Chipotle Stirred Curd Cheddar 1
From SackWiki
The basic Stirred-Curd Cheddar recipe can easily be adapted by adding flavorings, herbs, or spices. This recipe uses chipotle peppers to spice it up.
Ingredients: 1 tbsp chopped canned chipotle peppers in Adobo sauce Ingredients for Stirred-Curd Cheddar Procedure: Follow steps for Stirred-Curd Cheddar up through the addition of the salt. After adding the salt, gently mix in the chipotle peppers. Continue to follow all steps for Stirred-Curd Cheddar
Attempt #1 - September 16, 2006
The only mistake I made when making this cheese was using 2% milk on accident instead of whole milk. I got quite a bit of yield, though, so I'm not sure how much of an impact it had. I decided to use my 6" mold for this one since my 4" mold is warped (hint: don't boil PVC to sterilize it). The result was a short, fat round of cheese (6" across and 1.5" tall). The suggested aging range for this recipe is 2-6 months and I am quite curious as to the difference a few more months can take. So, I decided to cut the round in half and wax/age it as two separate pieces. My plan is to age one for 3 months and the other for 5 months. That'll let me taste the difference as well as stretch out the chipotle goodness.
The resulting cheese (before cutting) was 1.5" tall, 6" wide, and weighed about 2 pounds.
I let this cheese air-dry for 3 days and then waxed it and put it in the cheese fridge.
I cut into the first half on December 5, 2006, after roughly 3 months. I removed the wax and the rind looked great, with only one icky spot, along the cut edge. I chopped it off and it was good to go.
The first thing I noticed was the smell of the cheese. It smells exactly like cheddar, with smoky undertones from the chipotle. And the taste is great! I managed to use exactly the right amount of peppers and it's spicy but not too hot. The curd is VERY firm, but not crumbly at all, which is a nice improvement over my first cheddar. It slices very well. The only problem is that it's very dry -- I need to research and try to figure out why that happened. It's firmness and almost dry-ness might classify it as a "sharp" cheddar.
I had planned on aging the second half of this cheese for 5 months, but then I had the whole milk discovery, and I knew this cheese wasn't going to be good anyway, so I ended up sort of forgetting about it. I finally cracked it open on August 5 -- after 11 months! -- and it was about as I expected. Very and not very tasty. The lesson here is to definitely not age a cheddar this long.
