Blue Cheese - Innoculating From Store Bought Blue Cheese

[caciocavallo]

Hello Everyone,

Is it true that we can "inoculate" a batch of milk by using a piece of store bought blue cheese? This would replace the "Penicillium Roqueforti" you normally buy.

Cacio

[Cheese Head]

Hi Cacio

Yep that works fine, I've done it in this batch and in this batch, and in this one.

There's a discussion on that here and another here.

The trick is getting the vacancies in the cheese in which the mold can grow, after you pierce it.

Have fun.

[caciocavallo]

Thanks John!

[mosborn]

Ya!  I scraped a few grams of the blue out of a blue cheese I made before, and used that in storebought milk, along with buttermilk as a starter culture (which I learned from this forum), and made some blue cheese that I liked very much, all for the cost of the storebought milk, so it was about $1.78 for a pound of blue cheese!

Isn't this forum great!?