How to Make Jalapeño Cheddar

we'll get a code nerds today first cheese of 2019 is jalapeno cheddar [Music] well this cheese was very simple to make I used a stir curd stirred curd farmhouse cheddar recipe very similar to the one I use for my farmhouse cheddar blue so really simple chattering process and I used freshly picked jalapeno peppers from my garden I've got a jalapeno Bush that is about three years old and still producing really good chilies off the plant anyway let's go on pick some jalapenos so I can show you how to make jalapeno cheddar so here I am in the garden near my truck house call clucking ham pathos and I've got the jalapeno Bush right there and there's some nice-looking chilies on the bush I picked four of the biggest ones I could find we're about halfway through the season so there are some nice big green ones on me they haven't quite gone red yet [Music] and one more I think I made its gotta find one was bits undamaged there we go [Music] so four nice fresh chilies now take these inside and washed them but before I started cutting them I put on some gloves so if you don't want to get burns or touch yourself in places you shouldn't with chili juice on them then yeah I highly recommend gloves so just remove the seeds of the chilies depends on how hot you want to eat if you really want the the cheese to be really hot then you can leave the membrane and the that the seeds in but I chose to take them out I didn't want it that hot just get rid of those in the bin and we're gonna roughly chop the chilies now I don't want to find I want you to be able to see them through the cheese [Music] first three the fourth one so it's just roughly chopping the chilies up okay so I'm gonna put those chilies into a small pot whoops and I fell over and we're gonna add a cup or 250 milliliters of water and when I gently boil that for 15 minutes now you may need to top up the water as you go along they've just when he got to be covered that's all so we're gonna drain the chilly water and we're gonna retain the water as we need all those spicy bits in the water to be added into the milk now I could have used a tea strainer here but I couldn't find it so I'm just winging it most of the chili water there so keep that aside don't throw that away and then we're going to pour the chilies into a small bowl or ramekin and we're gonna mill these into the curds later on [Music] here we go all in the little poll so put that aside now the milk I'm using today is Demeter's biodynamic full cream unhomogenized milk this is the only one I could find at short notice so I used to and have used it before it's pretty good there's a bit of a clump of cream on the top there okay the ingredients for jalapeno peppers as you saw roughly chopped 1 cup of non-chlorinated water 10 liters of whole cow's milk 1/8 of a teaspoon or a dash of mesophilic culture I'm using a different one that I normally do using ma 4001 by choose it and that's mainly because on the packet that says it was the closest thing to raw milk or the cultures in raw milk half a teaspoon or two point five mils of calcium chloride diluted in quarter of a cup of non-chlorinated water half a teaspoon or two point five mils of liquid rennet at single strength and diluted in quart of a cup of non-chlorinated water and 2 tablespoons of non-iodized salt now you can see that I'm whisking the cream that was floating on the top back into the milk so with this the little is as possibly I don't want to get too much air into the milk and clip on your thermometer and you're right to go so turn the heat on and heat the milk up whoops new step had the chilly water in now I had actually forgotten to turn the camera on so that's why the jug is empty yes but I did put the chilly water in before I started heating up the milk so heat your milk up to 31 degrees Celsius or 88 Fahrenheit and then take all your utensils out because the next step is to sprinkle over the mesophilic starter culture so I'm using an eighth of a teaspoon there to sprinkle it over the top and we're going to let that rehydrate for five minutes so five minutes later I stir the starter culture through the milk some stirring here for about a minute top to bottom to make sure that the cream is incorporated back into the milk now the temperature had crept up by one degree Celsius but that's okay pop the lid back on and we're gonna allow that to ripen for 40 minutes at 31 Celsius eighty-eight Fahrenheit okay after 40 minutes just take the lid off I'm gonna stir the cream back in again before we add any more ingredients you can see there it floated at the top so just top to bottom stirring the milk to get the cream incorporated back through just check the temperature it's crept up on another degrees as two degrees warmer than I should believe it it'll cool down again when the around it's being added on that sits there to coagulate but that's okay [Music] certainly won't affect the final outcome of the cheese now add in the calcium chloride solution and stir that through [Music] give it a nice stir through try not to break the surface of the milk and then we're going to add the rennet to the milk and give that a stir for no more than one minute lovely so cover that and allow the milk to set for 40 minutes at 31 Celsius 88 Fahrenheit so the Heat's off no more heat then we're gonna check for a clean break if you don't get a clean break or there's a bit of fluff they get rid of it if you don't get a clean break then wait another 10 minutes and then check it again and that looks perfect nice no sloppiness just nice clean break there so we're going to use my trusty curd cutter and cut the curds into one point two five centimeter or half inch cubes there's another bit of fluff for some reason anyway get rid of that and we cut it now if you find the Curtis hit really well like it is here I'm having to like kind of jolt the curd cart are the curds just spin around so just do your best there and then gently pull it out clean it off as best you can so that was the horizontal cuts now through the vertical cuts are normally is occurred knife but I got this new little device from Steve Benz and he's provided this to me and I'm going to be having a giveaway soon but this is a vertical cut cutter so trying to figure out how to use it here so I'm just thinking if I just move it through like this it will cut the curds which it seemed to do which is good now I notice that in when you look at commercial dairies they have their cutters moving all the time in fact the cutters kind of stir the curds so you really can't cut the curds too fine using this device because any right sized ones will go between the wires and any not so right sized but needed to be cut actually get cut with the wires so I managed using this device to get the curds cut very evenly it's the most even I've ever had curd so it's a great little device so just bang that off and get as much good as you can off it it makes it to clump easier to clean pop the cover back on and we're gonna only other curds to heal for five minutes now that we've cut them all so once they've rested you'll see a bit of curds a bit of way on the top and use the spoon to lift and move the curds around a little bit just to make sure they're all cut and they're really evenly cut which surprised me I was very impressed with the vertical curd cutter so cut any large cubes if you see them with the edge of your knife and then we're going to slowly heat the curds for 45 minutes up to 39 Celsius 102 Fahrenheit so this is after I've just turn heat off there and it's at the right temperature and what it's gonna let that settle for 30 minutes [Music] so what we gonna do now is we're going to dip off the way down to the level of the curd so you need a second pot there to check the temperature is 39 that's perfect so dip the way off just using a cup and you could use a strainer and dip the cup into the strainer so you don't get any curds but I knew after the thirty minutes they'd all be sitting at the bottom so there wasn't much of a chance of me getting them when I was dipping the way off so fairly simple a little bit time-consuming but easy enough to do now we're not actually going to wash the curds or anything like that but it's removing the curds down to sort of the way down to the level of the curds and you can just see the curds there lovely okay now we're going to gently stir the curds in whatever way is left over for 20 minutes now maybe a bit chunky to start with but they soon break up I haven't mattered together so there's no heat on it it remained at 39 Celsius the entire time while I stirred it for the 20 minutes now just to check whether it's ready to go to the next stage grab a handful of curds give them a squeeze if they stay together and then they come apart with your thumb then they're ready to press so nice little test there if that I come stay together then stir the curds for another 10 minutes now just allow that to set in settle for 5 minutes makes so pouring the excess way off a little bit easier then over to the sink area I'm going to drain the curds through a cheesecloth Wynd colander so tip them all out and rainy doesn't take too long just get as much of the Kurds as you can as soon as you got them all out and pop them back in again so very quick draining they drain very quick quickly because of that that second steering idea so return the Kurds back to the pot and let the Kurds rest four or five minutes in the pot so cover them up so you don't get any fluff and all that sort of stuff over them I'm just breaking up any chunks they and here we go we'll get on so five minutes later you see a little bit more ye has come out of the curd so I'm just going to tip that off before I add the salt so we don't all want all the salt going down the sink with the way so two tablespoons of salt [Music] so this is about 2% salt by weight so 2 tablespoons sprinkle that over fish you can [Music] and sprinkle the second one over the top there we go now before we mail that in we're going to add our secret ingredient the chiles so I pour all those on top I shouldn't have done that touch the chilies again with my hands I had to wash them straight away because I started to burn so it must be pretty powerful anyway maybe I should use gloves but my hands were clean so dust mill those through the salt and the chili pieces through so they're evenly distributed through the Kurds [Music] there we go so make sure that your mold is lined with the cheesecloth and then fill it up with the Kurds and chili mix [Music] there we go just make sure that the chilly pieces are evenly distributed through the Kurd mass you know what I'm all bunching up in one area just do your best it's pretty fairly difficult to do okay so just pull the cheesecloth tight whilst pressing down the Kurds just to make sure there's no wrinkles on the side of the cheese and if there's any it's occurred that a fell out just pop them back in again okay we're gonna press the cheese now so moving it over to the press so we're gonna fold one side of the cloth over and then put the follower on top there we go pop it in the press I'm going to press it ten kilograms or 22 pounds for one hour so not too tight at the start so one now to form up the the rind will help it form the rind so just remove that from the press after the hour and we're going to flip it over so get some faintly even distribution which is good also happy with that and then turn it over and repress at 10 kilograms 22 pounds for one hour [Music] okay at the end of the hour remove it from the press again [Music] so the Ryan's definitely formed which is great just flip that over once more I'm going to press it 22 kilograms or 50 pounds for at least 12 hours so max pressure pressure on my spring gives me a good indication that that's 50 pounds of pressure okay after the 12 hours this is the next day for me I'm gonna remove it from the press and air dry for three to four days and we're gonna turn twice daily until it's touch dry now it may be less than three to four days for you depending on the temperature of your kitchen there we go that's what it looks like fresh out of the press it's a little bit of the chili closely packed together there but I'm sure through the rest of the cheese it's evenly distributed so the air dried weight is one point zero six four kilograms or two point three five pounds and that's after a tear dried so ripen at 10 to 13 Celsius or 50 to 55 Fahrenheit and 80 percent relative humidity for at least three months turn week lethal even ripening there you can vacuum packet or wax so jalapeno cheddar simple enough recipe to make just make sure that you follow all steps get a clean break when your curd is set and if the curds not set at the specified time then wait a little bit longer and I'm sure that if your milk is viable then it will work a little bit more not worried I'm a little bit cautious about using fresh fruit and vegetables in my cheese because I've heard they have a tendency to rot I wear a vacuum pack that cheddar the chilies were boiled as you saw for the 15 minutes and hopefully that's going to prevent them from rotting in the cheese the cheese is very firm and dry before I vacuum packed it and we're just fingers crossed it should turn out to be a lovely cheese if any of you you are a little bit cautious about using fresh ingredients in your cheese like vegetables and spices and that stuff like that then hold off until the taste test in three months time before you make this cheese otherwise if you're adventurous like I am and the hand feel free to give it a go anyway thank you very much for watching curds it was great to bring something that was fresh from the garden and incorporated into my cheese for this video tutorial if you would like to buy the kit to make this I highly recommend the hard cheese kit you can check that out over here and don't forget there are many other videos on the channel that will teach you how to make cheese anyway thanks for watching curd nerds and I'll see you next time

Channel: Gavin Webber

Views: 59,898

Keywords: Jalapeño Cheddar, Farmhouse cheddar, Chilli cheddar, Cheddar, Jalapeño chilli peppers, jalapeño (food), cheddar cheese (cheese), how to, how to make cheese, cheese making, making cheese, gavin webber, cheese making at home

Id: Hu8tQg2lBaA

Length: 21min 27sec (1287 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 12 2019