It has now been 11 weeks since I made this cheese; for the last five weeks, 8ths of cheese have been vacuum-bagged and stored in the cheese "cave."
I'll be honest: up to now, the 2 or 3 8ths that I have eaten have been a bit disappointing. There has been a good bit of flavor, and certainly plenty of blue development visually, but it just hasn't tasted the way I think of when I think of blue cheese -- more bitter and musky than tangy, and heavy on the salt. The latter is not surprising, since the recipe calls for 4% salt!
That has now changed. I pulled another 8th out on a whim yesterday and opened it up. It did not look promising -- even though I stopped the sealer short of a full vacuum, there was still a good bit of liquid in the bag. But I tasted it anyway. And ... whoa! Something has happened since the last time I tried this. Now I'm getting that sort-of-sweet tanginess that I associate with blue cheese. Not super-strong yet, but enough to transform this from "ho-hum" to "yes please!" Perhaps even more flavor development is to come? I look forward to trying another 8th in a few more weeks to see.
The only flaw in the taste now, if it is a flaw, is that it is still seems heavy on the salt, though that is less prominent with the new tangy sweetness. But I'm wondering what would happen if I backed the salt down a tad, say from 4% to 3.5% ...
Bottom line: this just moved from "probably won't make this recipe again" to "most definitely will make again," and I now look forward to experimenting with it to perfect it!
Pictures included, though honestly it really doesn't look much different than it did five weeks ago.