[Note - I posted the photos as replies. Couldn't upload with the original post for some reason...]
I tried making the "Castle Blue" recipe in the 200 Easy Cheeses book. I don't really have a question; but I'd welcome any observations and thoughts. I followed the directions almost exactly although I used MA4001 instead of what the book called for. In the early stages everything seemed to progress well, except I do believe I over-stirred the curds a little and there was some breakage. After a few days I was seeing some blue growth and the cheeses smelled "blue" [1st photo].
After piercing, in the week 2-3 range the blue patches turned darker green, almost black and didn't continue to spread. Instead there was a greyish color "dusting" the entire cheese. It wasn't like a long-haired "poil de chat", just a greyish coloring everywhere [2nd photo].
I'm pretty careful about sanitization and haven't had any problems before with my bloomy semi-lactic goat cheeses. I always spray down my wine fridge with Star-San between makes. I did have some humidity issues in my boxes during the aging. I was aiming for 90% but it would swing as low as 70% and sometimes the gauge pegged at 99% with some condensation on the sides and lid of my little aging box. I wiped any condensation regularly and am fairly certain that nothing dripped on the cheeses.
As it aged, the blue/green turned even darker and the gray coating had maybe a hint of green to it. The smell was odd...not really ammonia, but there was a hint of that. It's hard to describe the smell, but it was more like...feet. Not a good smell IMO.
I finally cut one of them open today (week 7). [3rd photo]. The rind still has a hint of the "feet" smell, but it was more nutty smelling I suppose. Still a little off-putting. The paste smells very nice. The flavor is definitely not your typical "blue" - it's more like a regular semi hard cow's milk - closer to a young gouda. There's some fairly strong bitterness as well. The texture of the paste is really lovely though.
After a few minutes being cut open, there is some orange-red coloring developing around the veins inside the cheese [photo 4]. That doesn't seem right.