external rind salting or curd salting of blue

[cheeseslovesu]

Hello cheese brains trust,

I have been using, and loving, Pav's stilton recipe where the curd is sprinkled with salt before hooping. I have since spoken to a well respected cheese maker who said to salt the rind once the curd is hooped so the saltiness gradually permeates through the cheese.
The photo I have attached has my jersey milk stilton (on the left of the photo) with the salt in the curd, I love this cheese. The blue on the right is a buffalo blue with the salt rubbed on the rind and I don't think it has much character at the moment. It is only young but the rind smells strongly of ammonia although it doesn't appear in the taste.
Thought please!!??

[StuartDunstan]

Hi Deb! Afraid I can't help you with your problem, but damn, that cheese looks good! 

[OzzieCheese]

Hi Debra,  I don't think either method, it is wrong just different.  The image on the left has from what I can see a more advanced Lipolytic activity - fats are breaking down and the paste looks softer.  Wow that's not bad from a photo  .  The salt does a few things but, I think the most important is that PR loves a bit of salt at the start it changes the way the Mycelium forms (from wikipedia: is the vegetative part of a fungus, consisting of a mass of branching, thread-like hyphae) this is how the PR speads through the cheese.  Otherwise it forms clumps but, if your cheese has an open texture already then that might be exactly what you need.  Salt also protects the cheese and of course adds flavour.  It all depends on the overall intent of your cheese. I would also expect a non salted curd to have a milder Blue taste profile than a satled one as the PR takes longer to 'Mature'.

hope that helps.

-- Mal

[cheeseslovesu]

Thanks Stuart - it is very special and I have a big fan base with this blue.

Mal, that is a very good explanation. The high fat in the jersey milk does assist with speeding up the ripening process. It is really delicious. When the buffalo blue has another few weeks ripening I will have another sample and try to concentrate on the flavour without the extra salt.

debbie

[awakephd]

Debra,

My understanding, for what it is worth -- very little! -- is that salting the curds is one of the things that distinguishes a Stilton make from some of the others. I'm sure there are other differences as well, but this is one thing that I remember filing away in my convoluted thinking about which blues were which ... so it may be absolutely wrong, but ...