Playing more non-rennet blues

[GBoyd]

Is there a reason you need to remove the salt?

Even though outside isn't growing at all, the bluing on the interior should be continuing uninhibited and that's really the important part.

[Alex]

I am not sure whether you can salvage this one. The upper cheese's mold looks a bit weird, that fluorescent turquoise color. The other one looks OK, not like a blue should look, I would like to taste it. How are you about making an experiment (I like to experiment)? Start washing the cheese with beer/sweet white wine/vodka diluted with water, one of them, twice a week for about 3-4 weeks.
Next time, to create humidity in a box/container, instead of salting the cheese, put a dish with water on the bottom of the container with a surface area as big as you can, or put a wet towel and check it periodically to ensure it is wet enough. To control humidity just fit the lid opening.

[justsocat]

GBoyd you are right the inner part is much more important.
Alex, I actually have tried it already. After last re-piercing of the holes some cheese has left at a needle and I've tried it. Though it is not of course a blue, it is delicious I'll keep on trying to make cheeses of that kind.
Great idea about washing cheese with beer/wine but I use no alcohol at all. Thank you for advise for humidity control.
This morning I washed both cheeses with brain. Let's give them more time and see.

[justsocat]

Today both wheels are cut open. The cheese at first pic turned out well in spite of some negative expectations. Dry salt that I used to sprinkle the rind inhibited external mold growth but inner part of the wheel pleased me a lot. I ate that cheese with my fellows and everyone liked it. The most popular blue cheese in Russia is DORBLU and more to say the cheese I’ve made is similar to DORBLU in its structure and consistence. We found that result of my non-rennet experiments “not worse”. Two of the company voted for my cheese to be even better one. So I’m satisfied.
Soft cheese that is shown at pics 2 and 3 isn’t blue at all. Pity. But nevertheless it was very good in taste and flavor and disappeared with a sufficient speed. The main difference was that I added mold culture to the curd instead of inoculating the milk as I did with previous cheese. May be my homemade mold is too weak to be used like that. But that was only the first try and I’ll repeat it in a while.

[Alex]

Your blue cheese looks nice. The rind is not blue because of the salt on it that inhibits blue mold growth (as you said).
The cheese has no veins except the piercing, apparently because like it looks, it is very solid and stiff, no air gaps at all.

[justsocat]

An absence of veins was predictable right from the start, Alex. That was lactic coagulated cheese and i ought to press it very hard to get rid of sour taste. So it's structure could be only very closed. That was just my madness about "all natural"
I failed with the second one this time. And that second was supposed to be lactic blue with open structure. But I'll keep on trying 

[Alex]

Good luck Pavel,

I like your kind of experiments. Keep us updated.

Merry Christmas