I am really surprised, the flavor of the Guinness that I used in this batch really shines through, in fact a bit too much. You can really taste the hops and horse blanket flavors of Guinness, and when I first tried it I was a bit taken aback. I'm going to have to try this one paired with something else, or possibly age it longer and see if the Guinnessyness starts to meld.
The texture is good, but maybe a tad dry--at least from the piece that I sliced off from one of the ends. I think just simply cutting the skim milk out of the recipe, or perhaps adding a cut of cream would make a huge difference. This is definitely a recipe that will need tweaking to make it appropriate for people other than die hard Guinness lovers, but I'm still excited about the results. Oh, and the Guinness glass was cut out of the wax that I used to seal the loaf.
The original post is located at http://cheeseaday.blogspot.com/2009/03/guinness-cheddar.html.
Cheese A Day by Jeremy Pickett is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at cheeseaday.blogspot.com.
Jeremey this is a very cool cheese. How did you come up with the recipe/method for making it?
ReplyDeleteoops, sorry for the extra e in your name.
ReplyDeletePretty simple really, I have often had beer with cheese plates, so I was curious how they would go together. This recipe needs work--it should use the Draught Guinness, and either 1% with cream, 2%, or raw if ya got it. But the sourness from the lactic fermentation is actually pretty similar to the sourness that Guinness develops during it's secondary bacterial fermentation.
ReplyDeletehow did you decide to add the beer to the curd and whey mixture? Did you think about doing some type of beer brine of the loaf of cheese?
ReplyDeleteYes, I did think about doing a brine afterwards, and I actually have a loaf that hasn't been featured yet that was brined in a bottle of port.
ReplyDeleteThe reason I added it to the curd was pretty simple--more surface area means less flavoring can be used for greater effect. What's better, one bottle of Guinness in the wash, or several bottles in a brine. I sure as hell know I'm not giving up more than one bottle of Guinness >:D