I think I broke it - Stilton quick question

[CheeseSnipe]

Looks great inside! Can't wait for my first blue to be ready.

[Brie]

Looks great--live and learn with the piercing. You can vac-pack it now and hold forever!. Cut it into wedges and vac-pac separately and then you will have your own reviews for aging times. Congrats!

[cheezwhizz]

  NICE looking cheese George...Im the same as you. .always run outa patience with the stiltons. Might i suggest you take a  piece of your cheese and age it further. Try loosely wrapping in a paper towel and then put it in a zip lock bag. Leave the bag open enough to awllow the cheese to get plenty of oxygen, but at the same time keep the RH up. After about a month take it out and give it a try. Ive had great results doing this. The cheese continues to age and change flavor for many months.

[OudeKaas]

Wow . .. just wow. Very inspiring. I have been holding off on trying a blue even with some P.R. culture waiting in my freezer as I do not have a separate place to age them. But these are making my mouth water! I may just have to go buy some in the interim to tide myself over . .  ..

Congrats, and I'm sure you'll make many more in the same 'mold' as these that will be as good or better!

[george]

Thanks!!  I'm still giggling over these a bit.  I cut both of them into quarters and vac'd each piece, gave quite a bit away (but one quarter got me free seafood, always a plus!).  I have three pieces left, that I am hoarding all to myself.  Mine mine mine all mine mine mine!!!!

I'm pretty sure I can get extra cream out the wazoo right now, so I'm really considering starting some more of these.  Although if I'm going to deal with the PR floating everywhere, I might just do, like, four of them, then once they're done, they're done.  LOL.  But I still have to set something up to keep them more separate than I did before - I was thinking about the garage.  Right now the temp there ranges between 48-55 - usually 50 in the AM and rising a bit if it's a sunny day.  It's almost March, though, so that's going to change.  What would happen to Stiltons if they were aging at, say 60-65 degrees?  I was kinda thinking the PR would love it, but so might lots of other rather undesirable critters ...  help?

[Brie]

I bought some GE compact fridges for about $130 each--when I set them to almost 0, they stay at about 50 degrees. I use one for my blues and the other for my white mold cheeses.

[george]

Oh my, I SO cannot get away with another fridge in this house!  There's the one in the kitchen that my housemate uses (mostly, I keep a few small things in there), then the one in the basement that *I* use, then the one in the basement that's my cheese cave (all of these are full-size refrigideezers, BTW), AND the little dorm one that I have in the study just for my drinkin' milk etc.

Although I wonder if I could mess with the freezer compartment in the cave fridge to get that low enough.  Hmmmm.

Up to now (aging is SO much easier in winter!), I've kept the cave at 50-55 for all the cheddars etc.  Set of shelves in the basement stay at a nice 59/60 degrees right now, so used those for Goudas, Havartis, etc.  Right now I've got a batch of cams and a couple of Bries (my first attempts on both) separated in mini-caves in the garage, since I can get that to a lower temp (right now) by the simple expedient of opening the garage door for an hour or two very early in the morning.  These Stiltons I aged in the big cave fridge along with everything else, but I ended up with an awful lot of blue cheddars and other things, no matter how careful I was.

But I'm guessing that 60 degrees is NOT going to be a good idea for aging the Stiltons, then?

[Brie]

60 is too high--I age at 50-55 tops, and when my caves are full--I will pull the blues first to age in the regular fridge at 45 degrees. In fact, I don't know of any cheese that ages at 60 degrees for more than a few days. So, if you don't have enough room in your 50-55 degree caves, I would move them to the regular fridge.

[george]

Actually, it was the Goudas and the Muensters I had on the shelves - the recipes I was using for both of those said roughly 55-60 for a few weeks, then they went into the regular cave.

I did check the average temps here, though (not being terribly familiar after only being back here for my second winter, and last one was REALLY mild), and I think I'll be able to pull the garage trick until sometime in April, to keep it 50-55.  Late April, if I'm lucky.  By then it won't matter too much, if I make the next Stiltons fairly soon, as they won't require as much attention so it'll be safer to keep them in the regular cave.  (She says with a ridiculously optimistic smile)

Thanks for the advice!

[Tomer1]

How about retarding PR growth (once its sampled as enough for my taste I like my blues fairly light,not burning your tongue sharp) by depriving it of oxygen and continue aging at 45-50f will it benifit or should I just crack it open at that stage?