Author Topic: Is my cheese ruined?  (Read 1375 times)

daithi23

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Is my cheese ruined?
« on: October 31, 2012, 10:09:19 PM »
Hi, my 12 day old blue cheese smells a bit of feet and doesn't look like the pictures I've seen here - though I'm not quite sure exactly how it's supposed to look! I was super careful about hygiene so I thought it was going okay but as you can see there's quite a bit of mould on it. There's some pictures below. How's it look?

daithi23

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Re: Is my cheese ruined?
« Reply #1 on: October 31, 2012, 10:10:47 PM »
Oh, and I never smoothed the cheese. Why do you do that?

JeffHamm

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Re: Is my cheese ruined?
« Reply #2 on: October 31, 2012, 10:42:11 PM »
Hi,

Smoothing is mostly for appearances, and to reduce the amount of rind (as some people don't like the rind on blue cheese).  Smelling of feet is ok but amonia is not.  Blue cheeses get really scary looking, but as long as they don't smell like amonia you should be fine.  Your photo looks just fine to me.

Now, that all being said, I've not made blues very often, and my one 10 litre make went off (amoniated). 

I'm sure you'll get feedback from more experienced blue makers though.

- Jeff

Offline H-K-J

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Re: Is my cheese ruined?
« Reply #3 on: October 31, 2012, 11:33:55 PM »
 daithi23, a Stilton, as I understand it, is smoothed to seal the outside to keep oxygen from  the interior of the cheese and keep the PR from starting to grow to soon. then it is pierced to let the air in to start PR growth
from what I can see the rind growth on your cheese is just fine :o
blues, allot of times look scary but as long as they smell like feet MMMMmmMMmmmMM ;D
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