New way to pierce a Stilton cheese?

[Mike]

My Stilton made from 16 litres raw milk (Stichelton?) is coming up to 5 weeks, and looking good in the ripening box at 12 oC and about 80% RH. The rind is hard and almost dry, and grey-green with yellow splotches. I am going to pierce it this week, and want to minimise the machine-like appearance of horizontal or vertical lines of blue in the final cheese. I would love to achieve a random spider-web network of blue veins.

So what do you experts think of this suggestion: use a long wide-diameter corkscrew? I have a Teflon-coated Creuset corkscrew, 11cm long. One thought is that the 2.5mm diameter metal may be too narrow to allow enough oxygen access, compared with my previously used s/s thermometer stem. I know that commercially the idea would not fly, compared with the machine-pierced needles. But I have the time to do one cheese.

Has anyone actually tried this piercing method, and with what results? Thanks.

Mike

[Aris]

Imho using a corkscrew doesn't make sense. I just use a basic analog meat thermometer when piercing a blue cheese and I get good results. I also use a starter culture with gas producing bacteria so the blue cheese will have holes and slits internally for the blue mold to grow.

[Mike]

Thanks Aris for your opinion. Your Stilton looks great!

For this batch I did not use a gas producing culture; I used a Mesophilic D1 (=M100) culture and PR. So I may try a different culture next time. Also I drained the curds for a long time, and they seemed quite dry and rubbery. On Day 6, I tried to rub up the cheese, but the curds had still not knitted together, and some crumbled off at the edges. Re-wrapped in a cheesecloth, returned to the mold and finally was able to rub up the cheese smoothly at Day 12, by which time I had about 95% blue mould coverage on the outside of the cheese.

Not sure about the Philippines, but here in Kuching, Sarawak it is a "Stilton cheese desert" (NONE available from retailers here). And since I am addicted - it's necessary to make my own.

Mike

[Aris]

MM100 has Lactococcus lactis subsp. lactis biovar diacetylactis which produce gas (CO2). 80% humidity is too low for a blue cheese and it will lose a lot of moisture and form a thick rind if you age it for 2-4 months. I didn't rub up my Stilton inspired cheese because I vacuum packed it then at day 35 I removed it from the vacuum pack, pierced it and aged it inside a plastic container with a humidity of over 90% for almost a month.

[mikekchar]

The piercing is really for allowing air into the cheese.  The veining is produced by the open structure of the cheese to begin with.  The key to having the open structure is to make and press the cheese properly :-)  By the time you are at the piercing stage, it's *way* too late to think about veining.  It sounds like you probably will have the open structure you want anyway, given your description of not being able to close the rind.

[Mike]

Thanks to both of you for the sage advice. FYI I tested out my 'corkscrew' piercing on the top half of the cheese today, and 'straight skewered' the bottom half! I will close the lid on my previously slightly-opened ripening box to increase the RH %.

I look forward to seeing (and tasting!) the results in 1 to 2 months from now.

[broombank]

remember to show us the result - like you I want spider veining but its so difficult to get. I think mikekchar is absolutely right about the open structure, but this is not always easy to produce. My results with blue are generally good so the wish for  spidering is primarily  cosmetic.

[Mike]

Tested my Stichelton/Stilton 10 weeks after make, using my home-made cheese trier (an apple corer). It had blued evenly all the way from centre to edge. So cut it open to see if my experiment with 'corkscrew piercing method' had worked or not.

Yes, it had! Beautiful spider network of veins from centre to edge with no horizontal blue lines. I realise that appearance is only cosmetic, and the taste and texture are top priority, but the good visuals are a bonus for me.

In my experiment, I had pierced the bottom half of the cheese in the traditional way, and there were some lines of blue visible there. So in future I will use my somewhat time-consuming corkscrew method for piercing all the cheese.

MikeChar was spot-on in predicting that the initial open curd texture would probably result in natural random veins. He was correct - very fine green-blue veins in the centre to darker blue veins at the edges.

Now for the taste and texture: wonderful! The taste was like an excellent English Stilton, a typical 'blue' taste but with no trace of any sharp acidic finish (like you get in some commercial Danish blue cheeses). Had a good fragrance also when cut. The texture was quite firm and sliced cleanly, but still a smooth and creamy mouthfeel. The only downside for me was that it had too much blue veining compared with the cream-colour paste. Also one or two pinky-orange spots in a piercing hole (Brevibacterium linens?) Maybe I should have stopped the ripening earlier than 10 weeks, for a small cheese made from 16 litres raw milk.

I took photos of it, but cannot seem to find a way of attaching jpg files to my postings (suggestions welcome).

Anyway all portioned, and vacuum packed ready for Christmas 2023.

Happy Christmas to all cheesemakers.

[Aris]

That is good to hear. Go to imgur.com, create an account, upload your photos, copy the image link, post a reply in the forum, click insert image (below Bold icon), paste the image link between img img and post your comment. I used to vacuum pack blue cheese but it tends to ruin the flavor. Nowadays, I scrape the surface mold, wrap it in heavy duty aluminum, put it inside a plastic bag, remove air as much as possible and place it in the coldest part of the fridge.

[Mike]

10 week Stilton:


Thanks Aris for the advice on posting an image (only copying and pasting the Direct Link option from Imgur seemed to work).

Mike

[B e n]

Nice looking cheese!

[Aris]

Excellent blue veining! Nowadays though, I prefer my blue cheese with a lot less blue veining especially in Goat's milk blue cheese because too much blue veining can give too much methyl ketones which give a chemical (acetone) and metallic flavor. I want the flavor of the milk to shine. The Stilton blue cheese that I posted had the right amount of blue veining. 

[tcoop]

A thought about piercing and adding extra air into the cheese. Has anyone considered using a needle that is used for internally basting meat for BBQ or for deep frying turkeys? These needles are the correct diameter and if using the accompanying syringe you can force air into the body of the cheese rather than waiting for diffusion to occur.

[broombank]

certainly thought about it - haven't done it - I agree with Mikek  that the open structure will give you the rather diffuse but low key blue of a stilton - what you have produced looks more like Spanish Cabrales - I use knitting needles which come in different widths - you need to choose a width which is just wide enough to allow air entry and to prevent post piercing hole collapse which is common. This depends on the consistency and solidity of the cheese.

[Tedybar]

I agree with broombank, Mike's cheese does not look like a true Stilton.  There is far to much blue.  I suppose it could be Mike's Stilton Inspired Blue... You cannot produce a true Stilton anyway outside of the Midlands, and the main thing is to enjoy what you produce.  At least you (Mike) did not go with the original way Stilton was made in the 18th century.  Daniel Defoe said there were so many mites & maggots in the Stilton it (cheese & vermin) had to be eaten with a spoon.