Author Topic: Rate my Cheese! (feedback request on mold growth)  (Read 1351 times)

Offline Scarlettbri12

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Rate my Cheese! (feedback request on mold growth)
« on: September 23, 2017, 01:59:21 AM »
For the history of this cheese: about a month ago I made a 2 gallon batch of raw milk cheese in the basic "tomme" style and split the curd into two molds. One I wanted to soak in beer, tomme al birra style (following the soaking instruction on the cabra al vino style cheese on cheesemaking.com), and another I wanted to let age naturally. I tried to read all I could about aging naturally and natural rinds, but I found so much information on so many things that I decided to just see where this cheese would go.

Quite a few different cultures have popped up and fought over this little guy. Early on, the first seemed to be a blue (although it seemed to look brown/green ish) so I washed with a 1:2 wine to brine (heavy) solution to try to eliminate those as much as I could.

 Next up came what seemed to be some linens, as it was red/pinkish and sticky/tacky. I washed again with my wine solution. To try to encourage some PC growth, I stuck a piece of camembert rind in the corner of my aging box.

Eventually the molds won out and I occasionally get some fuzzy white PC growth spots, but it's mostly a whole lot of blue/green/almost brown growth. This cheese is at just under a month of aging, and I've been attempting to age at 55F 85% humidity. The temperature has been spot on (temp controller ftw), but the humidity has been closer to 80%, sometimes creeping lower sometimes creeping higher.

So in short, does the cheese look okay? I plan on aging it out for at least 4 months.

For an added bonus, I've added a pic of the other, tomme al birra. It is the same age and temp/humidity combo. Lately it's felt slightly tacky, but I can't tell if there are any linens since the cheese is brown from the beer soak. And if it does have some linens, it should be fine anyways, right?

Thank you again for the feedback!

Offline Andrew Marshallsay

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Re: Rate my Cheese! (feedback request on mold growth)
« Reply #1 on: September 23, 2017, 08:13:10 AM »
They both look pretty good to me.
Just a few thoughts:
  - With the natural rind, it might be worth brushing it occasionally just to keep things under control.
  - If you do want B Linens to flourish, you will probably need to increase the humidity. One way to do this is to put the cheeses in small plastic aging boxes.
  - The tacky feel may well indicate BL. It is not always easy to tell as BL varies in colour from orange, through pink, to a cream or ivory.
Anyway, I think you can be pretty positive about how they are going.
- Andrew

Offline Scarlettbri12

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Re: Rate my Cheese! (feedback request on mold growth)
« Reply #2 on: September 26, 2017, 08:13:41 PM »
Thank you! This makes me happier. Having never seen a younger cheese aging naturally, I didn't know what to expect or look for. Thank you again  :)