Well here's an interesting development.
Yesterday, while washing & turning some cheeses and checking on others, I spotted a potential problem. My Tilsit #6 made on April 12th was showing some moisture in its vacuum bag. Ordinarily, the cheese goes into the bag dry and stays pretty much dry. In the past if a cheese developed moisture between the cheese and the bag...and I didn't spot it and correct it, when opened, the cheese rind became pasty, crunchy, and acidic. Not good. From then on, I always go back and check my bagged cheeses.
The problem further intensified when I decided to wash the rind and remove the linens/Geo covering. Under running water, I flow the water over the cheese wheel while rubbing or brushing lightly to remove the thin, developed film. As I did that with the Tilsit, I noticed that the coating seemed to be coming off the cheese...but it was attaching to my gloved hand!
The running water was cold and the coating wasn't going down the drain. Matter of fact, I couldn't get it off my hand. I touched the tip of my tongue to a glob of this coating....
It was butterfat! To be sure, it was a combination of the linens/Geo and butterfat.
I ended up running warm water on my hands to melt the butterfat away. I removed as much of the "coating" as I could to get to a cleaner, dry rind. I then placed the Tilsit in a minicave and returned it to the cave to continue to dry the rind and age. I may cream-coat it after a bit. The anticipated date to sample this is at 4 months. That's mid-July.
I'm not sure why the butterfat moved to the rind. The rind was dry when I placed it in the vacuum bag after 9 days. There was some Geo powder showing. Perhaps the vacuum process drew the butterfat to the surface. I've never experienced that situation before. The cheese was made with 4 gallons of whole raw milk, Alp D, and PLA.
-Boofer-
