Making Camembert: A Slideshow
May 4th, 2008 by Danielle
On the first day of the cheesemaking workshop, we made Camembert while the Cheddar was being pressed. As you will see in the slideshow, the process for making this soft-ripened cheese does not include several of the steps that Cheddar requires, such as scalding and milling the curd, and pressing the cheese under weights.
Camembert is an unpressed cheese, its curd drained exclusively by gravity. A Camembert mold is 4.5 inches tall, and the curd initially fills it to the brim. After several hours of draining, during which time the cheese is flipped in the mold, the curd settles to about one-third of the height of the mold.
Jim explained that the drying process of the molded cheese is important in its rind development: blue mold may develop if the Camembert is not dried thoroughly, but the white mold will not form at all if it is too dry. The rind is actually a product of three distinct microbe populations: yeast, geotricum, and P. candidum. Full development of the rind takes about two weeks, and the interior of the Camembert will ripen over the following one to two weeks. Of course, that’s a matter of personal preference.
Hi Danielle
Thanks very much for the slide show on making Camenbert, I’d like to also try making it, few questions, please.
What is and where did you get the base and top of Camenbert mold material from?
Where did you get your molds or did you make them and how big are the holes.
How many is a reasonable number of molds as assume you don;t just make one at a time?
Where did you get the paper-cellophane to wrap it in?
Thanks very much, John.
Hi John,
Thanks for visiting Savor Culture, and for your specific questions! Let me begin by telling you that the cultures, molds, and wrap for Camembert can be purchased from New England Cheesemaking Supply, http://www.cheesemaking.com. It’s a user-friendly site that specializes in selling materials and ingredients to the home cheesemaker.
Another supply company, Glengarry, was recommended to me by Mateo Kehler as a good source for cheesemaking materials. It’s a Canadian company, but they also ship from New York. I found draining mats there, and they also seem to have good prices on molds: http://www.glengarrycheesemaking.on.ca
In the cheese workshop, we used two gallons of milk to make four Camembert, and perhaps could have made five. So, if two gallons sounds manageable to you, I’d recommend purchasing five Camembert molds. Happy cheesemaking!
Thanks Danielle, forgot to mention that I run a Cheese Forum called http://www.CheeseForum.org and there is a user of the forum named crashtest who is having problems with his Camemberts that maybe you could help with. I think it’s a guy and he’s posted pictures in the Introductions Board.
Thanks again for advice, see ya.
Hi Danielle
wonderful shots, i have a question, u were talking about the drying process, how much dry? and how can i know that it is dry enough, i am having bad time making this type of cheese, and truly as u said blue mold started to grow , and lots of other problems.
i am drying the cheese to be between dry to touch and any visible wetness … example
if i put it in dry tissue, will it get wet?
Hi Nabil,
Thanks for your comment; I will do my best to help. First of all, if blue mold is contaminating your cheese, try to eliminate it from your cheesemaking room by cleaning all shelves and surfaces thoroughly. Try to maintain a relative humidity of 95% (not higher!).
Make sure that you are flipping the wheels properly. Home Cheese Making suggests this method: after filling the molds with curd, let them drain on reed mats for one hour, then flip them quickly, peeling off the reed mat from the top of the cheese. Turn hourly for five hours, or until the wheels have shrunk away from the sides of the molds, and are 1-1.5 inches high.
When making Camembert, yeast (from the air) is the pioneer colony that produces the rind. The outside of the cheese should feel raspy initially, becoming oily in texture as the yeast population is replaced by geotricum, then candidum (both microbes were introduced by the culture you added to the milk). White mold should appear within five days of aging.
I hope this helps you! Thanks for your visit.