Author Topic: Help identifying cheese rind defect  (Read 2349 times)

Offline sprocket

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Help identifying cheese rind defect
« on: December 20, 2015, 04:48:08 PM »
Hello all -

Looking for some feedback on a recent batch of cheese I'd made.  The cheese itself is modelled after St. Nectaire, and it made from raw goat's milk.  The defect pops up infrequently on some of our cheeses, but often enough to be an annoyance. The first  picture is what I consider to be a good cheese, and the second picture shows the defect.

Good cheese: http://imgur.com/zZMOxMo

Cheese with defect: http://imgur.com/nJZ4JmF

The defect should be quite obvious - it's the much pinker, wet looking section with no Geo growth.  Once established, it's near impossible to dry it up.  To the senses, I detect more ammonia in that region, leading me to believe there's a lot of proteolysis going on.

I have a suspicion that it's due to lower pH in that part of the curd, perhaps due to poor drainage, or uneven dry-salting that failed to slow down the lactic cultures. 

Does anyone else have any insights as to what might be happening, and how to prevent it in the future?

Stinky

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Re: Help identifying cheese rind defect
« Reply #1 on: December 20, 2015, 09:47:05 PM »
Could it be linens? What humidity are you at?

Offline sprocket

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Re: Help identifying cheese rind defect
« Reply #2 on: December 21, 2015, 01:14:40 AM »
B. linens was a major rind culture in this cheese - I'd washed it in a 3% brine for several weeks while the rind flora developed, then stepped back for a bit once established and let it dry down a bit, and let the Geo take over.

Personally, I don't think it's B. linens, as the reddish colour on the cheese is mostly all linens.  Another person had suggested it might be Pseudomonas, but it doesn't stink either, which I might associate with Pseudomonas.

I'm ripening at ~ 90% RH.

Offline Al Lewis

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Re: Help identifying cheese rind defect
« Reply #3 on: December 21, 2015, 02:27:33 PM »
RH sounds like it could be a little high.  Can you drop it to 80-85%?  It might help and certainly wouldn't hurt.
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Sailor Con Queso

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Re: Help identifying cheese rind defect
« Reply #4 on: December 21, 2015, 02:34:39 PM »
Pseudomonas has a sweet, grape-like aroma.

Offline sprocket

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Re: Help identifying cheese rind defect
« Reply #5 on: December 21, 2015, 02:55:14 PM »
RH sounds like it could be a little high.  Can you drop it to 80-85%?  It might help and certainly wouldn't hurt.

You know, I did an affinage course in France this past September and they ran most of their caves at 90%+  (some I saw were as high as 96%) with excellent results.  While I previously was shooting for that 80-85% range, I'm now much less concerned about it, and am more concerned with building up the rind with whatever yeasts, molds, and bacteria I want to predominate.  Based on early results (We only had about a month and a bit of production before drying the girls up for the winter), it's worked very well (for the types of cheeses we make, at least), and I have far fewer issues with wild blues or mucor establishing itself and needing constant knocking back.


sweetfreedom

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Re: Help identifying cheese rind defect
« Reply #6 on: January 25, 2016, 01:54:03 AM »
Looks like Serratia rubideae, which can range from pink to red to orange, depending on pH.

Kern

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Re: Help identifying cheese rind defect
« Reply #7 on: January 25, 2016, 05:16:01 AM »
A Google search turned this statement up:

Serratia

gram-negative, flagellated rods, members of the family Enterobacteriaceae, found commonly in water, soil and food and only occasionally in pathological specimens. S. marcescens and S. liquefaciens are rare causes of bovine mastitis.

I was struck by the bovine mastitis term.  Could be nothing, though.

Offline sprocket

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Re: Help identifying cheese rind defect
« Reply #8 on: January 25, 2016, 05:17:33 AM »
A Google search turned this statement up:

Serratia

gram-negative, flagellated rods, members of the family Enterobacteriaceae, found commonly in water, soil and food and only occasionally in pathological specimens. S. marcescens and S. liquefaciens are rare causes of bovine mastitis.

I was struck by the bovine mastitis term.  Could be nothing, though.


All of our milk comes from goats, though I wonder how species specific that particular bacteria is...

Stinky

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Re: Help identifying cheese rind defect
« Reply #9 on: January 26, 2016, 03:31:33 AM »
Not sure what it is, just chiming in on the humidity thing: generally I think it's wiser for home cheesemakers, at least at the beginning, to have a lower humidity. This is because the rind will not be as... interesting or scary. A higher humidity is typically used for many cheeses, though, and it's just a matter of what you're aiming for.