Thank you Paul and JWalker! Kind of nice to receive cheeses for something I did last year!
The mushrooms were dried and then grated but I think you could do it the other way around. I'd dried them when I harvested them quite some time before this make.
Paul, I want one of the bark stripping tools! The blade turns up at the edges to give you a perfect width each time. Okay, it's true I'm a tool junkie.....I guess the good thing about birch bark is you can use scissors to trim it or just peel by hand. I don't know of any sources for fallen spruce but if you want me to send you some birch bark I'd be glad to. Just PM me your mailing address. (unless you just want to post it here and see what else gets sent to you!
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JWalker, I'll be curious how your thin Bries turn out. YOu know, I think you could add some shitake between a stacked pair of thin Bries even at this point. You couldn't put the shitake on all sides and top and bottom but surely you could make a layer cake with them. I didn't do anything to the shitake and I'm sure they brought all kinds of extra stuff with them given that they grew in the woods and were dried in our kitchen. I think the PC had it's favorite conditions and was more than able to out compete everything else.
There is a shitake Brie tutorial I posted somewhere on the forum. Alas, I had some B. linens visit one batch of 4 shitake Brie and the flavor was SO strong that it could no longer be called Brie. Thinking of that cheese "Stinking Bishop" has me wondering if I should have named them "Stinking Woodsman" in honor of the mushroom component.