- May 31, 2022
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[Making of] Red Windsor/Red Leicester Port Cheddar Mashup
- Thread starter LoydB
- Start date
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- May 31, 2022
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A huge percentage of my cheesemaking knowledge has come from Gavin Webber's YouTube channel. One of the most important things he does is the after-action comments both after making a cheese, and after first tasting.
Orignally, I was going to make this Red Windsor cheese:
In his review of the recipe, he decided that he should have a) used a real cheddar recipe rather than the farmhouse version he went with, b) shorten the Port soak from 2 hours to 1 hour and c) Make the curds larger for the soak.
So armed with that knowledge, I looked at his Red Leicester cheddar recipe. Unlike the Red Windsor, where the 'Red' is from the soak in port win, the 'Red' in the Leicester version is from the vivid yellow obtained by using annato dye.
So I decided to do a mashup, where I used the Red Leicester cheddar recipe & process, but at the very end, prior to salting, I'd do a one hour port soak.
Here we go on the process. Up until this first picture, it looks exactly like making every single cheese I've ever done - put milk in pot, warm, add culture, sit, add rennet (and annato in this case), let it sit for awhile, cut up the curds, and stir while heating as prescribed. Finally, after all this is done, the curds were poured into a muslin cloth inside a colander. Now we begin.
The curds (vivid yellow from the annato) will sit here half an hour and drain.
Now we start the cheddaring process (I had no idea this was what cheddaring was until I started making cheese). The resulting slab is cut into 2" wide planks, and they're put in a colander to drain. My oven has a good low-temp proof control that I set to 90 degrees F. Every 30 minutes for a total of 2.5 hours (four flips total) you break the mass up a little and put the planks that were on the bottom of the colander on to the top. You can see how much whey they lose from the start (where it looks like velveeta logs) to the end.
After cheddaring, I broke the curds up. I went with larger pieces that I would normally do with a cheddar because I didn't want there to be so much surface area for the port. Dump the port in, let it sit for an hour, then drain into a colander.
I let it drain for 5 minutes then mixed in the salt.
Next, into a muslin-lined mold.
I like my cheese press, but I don't think it's particularly accurate for lower weights, so I started off with a 15# press using real weights for 30 mins.
If I do this again, I'll use 25# and go for a little longer, it was insanely crumbly at the first flip.
After the second series of pressing, it's starting to come together better, but there are still chunks on the edge that fell off.
The final press was 24 hours at 50#-60#. It knitted together pretty well with the exception of one small chunk of the rim that stuck to the muslin.
Now it dries for a few days, then will get vac sealed and put in the cave for 4 months.
Orignally, I was going to make this Red Windsor cheese:
In his review of the recipe, he decided that he should have a) used a real cheddar recipe rather than the farmhouse version he went with, b) shorten the Port soak from 2 hours to 1 hour and c) Make the curds larger for the soak.
So armed with that knowledge, I looked at his Red Leicester cheddar recipe. Unlike the Red Windsor, where the 'Red' is from the soak in port win, the 'Red' in the Leicester version is from the vivid yellow obtained by using annato dye.
So I decided to do a mashup, where I used the Red Leicester cheddar recipe & process, but at the very end, prior to salting, I'd do a one hour port soak.
Here we go on the process. Up until this first picture, it looks exactly like making every single cheese I've ever done - put milk in pot, warm, add culture, sit, add rennet (and annato in this case), let it sit for awhile, cut up the curds, and stir while heating as prescribed. Finally, after all this is done, the curds were poured into a muslin cloth inside a colander. Now we begin.
The curds (vivid yellow from the annato) will sit here half an hour and drain.
Now we start the cheddaring process (I had no idea this was what cheddaring was until I started making cheese). The resulting slab is cut into 2" wide planks, and they're put in a colander to drain. My oven has a good low-temp proof control that I set to 90 degrees F. Every 30 minutes for a total of 2.5 hours (four flips total) you break the mass up a little and put the planks that were on the bottom of the colander on to the top. You can see how much whey they lose from the start (where it looks like velveeta logs) to the end.
After cheddaring, I broke the curds up. I went with larger pieces that I would normally do with a cheddar because I didn't want there to be so much surface area for the port. Dump the port in, let it sit for an hour, then drain into a colander.
I let it drain for 5 minutes then mixed in the salt.
Next, into a muslin-lined mold.
I like my cheese press, but I don't think it's particularly accurate for lower weights, so I started off with a 15# press using real weights for 30 mins.
If I do this again, I'll use 25# and go for a little longer, it was insanely crumbly at the first flip.
After the second series of pressing, it's starting to come together better, but there are still chunks on the edge that fell off.
The final press was 24 hours at 50#-60#. It knitted together pretty well with the exception of one small chunk of the rim that stuck to the muslin.
Now it dries for a few days, then will get vac sealed and put in the cave for 4 months.
Very nice. I binge watched a bunch of Gavin Webber videos about 2 years ago. I think I'm jumping into making hard cheeses this fall.
Amazing! I swear I have to at least make some cheddar when I retire. Do you put it in a literal cave?
For non moldy cheese, you can put them in the same chamber used for drying salumi.....
- May 31, 2022
- 772
- 1,448
- May 31, 2022
- 772
- 1,448
That looks drool-worthy. i guess I'll have to continue buying. I barely have patience or a 12 hour butt smoke on the WSM.
- May 31, 2022
- 772
- 1,448
Money shot! It is incredibly sweet with a subtle port background. I'll for sure make this again, it's one of the best I've made.
- May 31, 2022
- 772
- 1,448
Thanks! I was very pleased with how it came out.
Thank you!
It tastes like a very sweet cheddar. The port is subtle.
Cool looking cheese! Better tie a rope around my waste and the other end to a 2 X 4... don't want to fall too far down another rabbit hole!
Ryan
Ryan
- May 31, 2022
- 772
- 1,448
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