Old thread, but because I am focusing on tomme and beaufort, this is of interest to me. My investigations have shown that it is actually more common than I initially thought, to wash beaufort with a cultured brine containing b. linens (and a ton of other species). The practice seems to be all over the map - some do an entirely natural rind, some do a low-salinity brine with b. linens, many do a morge solution containing the pureed rind of old beaufort, whey and salt.
I'm flying more blind than I'd like to (and am having issues, I think, with my cave in general), but c'est la vie. I know hand-rubbing salt on one side of the rind daily, allowing it to rest, then rubbing it in and repeating the process the next day on the other side, is a common practice, but I'm aware these are for the standard, monstrously large beaufort wheels.
I'm going to try this, after a fashion, and see what happens: I will lightly rub pickling salt all over the wheel, and lay it back on my whitewood (spruce, as I understand it) shelf; next day, turn it over, do the same thing.
I will do this for a month - descriptions I've seen say " a month or two, until the rind is ready for the morge" - but I have no idea what I'm to be looking for as a "ready" point for a cultured brine solution. At that point, I will be doing a 3% solution of PLA, twice weekly, to the end of aging, which I plan to be a minimum of 8 months. I'd prefer to get the b. casei (and its beneficial effects) of OFR9, but OFR9 is unavailable to me.
