Yesterday was one of those days that remind my why we all love to make cheese. We had dinner with friends last night and this 6 lb. blue was getting close to 2 mo. There was a thin crusty white rind surface on the sides and softer red and white on the top so I decided to do a light scrape. Even after that I was concerned because there wasn't much surface blue at all, but I did see some nice blue peaking out through the holes in the top and bottom. I also was worried because I noticed a strong ammonia smell in the days before which 4 hr. in a "fan" box helped greatly. Anyway, cutting it dispelled all of my concerns: great blue development with some orange tinges here and there and absolutely no off odors
. Taste was pretty much what you would expect from a young one like this: very mild blue flavor with a soft paste. I cut a pound to take to our dinner and will wrap the rest and let the flavor develop (may sample one a month or so).
One "new" thing I learned on this one was after watching some of the "piercing" videos that showed the skewers were all at an angle and pierced only from the sides. I realized that they do this to try to keep the holes from being parallel to the usual cutting pattern so you don't end up with "straight blue lines" on the cut surface. Before I realized this I had done the first piercing using the customary pattern (vertical and horizontal) which you see in the pictures. On the subsequent piercing I tried to duplicate the angle shown in the video which were neither perfectly vertical or horizontal. This is a small point I know and I could be wrong on the reason behind the "angling" so if anyone has thoughts pro or con please chime in.
Next blue will be with home-grown PR, which I'll do after trying to copy Al's Tallegio.
