Baby Oxford Blue

[saucisson]

It seems appropriate for me to try recreate the Oxford Blue Cheese from The Oxford Cheese Company. Oxford Blue is a soft blue cheese originally made for the refectory of Magdalen College Oxford. I don't know where it was originally made but it is now made in Derbyshire by Dairy Crest

I started with a small piece of Oxford blue made to a paste in a litre of full fat milk and incubated it at 30 deg C for a few hours, added a splash of calcium and Rennet and left it to set for 3 hours in an insulated container. I cut the curds and left another 2 hours. I drained off the extra whey and poured the whole lot onto a fine sieve and let it drain overnight before moulding into a ball by hand and putting it in the fridge (9 deg C) to dry and drain on a piece of greaseproof paper. Once it had stopped weeping I shaped it into a cylinder using a tin can. It's about 10 days old now and blueing up nicely:



Dave

[Spuddy]

Nice one Dave, looks good.
What's the reason for not moulding it straight away?

[BlueCheese]

Looks nice, got a blue going right now myself will post later. usualy leaving it a day befor molding is to increase the acid content.

[saucisson]

I originally planned to leave it as a hand moulded ball but on a whim late last night I decided it would look better that shape. Having said that I think it drained better and shaped better in the mould after resting first, but I can't pretend there was a rational reason for doing it

Dave

Edit: I just read Blue Cheese's post which he posted while I was writing mine so apparently there was a good reason for doing what I did

[BBQer]

Looks terrific! What's in the background of the pic? Brie with chocolate powder coating?

[BlueCheese]

Looks like cheesecake with chocolate or one of those wagon wheel thingies.

[saucisson]

You don't really want to know do you?

It's a cheese between two corrugated cardboard formers, with grease proof paper between the cheese and the cardboard. It's an experimental semi-permeable layer I'm playing with, you got an early peek before Iknow whether it works

Dave

[BlueCheese]

LOL -conv-

[saucisson]

Looks like Oxford Blue is back in Oxford:

This is a day later:



Dave

[jenny_haddow]

That looks absolutely fantastic! A masterwork!

Jen

[saucisson]

My jaw dropped when I looked at it tonight, I was totally stunned.

But I need to make another one before I start celebrating...

Dave

[BlueCheese]

Hope its not too warm and turn into cambozola

[saucisson]

9.4 deg Centigrade

It's biggest problem is I might eat it, all of it

[saucisson]

I had an idea
Junior is looking very healthy, so I thought I'd teach him to swim. I let him sink or swim in a pint of milk for 2 hours before letting him back in the fridge. That pint has now gone on to make a new cheese. If this works I'm self sustaining on the cheese front

When it doesn't work you can all have a good laugh at my expense

Dave