First Stilton approximation

[bbracken677]

I think I will be focusing on cheddared cheeses for a while. I can make some short aged ones as well as some to put in the cave for 6 months or a year. I really like the aged cheddars and am looking forward to tackling those.

[Spellogue]

Beautiful cheeses, Bob.  Thanks for posting your progress.  I've got two "goat milk Stilton" experiments aging since mid July.  Perhaps it's time to sample one.  The rind looks similar to yours, but with a bit spottier coverage on one side.  I can only hope the paste is as pretty as yours.

I've only used a dried powder inoculant on my blues so far.  I think I might try a slurry from a store bought blue on the next one, seeing so many folks have seen good results using them.  Is there a separate post describing the process? 

[bbracken677]

Boofer has done it a couple of times with stiltons. If you search the blue category of the forums for stilton you should find his notes. That is what influenced me to use them    :)

[BobE102330]

Thaks Spellogue, 

There's not much to a slurry.  I took about a quarter teaspoon of the mother cheese, getting as much blue and as little paste as I could.  Put it in half a cup of dechlorinated water in a sterile glass, whisked (forked actually) until no/few lumps remained.  I added it to the milk along with the Flora Danica.  Boofer was my inspiration, too.  I like the slurry method because it is essentially free and I had an idea how much bite the end result would have.

[bbracken677]

You can also make the cheese and add the slurry to the curds as you place them in the mold.

[Spellogue]

It does sound easy. I like the idea of dressing the curds with a slurry, might make for more even distribution than with a powdered innoculant.  Not only will I have an example of the strain this way.  There will be more cheese to eat.

My next make was to be a batch of camemberts, but they may have to wait while I start another blue.

[bbracken677]

Cams are pretty fun to make...the most important part for them is the affinage (aging) environment. Refer to my thread on triple cream camemberts...I was given a ton of information in that thread that helped me past a bunch of potential blunders and mishaps. Mine are still aging (save for the one I cut open early) and doing well! I look forward to another taste test in 10-14 days. I do think that the next time I make them I will hold off on any added cream. That has extended my aging period, I am pretty sure, although if they turn out really good I may be singing a different tune  lol

[Spellogue]

Yes, camembert is a great cheese, my wife's longtime favorite.  A touch fussy, with all the flipping and the humidity concerns you mention.  I make just about everything, including my cams, with goat milk (we raise nigerian dwarfs).  Nigerians give a high milk-solid, high butterfat milk, but nowhere near a triple cream level.  I've had good results so far.  If I'm correct Camembert, unlike Brie, isn't often made as a triple or even double cream cheese.  I'll try it with added cow cream some day though.  Something like a mini-Brie I suppose. 

I aged my last cams 6 weeks and feel they could have gone longer.  I'm still aging in the food fridge though, and that slows things down considerably. Blooms take longer too, but I seem to be able to keep  bad molds at bay a little easier too.  Problem comes in with the blues, lots of bad blue floating around the fridge.  Harder to tell it apart from the good stuff, but the nose knows. (sometimes I have to resort to taste though). Hopefully slurrying a selection of classic blues will get the fridge flora to where I want it.  I really need to build a proper cave.

I might only keep the girls in milk for another month, two at the most, so I'll need to choose upcoming makes wisely and include enough hard/long aging cheeses in the mix.  Perhaps a Valdeon or a Cabrales.  Maybe I'll pick one up for the blue slurry.  We live in the sticks, no decent cheesemonger anywhere nearby.  Might warrant a trip to Cleveland or Akron.  Or perhaps I could expect to find good Spanish cheese in Toledo.  ;)

[BobE102330]

Ripening blue in a regular food fridge might take a VERY long time.  Good Blue typically prefers much warmer temperatures, 50-55F.  I went away for a couple of days and put these in the fridge with a little hint ofg blue showing.  Three days later they looked exactly the same.  One day out at 70F after that and I had a good covering of blue.   Use a ripening box to isolate your cheese from the rest of the fridge and keep the humidity up.  I've found it helpful to arrange some sort of condensation tent to direct droplets away from the cheese.  You'll constantly reintroduce other flora when you bring home vegetables.

[Spellogue]

We have an unfinished room in the cellar that stays cooler in the winter, but it has a musty smell I can't eliminate, try as I might.  I might  set a cooler in there at the end of the fall to use,  once it cools down and I can get a good read on the temps.  Until then the family will have to tolerate all my ripening boxes hogging space in the fridge.  In the winter I keep most parts of the house around 65.  I might experiment with moving cheeses between that and colder temps in the fridge.  Not sure if regular temp fluctuation would have any adverse effect on cheeses though.

[BobE102330]

sounds like the kind of basement that destroyed several of my cheeses.  A sealed ripening box might work if you get the volume to cheese ratio right for the correct humidity. 

[Boofer]

Boofer was my inspiration, too.

:-[ Ahhh, you guys... :-[

-Boofer-

[H-K-J]

WOW the cavity veining looks so good  :P
A cheese to you  ;D

[BobE102330]

Thank you

[Tiarella]

We have an unfinished room in the cellar that stays cooler in the winter, but it has a musty smell I can't eliminate, try as I might.  I might  set a cooler in there at the end of the fall to use,  once it cools down and I can get a good read on the temps.  Until then the family will have to tolerate all my ripening boxes hogging space in the fridge.  In the winter I keep most parts of the house around 65.  I might experiment with moving cheeses between that and colder temps in the fridge.  Not sure if regular temp fluctuation would have any adverse effect on cheeses though.

What have you done so far to try to "un-mustify" that unfinished room in your cellar.  I am jealous since my cellar is too warm so I'd love to see you succeed at having a cheese room.  I'm wondering about one of those air purifiers and/or using an essential oil diffuser with a non-mold blend in it for a while to clear out any microbes/fungus that are creating or contributing to the musty smell. I have a de-molding blend I bought from a friend for clearing mold out of areas.  She had a mold in the house problem that made her sick and she, being an amazing herbalist/healer, created a blend for it.