Swiss Cheese

I was originally planning to limit my musing on this blog to bees, but changed by blog title a few days ago to broaden the content.

I just had to share my latest giggle.  As many of you know, I am a artisan cheese maker - and have been making cheeses for the last 4 or 5 years.  For the first time, I have attempted to make a swiss cheese - Emmental to be specific.  It starts out like most hard cheeses - heat the milk, add the culture, add the rennet, separate the curds from the whey, press the cheese, brine it, and finally cave it at around 52 degrees and 80% humidity.  And so it goes with swiss, except that after a week of caving, you take it out and sit it on the kitchen counter for 2 or 3 weeks at room temperature.  This allows the gaseous bubbles to grow inside the cheese from the initial culture that was added.  The funny thing, is that as the gas bubbles expand the entire cheese starts to blow up - and the top and sides round out like a huge toasting marshmallow.  This picture doesn't truly capture the expansion, but it's pretty funny to look at.