Brined cheese too long, what to do?

[Mermaid]

Hello,
I went out of town last week and had someone babysit my cheeses, only to return to find out they had forgotten to remove 11 wheels of cheese from the brine tank. Each wheel of cheese is about 4.5-5 pounds. They were in the brine 4 days longer than they should have been.
Any advice? I thought about maybe placing them in fresh water with some CaCl and vinegar but didnt know how long they should be in.

This is why I never go on vacation,

[AnnDee]

55 pounds of cheese!
I don't have the answer for your question though. Sorry. I hope there's a way to save them from being too salty.
I mean...it's 55 pounds of cheese!

[Al Lewis]

You might want to message Kern.  He's a chemical engineer and may have a solution for you.

[Sailor Con Queso]

They should be fine. However it wouldn't hurt to soak them in water & calcium for a few hours to draw out some of the surface salt.

[Al Lewis]

Hey Sailor!!  How's it going?  Haven't seen you in a while.  Missed you!!

[Kern]

They should be fine. However it wouldn't hurt to soak them in water & calcium for a few hours to draw out some of the surface salt.

I second Sailor's suggestion:  The same process that puts the salt in will take the salt out.  I'd get on it right away and probably leave them in for a day then use a trier to pull a sample and check saltiness as a function of depth towards the center.  Add more time if outer paste seems too salty.  You might change the water at this point if it seems to be getting salty.  This will keep the "driving force" high to extract salt.  Test every 24 hours.

My guess is that you want the outer layer a bit salty as the desired salt likely has not fully migrated to the core.  I think you can designate one of the cheeses to be sacrificial to your testing and "save" the other ten.  Good luck.

[Mermaid]

Thank you all for your helpful replies!

I decided to take 4 of the wheels to soak in fresh water with Calcium chloride and vinegar overnight. The rinds did become soft which is unfortunate.

The others that I left alone were saltier than others but not overly salty. I expect them to have more active smear rinds as I wash them going forward.

[jasperfarm]

Just curious - did staying in the brine that much longer cause any visible change to the outside of the cheese?  I'm guessing the cheese wouldn't take on any moisture, or would it?

I'm asking because I brined an iberico too long, just yesterday, when I took it out of the brine, it was floating and had a bit of a sponge feel, had developed one crack.  I let it harden off overnight and it is back to appearing normal, crack is gone...but I'm concerned there was a yeast or something going on, that what I saw had nothing to do with being in the brine too long.  So wanted to compare with what you observed, just in case - trying to decide whether this round is chicken food or worth aging!

[Mermaid]

Send a picture, I prob could tell you better that way.

Also, I have found so far that the cheeses I have left too long in brine seem fine. It seems like the cheese at some point stops absorbing a certain amount of salt...reaches an equillibrium of sorts- its got a salty flavor but not too salty at all and a saltiness that I actually prefer sometimes. Also, as the cheese has been aging it is precipitating some of the salt outward to the rind, creating a beautiful orange rind with little effort.
The cheeses I soaked in diluted brine/CACL water became slimy and now those ones have out of control b.linens.