Author Topic: um...what's up with my blue?!  (Read 2347 times)

kate

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um...what's up with my blue?!
« on: May 13, 2009, 09:25:32 AM »
hi all,
i had a go at making a blue vein cheese (following recipe from Ricki Carroll's book)... all seemed to go according to plan but the result is a little bizarre....
my cheese - see pics - is about a month old now. in ricki's book, and another i have (by Carole Willman) the authors suggest that after 30 days ripening at 12oC the surface should be covered with blue green mould (and maybe a reddish brown smear - like i've seen in some of the stilton pics on this forum). and after 30 days you 'scrape off the excess mould', wrap in foil and ripen for another 2 months at either 8oC or 12oC (two recipes say different temps). so my blue mould grew just fine, the cheese has been at 12oC for a month, but in a big thick velvety coat rather than like the smear in all the pictures i've seen here. you'll see what i mean...now there is even whitish mould appearing, especially where i poked holes in it.
i didn't read this forum until today, so i didn't know what it should look like. i just let it grow, and scraped it off today (see pic). it looks pretty ordinary, but you can see the blue mould has penetrated the holes. it actually tastes ok - just sort of cheesy, not like mould ripened cheese. (that was a few hrs ago, and i still feel ok...!). anyway, i've wrapped it up and will see what happens. but if anyone has any comments i'd be very pleased to hear. have i added too much mould? left it grow too long??
cheers and thanks!
Kate.

chilipepper

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Re: um...what's up with my blue?!
« Reply #1 on: May 13, 2009, 02:11:26 PM »
Hi Kate and welcome to the forum!  I wonder if you are not suffering from some sort of humidity problem similar to what I had here: http://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,1008.0.html.

I ended up tossing mine but in hind sight I kind of wish I would have let it age out and see what happened.  With mine something definitely had gone wrong as the smell was not super pleasant. 

Do you have any idea of where the humidity was at while it was again?  According to the responses I got above there is a point were too much humidity will give you grief.  The other suggestion I got was to make sure and get good air exchange in the aging container as well.  Dave (Likespace) had a similar looking cheese a while back that kind of resembled a brain. :)   Good luck and hopefully some of the others here will be able to offer additional assistance.

Ryan

kate

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Re: um...what's up with my blue?!
« Reply #2 on: May 14, 2009, 02:23:47 AM »
g'day ryan,
thanks - had a look at your stilton (#2 looked fantastic! yum!) and a surf through the alien camembert pages, some of those wrinkled rinds do look similar to mine as well. i'll ripen the next batch in an open container, and make sure curd is really dry at salting stage before placing at high humidity... and see what happens.
the cheese is actually quite soft - downright creamy like a camembert in some places just under the rind - this is probably also a sign of too much moisture and mould activity there.
still, smells and tastes ok, and the P.roq has pentrated into the centre, so i'll leave it a while and see what happens (lost about 1/4 cheese weight by removing rind, though, that's how thick it was!)
will post results!
cheers,
kate

Cheese Head

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Re: um...what's up with my blue?!
« Reply #3 on: May 15, 2009, 11:08:13 AM »
Hi Kate

Agree, your blue looks too moist (part of your last picture under mold looks wet) and too solid. The mold rind does look like some of my Camembert tries. FYI, white mold will amazingly, dominate blue mold, at least that's what happened on my Cambozola try.

My blues todate are too solid, minimal vacancies internal in the pate for the blue to grow. So next time I'm going to achieve firmer curds before milling and then hooping.