My very own blue cheese

[Aris]

I made this cheese using p/h milk, meso culture and a piece of Bleu D'Auvergne pureed in water. When i made this i didn't use a thermometer, ph meter, hygrometer and no recipe to follow, i just made one up on the fly. I simply relied on my instincts. This cheese is stirred curd, dry salted and pierced at 3 days old. The flavor and texture is almost like Gorgonzola Dolce/Cremifacto, it is also comparable to Cambozola. This cheese is only 23 days old, mild and delicate flavor, that is what i am aiming for. It is gooey and runny when left for only a couple of minutes. It has an almost clean looking rind, with little blue mold and white mold. Its surprising the cheese managed to have mechanical openings despite the curds being very fragile and pea sized (the curds never firmed up even when cooked because of the milk not really meant for cheese making)



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[Neil H]

Looks like a lovely cheese !

[Aris]

Here is a Smear Ripened/Blue cheese hybrid.  Except this one never received a single wash nor innoculated with B. Linens, it just got contaminated maybe by a wild one or from a previous smear ripened cheese i made. The paste near the rind taste like what a smear ripened cheese should taste like, mild and the center is like Roquefort, very sharp and strong.  This is only 38 days old.

[Boofer]

Nice. Looks very wet...like an Esrom I tasted recently. Only 38 days old? Looks also like it should taste very good on some nice crusty bread.

-Boofer-

[Aris]

Yeah only 38 days old, ripening temp is 10c and made from 4 litres crap p/h milk (i call it crap because curds shatters). It is very wet around the center and the very center is crumbly like a Danish blue.  Btw thats just out of the fridge. If i let it sit for 10 minutes, it will melt.

[Aris]

Heres a 32 day old raw Stilton style blue cheese from 5 litres of milk.  This cheese was inoculated twice with homemade p. roqueforti culture, first the milk then the curds. The flavor is already fully developed at such a young age because i pierced early and the small size. It already has that Stilton flavor profile but stronger. It has good blue veining even though i didn't use a pure store bought mold culture. I'm happy this experiment went very well because i no longer have to buy mold cultures or blue cheese. I'll just bake my own bread and grow the mold there. I'm also tempted to use wild blue mold, maybe it will give a totally different flavor profile.

[Gürkan Yeniçeri]

Nice looking cheeses there Aris, especially the last one.