Boof, I just used Pav's technique; got two cheeses I liked, and made a rind puree. Composed of 1/2 Herve Mons's Tomme de Bois Noir (a goat's milk tomme, actually), and an AOC tomme de savoie that looked like the rind I was seeking, and tasted wonderful. I wanted to do a true tomme grise, with that velvety, even mat of gray-black, as in Tomme de Lullin (it's in DK's French Cheeses book).
I also prepped the cave from the start, much more rigorously than my first cave. Sanitized it thoroughly, then did a whey-puree wash over all surfaces, allowing it to dry. Started the temp and humidity levels to 54F/90% RH.
In the make, a just used enough milk to make a slurry - sanitized my blender as thoroughly as possible, dropped in the rind sections, pureed the heck out of the slurry until it was as liquified as possible. Then just added to my make. The only other added culture is MA4001.
On all 3 tommes, I started seeing the mucor welling up in very wispy lines, like cobwebs, from underneath, in the paste. I leave it alone. It springs to fur within 7-8 days, and I've allowed it to go for a couple of weeks, then rubbed down, and spread it around the wheel. The only issue I'm seeing is that the sides of my wheels don't, for some reason, sprout as readily, so I'm a bit disappointed in that I won't seemingly get that even rind look, over the entire wheel.
One thing I'm thinking: I'd love to do a wheel, without any management whatsoever - simply, allow the mucor to grow, thrive, die back. It occurs to me that because I age on wood, and not coarse matting, the mould tends to get pressed naturally, by the weight of the wheel against the wood. So I might try another, on matting, to allow the delicate "hair" to grow to tall-stand length, possibly.
The smell is rich mushroom. My hands are as black as coal, when done hand-rubbing the wheels. Because this mucor is an aggressive little beast - I understand from Pav it has an extremely proteolytic nature - I have dampened its growth curve, as well, by dropping back a bit on the temp, to 51F. I'd like to manage nuanced growth, good funk, with the proper aging time - this one's a bit shorter than my other tommes, 3 months at most.
Oh, additionally, French Cheeses describes no washed curd for the Lullin. They simply cook the curds from 91F to 99F. I did a kind of hybrid, again with guidance from Pav, or about 10% water-whey replacement washing; I then ramped the temp up by heating to the proper 99F. I was seeking some of the piquancy of the cooked curd approach, yet preserving some of the sweet curd from using a bit of washing.
