sausage. The pics below will illustrate it better.

Mind you, the TG I had expired in 2015… ugh, but what the heck, it was an experiment. Once it was rolled up tight in the plastic wrap, I slipped some netting over it, and pricked it with the sausage pricker to let all the air pockets out. Since it was a mass of shredded meat, I massaged it a bit to force all the air out that I could. Now it was to sit to let the TM set.

It sat in the fridge for two days before I took it out, slipped off the netting and carefully took it out of the plastic wrap. Then I slipped the netting back on to it and got the smoker going. The smoker was set 10 175F. It fluctuated between that and 200F for about 9-10 hours. I filled my water pan at the bottom with water to keep a decent amount of moisture going. You’ll smoke to an internal temperature of 155F. Remember, the smoke is handled first thing while there’s still a good pellicle. Once that’s gone, it stops taking smoke for the most part… so, add the smoke early on… then let finish out to the needed internal temperature. I also added a tin-foil tent at the half-way point just to try and keep the surface from drying too much. This let the moisture come straight up under the ham and the foil tent.

It was really hard to not rip in to this at this point, but I wrapped it good in tin foil and set on the counter until it cooled enough to go into the fridge. Yup… it get’s chilled over night, and then sliced in the morning.

Overall, it turned out great, and I’ll definitely be doing this more. The meat glue did it’s job… but since it was old, the seams did come apart a bit as you can see in the pics. It still wasn’t a big deal. When it was sliced, it kind of fell apart… the way you’d like if you were layering it onto some rye with a plop of saur kraut. It was good on crackers with mustard, and just straight up. I suppose you could fry it in a skillet too… but, it’s fully cooked at this point, and it really just works as a lunchmeat.

I should mention my inspiration for this project was from Chris Varner’s “Ham-Grenade” that is posted in the Salt Cured Pig group on Facebook. Chris is another daring salumiere I like to watch among the many other talents there. If you’re really in to curing and drying, I whole-heartedly recommend these groups on Facebook. They provide a wealth of inspiration and knowledge… and have a passionate readership who’s highly engaged.

Hope you can try it this with your next deer harvest… and let me know how it goes!

Deer, hung and aged for a solid 12 days! Look at the color.

Venison neck and skirt meat trimmed, and seasoned in the spice mix.

The meat and spice mix was in the fridge for about 2 weeks.

Out of the cure, the meat was rinsed, dried and layered on plastic wrap. Transglutamase was sprinkled on between each layer.

The meat was rolled up into a tight log and tied on the ends, then netted, pricked.. and massage out all the air.

Once out of the wrap, it was re-netted and then hot smoked at 175F for 10 hours.

The ham came out of the smoker, was wrapped in foil and then left in fridge overnight.

Finally, we get to slice. Notice the meat glue didn’t hold up completely.

It worked good on a soda cracker with mustard.

Well enough to make some good ruben-style sammies.

Here is it packaged up for family gifts.

Deer Heart Pastrami

December 3, 2017 by Jason Leave a Comment

Finally. I’ve been wanting to try a deer heart pastrami for a while now. I got it done… and did the final hot smoke and steaming today. The recipe was taken from Michael Pendley’s venison pastrami recipe on RealTree.com. I mainly went with his ingredients and followed his procedure, but used two deer hearts and a pork heart I had. The results are not disappointing!

I love pastrami, and while I usually dry cure my deer hearts, I wanted to do a pastrami because of the dense, silky texture of the heart meat. With all the fat on the outside, it just seemed perfect. I did trim a little of the outer fat off though. I have an exact process of dressing deer hearts at this point. Where and how it’s cut is the same all the time if I’m wanting to keep it in a single piece. In dry-curing, it get EQ cured, then rolled tight and trussed before drying. Once during that process, it get’s unrolled, brushed, a layer of cracked pepper put on, then rolled back up, and re-trussed.

For the pastrami, it was cut and dressed the same way, put in the brine for about 9 days, washed off, rubbed, then hot smoked before steaming. It was rolled back up into the shape of the heart before laid on the top rack of my smoker.

Hearts in the brine, then into the fridge.

For the brine;

2 quarts of water
½ cup kosher salt
½ cup brown sugar
1 Tablespoon Instacure #1
1 cinnamon stick
1 teaspoon mustard seed
1 teaspoon black peppercorns
8 whole cloves
2 crumbled bay leaves
½ teaspoon powdered ginger

I added 3 hearts (2 deer and one pork) – I mixed it up and heated it in a pot just as prescribed in Michael’s article. Once cooled, I added the cleaned, dressed hearts. I let it go in the brine for about 8 or 9 days because that’s how long it took me to get back to it.

Hearts out of the hot smoke, and into the steam.

I washed off with water, and rubbed it down with:

2 tablespoons cracked BP
1 tablespoon ground coriander seeds (my own in fact)
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 tablespoon paprika
1 tablespoon Steak seasoning
1 teaspoons garlic powder
1 teaspoons onion powder

I mixed all the ingredients, and rubbed the inside and outside of the hearts really well. I got it into all the crevices of the inside. Then I rolled them up, and laid them on the top rack of the smoker. I did the first hour at 225 over apple wood chunks… and then ramped it up to 250 until an internal temp of 150. When it came off, I laid them on a rack over a tray of water in the oven at 250 for 1.5 hours to steam it. When it came out, I sliced, ate some, and vac’d them into little Carl Budding-like packs to share with friends.

I highly recommend this. It’s really worth it. Enjoy some pics, and commentary.

Dressing a deer heart just entail cutting out the webbing and whatever fat you want off the outside.

After cure, rinse, and rub with spice mix.

Took the ends after slicing and diced them up for addition into another dish.

Dehydrating garlic for minced and powder

May 4, 2017 by Jason Leave a Comment

I grow a lot of garlic and usually have a good surplus. Sometimes, however, there’s so much I can’t use it all before the bulbs begin to dry and shrink. This year, I peeled all my garlic and sliced each clove in half in prep to dehydrate it. Slicing in half allows it to dry pretty quickly. I went two days on low-medium heat.

Once it was dry (and very hard), it was ready to grind. I pulsed it in my Krupps spice grinder to keep the larger pieces for more of a minced texture. I ran that through a sieve to get the powder. The flavors were concentrated and powerful. A little goes a long way. I’ve been sprinkling it on rice lately. I had some leftover rice and it seemed like a nice bland medium to try it out on. It’s delicious and carries the rich garlic flavor right through. The dried mince can be rehydrated in a skillet with a little oil. When I make Indian curries, I hydrate it while I’m blooming the other spices.

This is the first time I dried garlic, and I’m sure it won’t be the last! Easy to do, and the final products keep a very long time.