Question about camembert/brie

[bernardsmith]

Just started my first camembert/brie and I have a question. Recipe I used called for draining the cheese in molds for 24 hours. This I did. I got two wheels of cheese (about 4 X 1.5 inches each) from one gallon of milk but the wheels seem to me to be still quite heavy with whey. Does anyone know what the total weight of the cheese should be (more or less) after draining and salting? Can I expect that the day or two of air drying will allow significantly more whey to be expelled or is this batch essentially a failure because (perhaps) I failed to expel more of the whey during stirring? Thoughts? Thanks

 

[passedpawn]

Just started my first camembert/brie and I have a question. Recipe I used called for draining the cheese in molds for 24 hours. This I did. I got two wheels of cheese (about 4 X 1.5 inches each) from one gallon of milk but the wheels seem to me to be still quite heavy with whey. Does anyone know what the total weight of the cheese should be (more or less) after draining and salting? Can I expect that the day or two of air drying will allow significantly more whey to be expelled or is this batch essentially a failure because (perhaps) I failed to expel more of the whey during stirring? Thoughts? Thanks

If I remember they expel a lot of liquid. You should have a tray that will allow the liquid to drain away. Also, until the fuz develops, you should be flipping them every day or two.

That size sounds about the same as the ones I've made.

They are a soft cheese, so they will hold some liquid. If all goes well, and they develop the characteristic rind, my suggestion is to get them into a 35F fridge as soon as the outer mold appears. If you let them go too long at higher temps, the will be way to soft inside, and have too much ammonia. You'll know what I mean if this happens.

 

[bernardsmith]

Many thanks, passedpawn. I put the the two cheeses in my "cave" on Sunday (50F) and they seem to have a better "feel" to them now. I am washing them with a cloth dipped in the salted whey (David Asher's approach) as I used kefir as the culture and the kefir contains the fuzzy culture that should form the rind. Will need to check my notes and see how long I might need to wait to see the rind forming..