Baby Blues and Daddy Blue

[AnnDee]

Why do you scrape it?
I have only made blue once, I am scared of the blues 

[DoctorCheese]

I scrape it off because the youtube cheese maker I watch scrapes off the mold before eating it. I noticed that the mold on the outside is extreamly powerful tasting in a bad way, but I do not know the "official" reason.

[awakephd]

Jobe, my experience is that a blue cheese will not reach the "right" flavor until about 12 weeks of aging - this even though the blue may have ceased any further activity, due to lack of oxygen. It is an interesting phenomenon - at 6 weeks, my blues taste ... kinda like moldy bread. They are well blued at that stage, and I usually cut them in quarters and lightly vac-bag each quarter (lightly meaning that I stop the vacuum draw and seal it just as the plastic snugs up to the cheese), so definitely no further development of the blue from that point on. But at 12 weeks, magic has happened, and they have that piquant, sweet/sharp taste that I love.

[DoctorCheese]

For he purpose of first hand learning and research, I'm going to keep tasting at various unfinished stages. Gavin Webber, a Youtube cheese maker I watch and maybe idolize, made "petit blue" cheeses and he had them be very creamy and soft at the 40 day mark. I hope I have the same result!

[DoctorCheese]

Is this ok to eat, idk what happened but there are pockets. Smells really yummy at room temp. I think either I got some kind of an infection, or for whatever reason one side rippend much faster than the other. To be honest with you all, I did eat some before posting this and it tasted good. What should I do?

[Al Lewis]

Not sure I would eat that.

[DoctorCheese]

Not sure I would eat that.

Me either. But I did anyway. The paste is creamy and very blue tasting. I have not past away yet, but I will let you know if I do 

[Duntov]

 I have not past away yet, but I will let you know if I do 

You might want to entrust that task to some else.  lol

[AnnDee]

Maybe you got some geo contamination that made the cheese runny like that, therefore it still tastes good. I am not sure though 

[DoctorCheese]

I cut open my "Daddy Blue" and it is perfect (for me). The paste is smooth, the blue flavor is strong but not overpowering. Very tasty.

[Al Lewis]

That looks like it was pressed.  Not a lot of gaps between the curd.  Glad it tastes okay though.  It's been my experience that you can get the taste of blue without the mold growing but the PR still puts the taste into the cheese.  Go figure.

[Gregore]

Looks like geo to me on the runny one , I would be it is okay to eat .

After reading david Asher's  book and seeing how every cheese he makes uses wild cultures and how they all turn out edible , I have no worries about falling over dead.

As a culture we have moved into an era where we fear everything that is not packaged  sanitized and kept  in a controlled environment 24 /7 .

Your small cheese was well protected from exposure to bad things via blue mold that was aggressively keeping everything else away form  "it's "  food source .

So if it taste good eat it .