Can I save this cheese? Different colored molds growing (brown, green, yellow)

[Kilburn]

I recently been trying to age cheddar with a natural rind, and this is my first attempt. I have been having trouble keeping away mold, and some strange colored ones at that.

At first I didn't use a maturation box, and just put the cheese on a bamboo mat in my cheese fridge. Recently I moved to using a box. I didn't think I needed one since the humidity was pretty good in the fridge alone, or so I thought.

RH is around 80-85%, and temp was around 50-55F

At first I started to notice yellow spots on the cheese after about a week aging. I noticed these spots after washing the cheese with a 3% brine the day after. Some people said it may be pseudomonas fluorescens, which could be explained by either the water I was washing with or the water I diluted my rennet with. I am guessing the former, so I switched to distilled water for my washes. Note that I do NOT want a washed rind, but just a natural hard one.

I was unable to wash the yellow spots off, so I ended up just scraping them off with a spoon. The cheese is starting to look in pretty rough shape. After using the distilled water, I don't see as many yellow spots, but now when I rub off the blue mold I see yellow left behind. Is this normal for blue?

Is there anything I can do to save this cheese, and should I even be concerned? What should I do to continue aging this, vac pack or just keep washing with the brine?

https://imgur.com/a/27IXKxp

Thanks

[B e n]

Yellow is a typical leftover from the blue. Don't scrape the cheese, you will damage the rind and compromise the cheese, the area you scrape makes a perfect environment for molds to take off. What you are seeing is perfectly normal on a natural rind. All those mold imprints are what gives a natural rind it's aesthetic. White, yellow, blue, red, green even bright orange can be normal mold colors. Black or grey needs to be looked at more deeply, mildew is bad (looks just like bathroom mildew and has that characteristic earthy scent), but long fuzzy grey strands (mucor) growing out from the surface of the cheese are "normal". Eventually those mold patches can cover the cheese. It takes a little getting used to when working with natural rinds, and the molds you have in your region, and cheese fridge are going to be a little different from someone in another climate/region so what you produce will be unique. It will take you a few cheeses to get the handle on what is right and wrong.


Your cheese looks quite wet, did you give the cheese a drying phase? Unless you are going for a washed rind you don't want it to be super wet, the humidity in the maturation box will be enough. Pull it every day, brush off any molds you don't like, dry the box completely, and flip the cheese. After a week or two you can start working the cheese every other day instead. If you make it a month things get much easier, Succession molds will start to take over in 4-6 weeks and then the cheese should be very low maintenance, pull the box every few days, dry it completely, flip the cheese. Bamboo mat like you are using is great in the aging box, it keeps the cheese from sitting in the condensed moisture and will start to gain surface molds that will help you inoculate the next cheese you age on the mat.


Start with this article, see if it helps you a little: https://blog.cheesemaking.com/10-tips-for-aging-your-natural-rind-cheeses/

[Kilburn]

Thanks Ben for your insightful reply

Yes, I have been washing the rind each day with a 3% salt solution to try to get rid of the mold. However like you said I think I may actually be creating a washed rind accidently, which I'm not going for. I've heard a lot of conflicting information on creating natural "non washed" rinds. I'm making an asiago style right now, and want to give the natural rind another chance, but without washing.

The recipe I'm following says to wash with the 3% brine each day, from 200 easy homemade cheese recipes by Debra Amrein-Boyes. Another recipe by Jim Wallace says to only wash when mold appears, about twice a week. Some say to not wash at all, and just "brush" the mold off when it appears. I've been reading "Mastering Artisan Cheesemaking" by Gianaclis Caldwell and she suggests just brushing the rind as well

Do you know why there might be such variance between each recipe?
Also, some people say to wash with vinegar and salt brine, others says without vinegar. Does Vinegar "reset" the molds/yeast needed to get those succession molds to take place?

[MacGruff]

I would follow Caldwell's advice over the others. I found that when I washed with a brine, that I was adding more salt to the cheese than I wanted to. It does permeate beyond the rind and leeches in to the paste. In my cheeses, I check them daily, brush them off as needed, and have not had an issue with them settling in.

I do use two different kinds of brushes though. Early on, a soft brush is sufficient. Once the rind matures, and if the mold (especially the blue ones) start getting into the crevices of the rind, I have a steel brush I got from a paint store that I use to get those tiny spots clean without hurting the rest of the rind.

[B e n]

Lot's of ways to skin the cat I guess, if you look at the history of cheesemaking you can probably trace each technique to a specific region. I use just a soft brush (badger hair shaving brush), it is the technique from the Caldwell book you are reading right now. If things get crazy I will attack the trouble spots or the whole thing with wine or port wash.

What it all comes down to is selecting the organisms you want on the cheese, and creating an environment where they are the winners. Whether that is Geotricum, Blue, B. Linnens, etc is up to you. Affinage seems to be more complicated than the make itself. Once your natural rind is set properly it is really easy though.

If you start to feel like your cheese is headed in a direction you don't like, eat it and try again. Nothing wrong with eating a young cheese.

[broombank]

In the UK artisanal cheddar is usually wrapped in lard saturated cloth before ageing - that protects the cheese and allows any moulds which do develop to be on the cloth not on the cheese. I have of late been using PVA as a coating which has the advantage that it 'breathes' like the cloth but is less messy than the clothbound variety. You still get an array of moulds on the PVA surface but the cheese is completely protected. The array of moulds can be very picturesque.

[Kilburn]

Thanks everyone for the helpful advice.

I have been retrying for an asiago style cheese with a natural rind. After about day 7 I started to get blue mold again, however I have been simply brushing off what I can each day. I'm at day 10 now.

Most of the mold comes off but sometimes it stains the rind a bit. I don't see anything else besides blue mold, should I expect geo as well? What would I need to do to encourage that, should I start washing with a brine again to clean off any "stained" blue, or just keep brushing and flipping?

https://imgur.com/a/hjR9AB9

[B e n]

I believe there is Geo: the little white patches you have going. See if you can drop your humidity a bit, you are probably close to 95, shoot for 85-90 and let the geo establish. That should slow the blue. What is your temp? You probably want to be around 55°F.

[Tedybar]

Another thought for the Asiago, you can rub it with olive oil to help develop a mold free rind.  Also, according to Caldwell in Mastering Artisan Cheesemaking, you should be aiming for 80% RH.  Since I have more than just hard Italian cheese in my cave, this is a bit tricky, but what I've found seems to work is since my cheese cave fridge is in the basement which is about 60F, I pull my hard Italian cheese out of the cave for a few hours every day to try an balance a slightly higher RH in the cave, with what the hard Italian cheese needs.  The olive oil not only makes the surface of the cheese inhospitable for molds, it also makes the rind more supple.

[B e n]

Aging boxes work well for putting a variety of cheese in the same cave at different humidity, I use little sterilite boxes from the local big box store. The volume of the cheese vs the volume of the box will give you a pretty predictable humidity.

[Kilburn]

My temperature is around 55-57 degrees Fahrenheit.

I've been trying maturation Boxes, and I've actually had a problem with the humidity being too high then. It's around 85 without the box and 90% inside the box. The box itself is quite large, and I do wipe it down each day.

Should I just keep it outside the box altogether where the humidity is around 85%?

[B e n]

It would be worth a try for sure. My "cave" rolls at around 35% humidity so i have to rely on boxes. If you have an 85% environment already box is probably optional.

[smolt1]

Hi guys. This is way off the subject but I need to know if the cheese forum is still active. I used to be active a few years ago when I was making and selling the Sturdypress. Thanks for any info you can let me in on.
Cheers,
Smolt1 {Bob Samuelson}

[B e n]

Sort of... a few posts a week is about all you see.

[smolt1]

That is really sad. It used to be the place to go for anything cheese, and the information stored on this site is massive.