Le toucher

I've now been studying cheese affinage for two months and I must tell you that work is going well. I would even venture to say that I have acquired hints of le toucher (the touch) necessary to assess the stage of life of a cheese!  Today, just a few of the St. Maures I was flipping in the goat cheese cave had too much moisture, or creaminess, under their skin and so I put those aside and moved them to the SAS 1 - one of the cold rooms in which we house our cheese hospital.  Moving the cheeses from the warm, humid cave to the SAS 1 haults the affinage because the microbes working in the cheeses slow down.  When bringing them back to a warmer temperature, however, those microbes just start right back up.

This kind of toucher is especially important during the daily check and flip of cheeses in the haloir (drying room).  Each cheese has its own perfect affinage and while that starts with exceptional cheesemaking, at MonS it starts in the haloir.  For those cheeses that spend two to 36 hours in the haloir (Hervé and the team experiment to decide what procedure and which cave is best with each new cheese), it is imperative that we check their statuses at least once a day.  The drier, harder cheeses are moved to their respective caves while those with moisture remaining stay a while longer in the haloir.  If a cheese remains in the haloir for too long, it could split open or become rock hard (which is only desirable for certain cheeses like Picodon and Bicaillou).  If a cheese is moved too early into its cave, it might "skin," or faire la peau, when we flip it a week later - the cheese slips out of our hand while its skin remains attached to our fingers!  In this case, just as I did with the St. Maures, one solution is to put the cheese in a cold place with a fan to dry its surface.  The excess moisture could also invite unwanted mould growth that causes an unfortunate appearance, such as some of our Pouligny (which taste delicious nonetheless!) or worse, unwanted bitterness.

This work remains challenging in a nerdy sort of a way that keeps me thrilled.  Then, at the end of a dry, sunny day like today, I put on my bathing suit and head up to the lake by Renaison for a swim.  I don't know how life can get much better.

View from the Col de Soubeyrand, Drôme Provençale