We ate one of the bries from my most recently ripened batch this weekend. Looks-wise, I felt it held it's own amongst the professionals.
I wish I could say it matched up on taste. But it didn't. It just didn't have that BRIE taste. It was rather bland, and faintly bitter. Shame really, because it had a lovely ooze to it.
Perhaps placing it in the company of some extremely delicious professional jobs was a bit pretentious, and I deserved a fall. But it all got eaten...
Unfortunately, one of it's siblings developed the yellowy fluorescent rind that I have posted about elsewhere. I have been digging around and found a thread on this forum which suggested it is pseudomonas fluorescens. It certainly fluoresces as you can see.
This cheese was in a different container to the ones which didn't develop it, which had been used for other foods previously, and though I thought it had been properly washed and sterilised that could be the relevant factor. The other difference being that the container for the 'good' cheeses had a proper built-in draining shelf, rather than the thin mesh used in the 'bad' container. The other possible factor could be the size I suppose - perhaps being a bigger mould meant it didn't drain as well initially? I've invested in a
batch of the shelf containers, and will use them only for cheese.
This was the last of the batches I made with thermophilic culture, and no geo. I've since invested in both (sold a kidney) so hoping the next batches have more flavour.
