Oude Kaas, Annie,
Thank you so much for your interest in my epoisses. I apologize for this belated response; life has been unusually busy of late.
I wish I could say that my epoisses are doing well. They were doing quite well until three days ago when they were the object of a blue attack. :'(
To start at the beginning, I followed Oude Kaas' recipe to the T. I took care of air-drying for a long time in order to avoid the dreaded slip skin. I used camembert molds to shape them and to my surprise, they did not lose as much height as I expected. Next time, I will make sure to use more molds.
I started washing them with brine with a pinch of b.linens. I also added growing concentration of grappa to the brine (could not find Marc de Bourgogne where I live).
They were quite fragile (still are actually) in the sense that as I was washing them, the cheese seemed to spread around a little bit. They did not hold very well. B.linens was slow to show but it is often the case for me. Problem was my washing the rind tended to tear into it. Color on one of them is a good orange and the rind is quite gnarly. Overall, they look like epoisse (blue notwithstanding) except for one of them which has not developed a rind in spite of all my efforts.
A month into aging, they have started liquifying. Next time, I need to find a container for them as they are very very difficult to handle.
I have a Fourme aging in a separate box in my wine fridge. While I am very careful with never handling the blue before the rest of my cheese (I usually turn and air the blues on a different day), I must have done something wrong recently without realizing it.
My epoisses are now sporting blue spots all over. I tried washing them with saturated brine but the delicate nature of the rind and the liquified state of the epoisses makes it impossible for me to get rid of it. A radical solution would be to scrap the epoisses skin but I think it is not worth it.
Overall, a good learning process... Epoisses were looking good, smelling amazing and liquifying as they should. Looks like a good recipe to me. I will try again in the next coming months. Cheesemaking is put on hold for the next 4 weeks as I will be going back to France for vacations... Can't leave newborns unsupervised in the cave
Hope that helps!