Making Gouda

Gouda cheese is named after a city in Holland.  I made my second attempt at hard cheese this week. I'll try to add some more information about the start to satisfy the GBI contingent. I've never taken any biology or biochemistry classes and just one chemistry class, but I did sleep with a biochemist last night so here it goes:

I started with two gallons of whole milk. Raw milk is actually best, but I don't have a cow yet. I heated the milk up to 90 degrees F in my brew pot. I then added a mesophilic starter culture that contains lactose, lactococcus lactis subsp. lactis, Lactococcus lactis subsp. cremoris, and Lactococcus lactis subsp. lactis biovar diacetylactis. I let those grow in the milk for 10 minutes and then add a vegetable rennet. Rennet is a series of enzymes that coagulates milk. 

After letting it set for an hour, I used a long knife to cut the curds in 1 inch cubes. 

Gouda is a washed-curd cheese because I slowly pour out the whey as I heat the curds and replace the whey with water. This washes the lactose from the curd and lowers the acid level of the cheese. Over the next hour I slowly added warm water every 10 minutes to raise the temperature of the curds to 100 degrees F. This also breaks up the curds into smaller pieces. 

I strained them using cheese cloth and then put them in a cheese mold. I then began pressing the cheese with 20, 40, and finally over night with 50 pounds. 

The next morning, I put the 1.5 pound block of cheese in a brine with salt (Canning salt so it didn't have any iodine) and calcium chloride. After 12 hours, the cheese was removed and placed in the wine/beer/cheese aging refrigerator. It will sit in there for three weeks so it can dry out. I will then wax the cheese. The recommended aging time is 3-6 months. 

I have two beers and a wine in secondary fermentation. I plan on bottling the Summer (probably should have made that a few months ago) I made by with a pound of orange blossom honey, the zest of 2 oranges, 6 pounds of American wheat liquid malt extract, Willamette and Cascade hops. The other beer is a Santa's Helper Winter Ale and a Pinot Noir. Those both can be bottled in the next few weeks. I won a 50 dollar gift card to the brewery because I was wearing my lucky beer shirt so I will probably start a Merlot and a Vanilla Porter next.  

Farmhouse White Cheddar

After a few successful mozzarella tries, it is time to move onto something more difficult - Cheddar! Cheddar is a hard cheese so it needs some new equipment. It starts similar to other cheeses but this time I started with two gallons of milk, instead of one. I also added a bacteria culture. Here is the cheese curd after it separated from the whey

The next step is to press it to remove moisture. I went to Lowe's and bought a few pieces of wood and threaded bolts. The first step was just to use 10 lbs of pressure on the cheese wrapped in cheese cloth in a cheese mold.  

 It starts to firm up as the moisture leaves. Next I added 20 lbs of weights for 10 more minutes and then 50 lbs of weights for 12 hours. It's a good thing I kept most my college textbooks.

The next day I removed the weights and let it dry out. It is a little over 2 lbs of cheese. After a few days it starts to form a hard rind on the outside. The next step is to wax it. I bought a pound of cheese wax and melted it. I then dipped the cheese into the wax and used a paintbrush to fill in the gaps. Now it is ready for a month of aging. 

The Not-So-Secret Hops Garden

Hops are the female flowers of the hop plant, Humulus lupulus.  Depending on the strain, they can add flavoring and stability to different types of beer.  Wikipedia has a very good, extensive page on hops if you would like to learn more about them.

Here is a schematic of the hop leaves:

We have 3 different strains of hops growing at Bain Brewery, Wine, and Foods.

From left to right:  Nugget, Magnum, Willamette

The Magnum is for bittering typically for ales and lagers.  It has high alpha-acids.

The Willamette is for aroma and flavoring.  

Finally, the Nugget hops serve a dual purpose, bittering and flavoring.

Here is what a full grown hops garden looks like:

Germany

I'm sure Jeremy would love for this to eventually be our view from our porch over looking our back yard, but we'll settle for what we have for now.  

Welcome!

Welcome to the Bain Brewery, Wine, and Foods blog!  Here, we will discuss how our many types of beer are brewed, tips, and pitfalls to avoid if you choose to do your own home-brewing.  Additionally, as our name suggests, we also make wine, a variety of cheeses and other foods such as, but not limited to, sauerkraut, dog treats, and granola bars.  We are also currently growing 3 different types of hops and will update their progress here.  Please feel free to comment or share your own ideas and thank you for visiting!

Oktoberfest, 2009
Munich, Germany