Go Back
Email Link
Print
Recipe Image
Smaller
Normal
Larger
Fourme d’Ambert Cheese
The crowning jewel of all my handmade cheeses is this Fourme d'Ambert, a mild and creamy blue cheese from the Auvergne region in France. It is one of France’s oldest cheese.
Print Recipe
Pin Recipe
Ingredients
2
gallon
whole milk
1/2
cup
heavy cream
1/4
th tsp. mesophilic culture
1/16
th tsp. Penicillium roqueforti
3/8
th tsp. calcium chloride
1/4
th tsp. rennet
1
pound
cheese salt
½
tablespoon
calcium chloride
½
teaspoon
vinegar
Instructions
Heat milk to 90°F, stir in cultures. Let ripen, maintaining temperature, for an hour.
Stir in calcium chloride and then rennet for 30 seconds.
Leave for 90 minutess until the curds give a clean break before cutting.
Cut curds to ½ inch and stir.
Maintain 90°F, occasionally stirring gently for 1 hour until curds are small and firm.
Remove whey down to surface of curds, reserving 1/2 gallon whey for brine.
Ladle curds into a prepared sterilized mold.
Once all curds are in the mold, press on light pressure for 1 hour, redress, and press for 8 additional hours on light pressure.
After pressing, remove the cheese from the mold
Make brine with reserved whey and 1 pound of cheese salt stirred until dissolved. Mix in calcium chloride and vinegar.
Brine it for 4 hours, flip it, and brine for 4 more hours.
Dry the cheese on plastic mats in a plastic tub with the lid partially open to allow some drying off of the cheese, and store at 75F for 24 hr.
Pierce it with a skewer every inch or so.
Store the cheese at 90- 95% RH and 50F for 6 - 8 weeks in ripening containers. Turn every day for several days and then turn once a week.