Can you pronounce it? If you can, you’ve achieved a level of sophistication most people only dream about! We can never resist serving it to folks and acting as if everyone knows about this cheese except them (we cheese makers have our fun!).
This mold-ripened cheese comes originally from an abbey in the small village of Chaource, France. It is traditionally made with cow’s milk- both raw and pasteurized.
It has a similar rind to Camembert and the same melt-in-your-mouth texture. However, it can be aged anywhere from 2 weeks to 2 months and it gains flavor with time.
The recipe below can be halved to make 4 cheeses instead of 8. We decided to give you a recipe for using 2 gallons of milk because, that whey, you can eat one of them every week for basically the rest of the summer! We derived this recipe from the ones in 200 Easy Homemade Cheese Recipes and The Cheesemakers Manual.
Chaource
Ingredients:
1/4 tsp Mesophilic culture (can use 1 pack (C101) or 1/4 tsp large pack culture (MA11)
1/8 tsp Aroma Type B (C64)
1/4 tsp Penicilium candidum (C8)
1/16 tsp Geotrichum candidum (C7)
2 drops Animal rennet (R7) or 1 drop Vegetable rennet (R9)
Cheese salt (S1) or any salt without iodine in it
1/4 tsp Calcium chloride (C14) (for use with pasteurized milk (necessary)and raw milk (optional))
2 Gallons whole milk (can be pasteurized, but not ultra-pasteurized)
Supplies:
8 Crottin molds
Thermometer
Butter muslin
Colander
Scoop or ladle
2 Bamboo ripening mats or 2 medium mesh plastic mats
Ripening box with rack, big enough to hold 8 molds
Cheese wrap
Directions:
Sterilize or sanitize everything you will be using, including your ripening box.
Dilute 1/4 tsp calcium chloride in 1/4 cup non-chlorinated water and add to milk.
Slowly warm the milk to 77F.
Sprinkle your cultures (all 4) onto the milk and let hydrate for about 3 minutes.
Slowly stir the cultures into the milk for about 20 seconds.
Cover the pot and let the milk ripen for 8 hours, keeping it around 77F the whole time. (If your pot is in water, you might have to add a little hot water (halfway through) to it to keep the milk warm.)
Add 2 drops of rennet to the milk, and stir slowly for about 10 seconds.
Cover the pot and let set for 8 hours, keeping it around 77F.
Gently ladle the curds into a colander lined with butter muslin. (Do not cut the curds.) You can omit this step and ladle the curds from the pot directly into the molds, but it takes quite awhile to get them all in.
From there, ladle them into the 8 molds. If they are full, keep replenishing them as the whey drains out of the molds.
Put the filled molds on your rack in your ripening box and cover with butter muslin. Keep at room temperature (or around 70F) while the cheeses drain.
Empty the box when you see the whey getting near the bottom of the molds. In other words, keep the environment in the box as dry as possible.
Let drain for 2 days (48 hours). If the cheeses are firm enough, turn them and put them back in the molds after 24 hours.
Remove the cheeses from the molds and place them on a piece of waxed paper or a paper towel while you dry off the box (and beneath the lid).
Set up your rack in the dry box with the mats on it.
Take each cheese and rub a thin layer of salt onto both ends, waiting a few minutes between ends. Then put each cheese into the box until they have all been salted.
Cover the box with the lid (on tightly) and put in a space 50-55F.
Flip daily and drain any whey in the bottom of the box.
2 weeks from the time they are put in the box (or when the crust is covered with mold), you can eat your cheeses. If you wish to age them longer, keep them in your cave with the lid ajar and continue to flip them daily. When you are ready to eat them, wrap them and put them in the refrigerator. Serve at room temperature.
Cindy Johnston says
Jerri,
This cheese sounds fantastic, but I am wondering about the 8 hours to allow cultures to work before adding rennet since 1/4 teaspoon is a relatively large amount of culture, even at the low temperature. I am comparing this to the crottin recipe which has you add the rennet only a few minutes after adding the cultures.
I am curious if there is an acid production problem causing Andrew’s failures. Or if the rennet needs another 7-8 hours to develop the curds.
I would experiment, but milk is too precious to waste.
Jeri Case says
Most recipes call for adding the rennet fairly soon after adding the cultures. This one doesn’t. It works beautifully for me so I thought I would share it. It’s hard to tell if it will work with your milk (as always with cheese).
Hi, I really wanted this to work however I’ve now attempted it twice with the same results. After the initial 8 hours the milk turns into a yoghurt like consistency (and smells vaguely like it too). The rennet and subsequent 8 hours does very little to change that and doesn’t appear to separate curds/whey very much (certainly nothing like the above pictures). The first time I tried it I attempted to fill the molds however the entire contents just washed through the molds within minutes and I was left with nothing. The second time I attempted to drain through butter muslin but my 2 gallons of milk reduced to maybe 1/2 cup of solid material. After the first attempt I changed the milk to a different brand (non-organic, non uht, homogenized). I also tested the rennet to make sure it was fresh (it was)….any clues would be appreciated? The only thing I wondered was the temperature of 77f….was thinking maybe this was a typo and it should be 87f (similar to other cheeses I’ve been making with these cultures?)
I’m sorry your experience was so frustrating. Let’s see if we can trouble shoot it:
It sounds like the first time you tried it, you used ultra-pasteurized organic milk. Unfortunately, most of the organic milk on the market is ultra-pasteurized. As you discovered, that won’t work.
The second time, I don’t know if you added calcium chloride to your milk, as directed. That’s important.
It sounds like the curd wasn’t ready when you drained it. Did you wait both 8 hours for the culture and another 8 hours for the rennet? If, at the end of that time, you did’t get a clean break, it would have been necessary to wait longer. There’s no point trying to drain a weak curd.
If you do make it again, I would use a different brand of milk, add calcium chloride and wait longer for the curd to set. I wish you the best!
Hi Jerry,
Thanks for the super speedy reply!. Apologies if my question wasn’t clear. I did on both occasions use NON uht milk and calcium chloride and wait for 8 hours on both the cultures and rennet as per recipe. I’m actually now on a third (and probably final as this experiment is costing whey too much!). This time I did exactly the same using a third brand of NON UHT, homogenized milk but allowing 14 hours for the rennet to do its stuff. Similar results as before except draining through butter muslin is now capturing a fair amount of curds even though I had nothing approaching a clean break…still confused!
I don’t know, Andrew. I do know for sure that you can cut the recipe in half so you won’t be wasting so much milk. You could try adding more rennet-either 1 or 2 more drops. If you ever do figure it out, please let us know.
How do I get the recipes to print?
Are you having trouble copying and pasting it?
Do you really need the chloride? I would prefer not to use it if possible.
If you are using pasteurized milk, yes, you will need it. As far as I know, there is no downside to using it. What is your reluctance about?