Author Topic: My First Blue Cheese (Stilton)  (Read 7725 times)

felku

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My First Blue Cheese (Stilton)
« on: April 23, 2015, 02:31:07 AM »
So I decide to try my first Blue Cheese after looking at many threads on this forum. I follow Al Lewis advices on mold http://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,13807.0.html and other steps from this thread. I also took notes from the linuxboy's site.

ok so I did a 4 gallons make and added heavy cream( don't remember how much)

 1/4 tsp Danisco Choozit MA 19 and 1/4 tsp Flor Dania . At first I was going to use only the choozit one but looking at other threads I added the Flor Dania
 1/4 tsp  CHR Hansen PR1 (Penicillium Roqueforti)
 1 tsp Calf rennet

 I follow the steps from the wacheese site

It took long to show some signs of blue compare to other threads. I started to see some signs by the 7th day. Today I took the last picture and is the 10th day. Don't know if my PR is not too aggressive or that I have struggle to keep at least 90 of humidity

Offline awakephd

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Re: My First Blue Cheese (Stilton)
« Reply #1 on: April 23, 2015, 04:51:00 PM »
Felku, I'll chime in with the vast wisdom of a total of two blues made, one of which is still aging ... :)

7 days to seeing blue does not seem excessive to me, but 1/4 tsp of PR does! I don't think you need to use that much, and it is relatively expensive, so you may want to cut back ... for the 4 gallon Gorgonzola recipe that I made recently, I only used 1/32 tsp. Of course, that was in just 2 gallons of the make, but still -- plenty of blue showed up.

Hopefully others with greater experience will offer corrections or other input!
-- Andy

felku

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Re: My First Blue Cheese (Stilton)
« Reply #2 on: April 23, 2015, 06:09:07 PM »
Felku, I'll chime in with the vast wisdom of a total of two blues made, one of which is still aging ... :)

7 days to seeing blue does not seem excessive to me, but 1/4 tsp of PR does! I don't think you need to use that much, and it is relatively expensive, so you may want to cut back ... for the 4 gallon Gorgonzola recipe that I made recently, I only used 1/32 tsp. Of course, that was in just 2 gallons of the make, but still -- plenty of blue showed up.

Hopefully others with greater experience will offer corrections or other input!

Thanks for that advice I was following the recipe from linuxboy site and now that I re-read he says it could be less. Something I will take on consideration for next make. I'm starting on this so I still have many question. Any advice is welcome.

felku

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Re: My First Blue Cheese (Stilton)
« Reply #3 on: April 24, 2015, 09:32:35 PM »
New update , the cheese is already pierced. Something that I notice and don't like is that when I was piercing the cheese some pieces were falling.


felku

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Re: My First Blue Cheese (Stilton)
« Reply #4 on: April 28, 2015, 12:15:11 AM »
Another update


Offline Al Lewis

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Re: My First Blue Cheese (Stilton)
« Reply #5 on: April 28, 2015, 12:41:51 AM »
Looks great apart from that one spot that didn't smooth over.  Great job!! AC4U!!
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felku

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Re: My First Blue Cheese (Stilton)
« Reply #6 on: April 28, 2015, 01:37:19 AM »
Looks great apart from that one spot that didn't smooth over.  Great job!! AC4U!!

 Yes, that is what I don't like from this make. I think I let the cheese dry too much since as you can see temp here is hot and that was in the morning.

Offline Al Lewis

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Re: My First Blue Cheese (Stilton)
« Reply #7 on: April 28, 2015, 02:20:42 AM »
It should be fine.  Just be careful when piercing and only pierce to the center.
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felku

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Re: My First Blue Cheese (Stilton)
« Reply #8 on: April 28, 2015, 02:30:33 PM »
Thanks for the advice

Offline awakephd

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Re: My First Blue Cheese (Stilton)
« Reply #9 on: April 28, 2015, 04:29:43 PM »
It should be fine.  Just be careful when piercing and only pierce to the center.

Al, say more about this -- is this to keep from getting crumblies? For my grand total of two cheeses, I've pierced through (side to side and top to bottom); my sense is that the crumblies occurred as I pulled the skewer out, not as I poked through the other side.

Of course, if there is another reason ... then I've been doing it wrong!
-- Andy

Offline Al Lewis

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Re: My First Blue Cheese (Stilton)
« Reply #10 on: April 28, 2015, 04:48:48 PM »
If you have loose curds in the sides or bottom there is a good chance they will push out of the cheese when piercing all of the way through.  It can also cause a large void in the center of the cheese where all of the piercings cross over.  If you pierce every 1-1.5", both around and top to bottom, and stop just short of the center you will hit all of the areas you need to with air.  I pierce at an upward angle in that grid and then pierce through he same holes in a downward angle on the second piercing always stopping short of the center.  If you watch the machine they use to pierce these at the creamery you will see that it does the same thing.  Watch this video and pay close attention to the piercing machine at the 3:42 mark.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unVdU4MgRAA
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Offline awakephd

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Re: My First Blue Cheese (Stilton)
« Reply #11 on: April 29, 2015, 12:28:32 AM »
You raise a good point -- I had worried about all my piercings crossing over the middle. What I did to try to compensate was to pierce a few across the diameter, but mostly across a shorter chord, something like the picture below. The picture is actually misleading from what I hope I accomplished -- since I too was piercing at an angle, in 3-d space these lines shouldn't actually intersect as they appear to in the 2-d picture.

Or at least, that's what I was hoping that I was accomplishing. :) But I'm not sure but what your way isn't both easier and better!
-- Andy

Offline Al Lewis

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Re: My First Blue Cheese (Stilton)
« Reply #12 on: April 29, 2015, 02:31:17 AM »
Works well for me!! ;D
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felku

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Re: My First Blue Cheese (Stilton)
« Reply #13 on: May 01, 2015, 08:31:36 PM »
Nice, I like to see all this information. It helps a lot. Ok here is an update. The cheese has already 20 days , should I pierce at the sides?


Offline Al Lewis

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Re: My First Blue Cheese (Stilton)
« Reply #14 on: May 01, 2015, 09:29:42 PM »
I would certainly pierce it at this point.
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