The Greening of Gavin

Blessed Are The Curd Nerds

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Not wanting to blow my own trumpet, but I’ve started a bit of a cheese cult over on one of my YouTube channels.

You know the one.  The channel that has all the cheese making videos aka Cheeseman.tv!

Of late, I’ve been putting into practice the suggestions given during a few Google Hangouts with other YouTube creators and I have been creating and uploading at least one cheese making video a week.

This regular video creation has had some amazing results.  Subscribers, or should I say Curd Nerds have increased dramatically.

Thousands of people are making the cheeses that I feature in the videos.  Most have great results and share their experiences with everyone freely.  It’s a cheese revolution to claim back our cheese taste buds!  Blessed are the Curd Nerds.

On a serious note, it’s a great growing community that I enjoy serving.  Curd nerds are such a generous bunch of people.

So being one of those generous curd nerds, here are a few of the video tutorials and a couple of taste tests that I’ve produced over the last month that you may want to try yourself.

Jarlsberg

This Norwegian style cheese is still ripening, but will be ready at the end of next week.  It is swelling and forming eyes here in my office.


Monterey Jack

I’ve been meaning to make a video of this cheese for such a long time.  It was one of the very first cheeses that I made way back when.  It tastes amazing (well it did the first time) and should be ready to eat in a month or so.


Bel Paese

A traditional Italian cheese meaning Beautiful Country, I found Bel Paese to be quite a surprisingly creamy, yet firm cheese that delighted my palate. It’s now a house favourite.


Now for the taste tests.

Edam Taste Test

I found this cheese to be exceptional.  It formed small eyes without any assistance from myself and tasted absolutely delicious as a good Edam should.  Watch out for the two extra cheese tasters that appear after the end credits of the video.  You should get a laugh.


Gouda Taste Test

Another exceptional Dutch style cheese that was full flavoured and hasn’t lasted too long (we ate most of it).


So to avoid a cholesterol overload, I take at least quarter of each wheel to work and share it with my colleagues.  None of them have keeled over yet and all compliment me on my cheese.  I think they are waiting in anticipation for the next cheese I bring to work 🙂

In other cheese news, I’ve updated the print edition of Keep Calm and Make Cheese – The Beginners Guide to Cheese Making at Home.  I didn’t want the reader to miss out on all the free videos I have on offer.  As the eBook versions have hyperlinks, I added in QR Codes within each recipe for the paper version so the reader can scan and watch via their mobile phone or tablet.

Cream Cheese Video Tutorial QR Code

Cream Cheese Video Tutorial QR Code

A nice touch I think, and believe it only enhances the potential curd nerds cheese making experience!

Lots of great cheese action here at home.  I have a couple of videos in production now including a new Camembert recipe and an attempt at Fourme d’Ambert, a French cow’s milk Blue Cheese.  Both are ripening in the cheese fridge and will be released soon.

Enjoy the videos, and if anyone is interested in learning to make cheese, I would be more than welcome to have you join me on a Beginners Cheesemaking Course soon.

Until then, this is Cheese Man Gav signing off!

Cheese Studio in Action

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I know that many of you follow my cheese video tutorials on YouTube, so it would probably come as no surprise that they do take quite a bit of effort to create.

Lets go behind the scenes, and check out my cheese studio in action shall we?

Cheese Studio in Action

Cheese Studio Set up

As you can see, I use LED studio lights, with rechargeable Lithium Ion batteries so that I am not tethered to a power cable.  These lights are energy-efficient and are perfect for the kind of work I am using them for.  The lights extend up to 2 meters tall.  Rarely do LED’s blow, so I should get a long lifespan out of these lights.

You will also notice the very tiny camera on a tripod.  I managed to pick up the tripod second-hand on Ebay, but the camera itself is a GoPro Black Hero 4.  I chose it because it too has a rechargeable battery and it takes the most amazing video and photographs and has a small environmental footprint.  As it is waterproof down to about 130 metres, I will also be using it around the garden when I get a bit of sunshine to take footage for the Greening of Gavin channel.

What I also like is that all the batteries are charged using my Solar PV system or using GreenPower.  Keeps it all pretty green except for the manufacturing of the individual components.

Certified Curd Nerd

My new organic cotton T-shirt. I love it!

For the talking head part of the videos, I use my iPhone on a small tripod which does pretty good video as well.  In fact all the photos that I take for the blog are taken on my phone.  There is certainly no need these days to purchase a fancy camera, unless you really want to get into the art.

It’s all very easy to set up and pack away to get started on the evening meal.

Even if I make a cheese for the first time, I still film the process in case it turns out as per the recipe, which more often than not it does.

Even if it doesn’t work out, I can show others not what to do!  This saves a heck of a lot of time and doesn’t add any more time onto the cheese making process.  So it is win-win for me and you the viewer.

However, I do make mistakes quite often.  Here is a rare blooper snippet from an upcoming cheese tutorial complete with background noise, mispronunciation, Kim offering sound advice, and a retake!  I’m not normally that snappy, but this was about the fourth take, so patience with myself was wearing thin.

 

Once the footage is in the can (so to speak), I then edit it using software called Pinnacle Studio 19, which has some rich features including picture-in-picture, montages, and tile overlays.  I use most of the features during editing, which can take up to four to five hours per 15 minute cheese video.  I do enjoy the creative part of editing and the time just flies when I’m in the zone.

Anyway, that is how I make my cheese videos in my kitchen.  If anyone has any questions about the production aspect, I’m happy to answer them in the comments section.

Like the t-shirt says; Keep Calm and Make Cheese!

Busy as a Bee in Spring

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I know that everyone leads busy lives, and we are no exception.  One would think that because we lead a simpler lifestyle that things would be a little less hectic, but not so.  We’ve been busy as a bee in spring or to put it in Australian,  we’ve been flat out like a lizard drinking.

Since my last post we’ve got a few things achieved;

  • Taught a Beginner’s Soapmaking Workshop,
  • Harvested the last of the summer crops due to the warmer than usual April,
  • Cooked every dinnertime meal,
  • Added four new cheeses to my cheese making repertoire, and
  • Attended a Content Creator’s lab hosted by YouTube.

Of course there were the regular things we do around here like clean out the chook house, water the fruit trees, try to grow winter veg seedlings (not much luck there).

So let’s have a look at a few photos that I took over the last couple of weeks.

Content Creators Lab YouTube

Content Creators Lab YouTube at Docklands Studios

I was invited to Docklands Studios here in Melbourne by YouTube to learn how to produce engaging content for my YouTube channel cheeseman.tv.  They contacted me just before my channel reached 10,000 subscribers, so I was chuffed with the invitation and learnt a lot at the lab.  I have been creating regular cheese making content each week and I am pleased with the feedback I’ve been getting.

Speaking of cheese, I’ve made the following types in the last couple of weeks; Edam, Havarti, Mysost, and Gouda.

Edam before waxing

Edam before waxing

The Edam was a great cheese to make.  It had some quirky steps that I’d never come across before like washing the curd, so it was good fun.  Here is the Edam video and full recipe so that you can have a try as well.

Then I made a Havarti the next day, which is not quite ready to show you, as it still has some steps remaining before I wax it for maturation.  It should be ready for further aging on Sunday.

Waxed Gouda

Waxed Gouda

The next cheese was Gouda.  It was another attempt at this dutch cheese that was a dismal failure back in 2009.  I just hadn’t got the courage up to try it again, but I found a new recipe to work with, and I believe it turned out well.

The video that I took during the process is not quite ready, so please subscribe to my YouTube channel you will get a notification when it is released using the button below.

After all that cheese making, I had a lot of whey left over, so I decided to try my hand at Norwegian Whey Cheese or Mysost.  Yes, another cheese!

It’s pretty simple to make.  All you do is bring the whey to the boil then simmer for about 6 hours until whats left is thick and gooey.  Then you add a pinch of cinnamon and allow to cool and set.  Essentially it is all the leftover protein and lactose so it’s quite sweet.  Delicious on toast for breakfast.

So much cheese making fun.

On to gardening.  Autumn has been a disaster in some ways.

It’s been hotter than normal so that means that the cabbage moths are still breeding.  So much so that all my Cauliflowers and Broccoli seedlings were decimated, and given to the chooks as a snack.

I’ve needed to water so much, and we’ve also had little rain which is unusual for autumn.

However, on the other side of the coin, we’ve just picked the last of our summer crops which just kept on going.  We have the last cucumber in the fridge crisper, and a small bowl of tommy toe tomatoes still being used for snacks and salads.

We also had a couple of unexpected Australian Butter Pumpkins that grew out of compost.

IMG_1289

Here is the one that I had been keeping the snails and slugs off.  They didn’t like the cedar shingle that I sat it on, which was a surprising deterrent.

IMG_1291

The other one, which was a bit sneaky, grew in the Tahitian lime tree until it got too large and snapped a branch off and fell down.  Naughty pumpkin!

Last of the summer harvest

Last of the summer harvest

We also picked a few eggplants which we gave away because Kim and Ben don’t like them.  I know, criminal because I make a mean Moussaka.

Another thing that happened was that our solar PV system went on the blink for a few days.

State 104

Don’t Panic. It’s just a State 104!

The error on the inverter caused me to call my installer, Energy Matters, who I found out were bought out by Sun Edison.  They were helpful and were about to send out a qualified solar electrician when the system started working again.

It wasn’t the system at all, but a drift in the grid frequency by a few Hertz.  You see, all grid tied inverters check the grid frequency before starting up, expecting about 50 Hz.  Apparently this happened to so many people in our area who had PV that the distributor finally fixed it.  Not much we could do about it except wait until it worked again.

I think I might start looking at battery systems that I can add to my system to store some of the excess to keep our night-time grid usage down and help alleviate this issue should it occur again.

So there you have it.  Pretty hectic hey?

We have more workshops over the next few weeks, so the weekends are pretty full.  I don’t expect that bee to stop being busy anytime soon!