Hi everyone,
i'm new to the forum, and have been gratefully devouring your cheese reports - for which thanks!
i have been trying to troubleshoot my own fledgling camemberts. in contrast to some of the reports of very moist and runny cheese i've seen here, mine end up with decent flavour, but a very firm pate, no matter how careful i am to retain moisture in the curds. (more about this another time, i am trying extended ripening period....a la finewino advice)
anyway, in my cyber travels i came across this document:
http://www.archive.org/stream/camembertcheesep00thomiala/camembertcheesep00thomiala_djvu.txtit was written over 100 years ago (!), and is about camembert manufacturing in factories, but i found lots of useful information about how different parameters affect ripening, and also about other organisms that can emerge during ripening and how they affect the cheese.
just thought i'd throw it up here in case anyone else finds it useful. it's kind of lengthy and not all relevant, but has useful table of contents.
cheers,
Kate.