Gorgonzola One (Notchy)

[Frodage]

Here are photos from my first ever blue cheese make. I just love the notches in the last photo - it looks just like everyone else's! I'll keep you posted and cross my fingers for the blue (my own culture on bread) to develop.

[Danbo]

I'll cross my fingers. Exciting with the homegrown blue.

:-) Danbo

[LoftyNotions]

Hi Frodage,

Welcome to the blues club.

Which Gorgonzola recipe did you use for this make? Also, what was the filtering step for?

Larry

[Frodage]

Hi Larry,

Your G. picante was my inspiration to join the blues club! 
I used the one on Ricky Carroll's website, "Gorgonzola Dolce". The filtering step was because I grew the mold on bread, then just crumbled the bread into the milk for rehydration. I didn't really want the bread crumbs in the final cheese.

Today is the second salting and a pool of water has appeared on the top of the cheese. Should I mop it up, or just let it evaporate?

[LoftyNotions]

I'm excited to see how this one turns out, Frodage. I remember the grow your own spores thread. Makes sense.

As far as the water goes, I just leave it on top to reabsorb or evaporate. There's still a significant amount of salt in it. Worst case, it'll go away when you flip the cheese.

Looking good...

Larry

[Frodage]

Here's a photo of the top of the wheel, showing the pool of water extracted from the cheese. It evaporated by mid-afternoon, which is for the best. If I had mopped up the water, I would've taken away salt from the cheese.

[Frodage]

Here are the make notes in the attached spreadsheet.

[LoftyNotions]

Jim, I took a quick look at your make notes. Regarding the fast floc time, it's probably just the 1/2 tablet of rennet. The 24 minute time to cut was good I think. If you can source liquid calf rennet it's much more controllable.

Regarding salting, you're going for a total salt load of around 13 to 16.4 grams, right? And that total is divided up in some fashion over 2 or 3 days? Just wanted to make sure, because the recipe on Cheesemaking is a bit fuzzy. The liquid on top of your cheese was about what I'd expect. Most of it does reabsorb, and some of it drains off. It's all good.

Looks like a cheese to me.

Larry

[Frodage]

Thanks for the boost of confidence, Larry! You are right about the amount of salt. I'm aiming for 4.1g x 4 days, or 2.5% of the cheese weight from day 2. The sides are now pulling away from the mold, which I presume is to be expected.

[LoftyNotions]

Yep. That's exactly what they do. As I salt I slip the mould off so I can pat some salt on the sides, and then slip it back on.

I just finished salting mine and put it in its box in the "cave".

Oh, if you want a bunch of blue on the outside, what might help a bit is a day or 2 after you're done salting you might want to gently wipe the cheese down with a cloth soaked in water or in a mild brine (3-5% or so) to get the heavy concentration of salt off the outside. I don't do that with mine, but I don't care if they blue up on the outsides.

Larry

[Frodage]

Here is a photo of my make-shift cave. I had to store Notchy at 20C and got up to 70% RH. By the time day 7 (today) came around it looked like there was some blue on the flat surface.

Have a look at the sides and, yes, there is blue in the notches!

"Blue, blue, my world is blue!"

Now it's pierced and in the crisper. More photos to come.

[LoftyNotions]

Congratulations on the blue, Jim. A couple things... It looks to me like there's some condensation on the inside of your box. If so, your humidity is probably in the 90s somewhere, which would be a good thing.

Also, do you have a way to get the temperature down around 12 to 15°C? Maybe that's what you were referring to in putting it in the crisper.

Larry

[Danbo]

Looking good! :-) Before you know it you cheese will be all blue... :-)

[Frodage]

@Larry - you are right about the condensation. On day 5, I had just washed and sterilized my temporary see-through cave (also known as a seedling tent). The condensation was because I didn't want to contaminate it by drying with a tea towel! I left a crack in the air vent and by day 7 the humidity was down to 70%.

I wanted to reduce the temperature and thought about using ice water in my travel mug, but that only brought the temperature down by 1 degree.

So by day 7 I thought, "I have got to get this into the proper cave (aka meat crisper)." So, now it burbling away at 7C and 60% RH. Here is a photo of it after piercing.

[LoftyNotions]

Jim,

Humidity in the low to mid 90s would probably be a good thing for blue development. 60% is probably too low. The blue won't develop and the rind on your cheese will dry out really fast.

I think that's probably what happened to Susan with her Rindless Blue?? Coastal Blue??.

Temperature is a bit low also, but I think you can live with that as long as you get your humidity back up. Blue formation and cheese ageing will be pretty slow at 7°C, but it will happen.

You might want to check the calibration of your hygrometer, because it was reading in the 70s even when you had condensation in the box. There are several threads here on how to do it, but basically, you place your hygrometer in a sealed bag with a container of wet NaCl and let it stabilize. It should read 75% under those conditions.

HTH,

Larry