I was invited to be a member of the Bay Area League of Urban Cheesemakers. Many of my friends have already had a laugh and appropriately so, given how new I am to this whole endeavor. The goal of the League is to share experiences and knowledge about the cheese-making process at a small scale. The start us off, we have settled on three cheeses that everybody prepares in advance of a League meeting. It is almost like a book club, but cheesier.
Our first meeting was in August and one of my fellow members has already written up a great blog post. We all made a Camembert using the same recipe. When we got together, we were able to taste all the cheese and discuss its preparation.
If you are wondering what’s up with the really flat cheese in the back, well, that’s mine. It is the second Camembert I have made (see #1 here) but the result was actually worse. I thought it might be worth mentioning what went right and what went wrong, in case somebody else is new to all this.
Pros: The cheese was edible, it was fairly fresh at about three weeks so the taste was mild. One person in the League could taste some mushroom undertone & a few others (including myself) were fans of the rind. It was not as sour/bitter as the rind on the prior batch. I learned that one aspect of the cheese that professional judges look at is how well the bloomy rind adheres to the cheese. Mine scored a few points there!
Cons: The obvious failure was the shape. Last time I made this cheese (different recipe), I filled four plastic molds with the 1-gallon recipe curds. The cheese was too skinny, so this time I decided to do two molds. I think the combination of relatively wet curds and their weight played a role in the “cheese pancake” disaster. Everything looked great while the curds were in the plastic mods, but once a took the two wheels out, it was about 30 minutes on the counter before they had completely collapsed. I don’t have a picture but Salvador Dali’s Melting Clocks are pretty darn close. I didn’t have time to remake the cheese so I let it be. It looked embarrassing but people at the meeting were kind enough not to laugh 🙂
The Con’s Pro: Since my cheese was so flat, it actually ripened faster. I think it would have been much younger if it were normal thickness, given that I use a regular fridge not a ~50-55 degree one.
One last lesson: Just like with my goat cheese, this camembert was very under-salted. I finally had to tell myself that eye-balling the salt is not the way to go. For the next recipe I did, I actually followed the guidelines (salt as percentage of curd weight) and it is already making a difference. It looked like a lot more salt than what I would have put but I trust the experts.
Secondary Culture 
It was fine! I get the impression that many of the world’s best cheeses were discovered by accident. I think the advent of cheese, itself, was an accident. Maybe you’ve just discovered a revolutionary new form that will become very popular… when it’s flat it is easier to put in sandwiches, after all!
Yes indeed, and I did like that it made the cheese ripen faster.