My Experiment

[Aris]

45 days ago i made an experimental smear ripened cheese. My goal in this experiment was not to use any store bought  b. linens, yeast and geo, no washing and it should be gooey and runny. And i will only use the natural microflora inside the tupperware where i age my blue cheeses. The plastic mat inside the tupperware has a good orange wild bacteria growing and i think placing my cheese there is enough to turn it into a smear ripened cheese. I also smeared it with the orange bacteria growing on my blue cheese just for good measure. I only used meso starter when i made this. The cheese never got infected by molds, except by a white mold. It seems the orange bacteria is very good at inhibiting blue mold. The cheese was only wet for a few days, from then on it was dry but the wild orange bacteria still grew without any problem. The flavor of the cheese is quite similar to the Vieux Pane that i ate before. It easily becomes gooey and runny when i left it at room temp (30c) for several minutes.

This is the result:

[Aris]

My next experiment, i smeared the wrapper of a store bought smear ripened cheese on to a meso high moisture cheese that i made. I will post the results here.

[JeffHamm]

Great result from your first experiment for sure.  That looks like a nice cheese (so a cheese to you for your efforts).  Looking forward to seeing how your second one goes.

What recipe/procedures did you follow for the first cheese? 

- Jeff

[Aris]

To be honest i just made one up. I didn't even use a thermometer or ph meter when i made this cheese or any cheese. I also dont use floculations. I just randomly cut the coagulated milk after an hour then stir until it looks right then ladle to the mold. Acidify for 5 hours at room temp (27c) then dry salt and in to the fridge.

[JeffHamm]

Ahhh, sort of a Cheese of the Day approach!  It certainly works for you.

- Jeff

[Cloversmilker]

It looks very nice!  And I like the experimental approach! 

[MrsKK]

Looking good there, Aris!  Thanks for sharing your experiments and results with us.

[Boofer]

Wow, truly "seat-of-the-pants" cheesemaking!

To boldly go where no cheesemaker has gone before (well, recently anyway.) [Apologies to Gene Roddenberry.]

Do you have a name or style for this cheese?  Vieux Pane, variation?

Looks great, Aris! Congratulations on your experimental prowess.

Did you have to fight off any molds or other nasties? No washing, huh?

-Boofer-

[Aris]

Thank you boofer. To answer your questions, only white mold (probably geotrichum) grew which isn't bad because it deacidified the surface for the orange bacteria to grow. Blue mold (or other molds) didn't have a chance against the orange bacteria. It was completely inhibited even though the aging container is for blue cheese. Therefore no need to wash. After 16 days, the cheese has an orange brown color. I then wrapped it in baking paper then plastic bag. I tasted a small piece at day 23, it was still unripe, most of it is dense and crumbly. I let it ripen for another week, more gooey but middle is still unripe. At day 45, almost ripe, small part of the middle is a little crumbly. I found out, even if the cheese is cut, it will still continue to ripen but at a slower pace. My estimation, if i didn't cut early, at 40 days this would be fully ripe.

I dont have a name or style for this cheese because this was just an experiment. I made this experiment because i got inspired by the ancient cheesemakers. Back in their time they didn't have packaged cultures for their cheese. Its the micro organisms/contaminants from their surroundings that transforms the cheese. Queso Cabrales is a good example of a cheese made the ancient way, they use raw milk which requires no starter culture and the blue veining comes from the blue mold in the cave where they age it. They dont even pierce it, the blue mold just digs into the cheese.

[Gürkan Yeniçeri]

I like your experiment Aris. I always thought about buying some cheap cheeses and aging them with different bacteria or washing in my cave or smoke it to change the flavours but still didn't have any chance of doing that yet.

Thumbs up

[Aris]

If your interested you can age store bought branded semi hard- hard natural cheeses. I have success with supermarket Cheddar and Gouda. I've bought branded cheeses that were very bitter and sour but when i age them more than 6 months at 10c they become very sweet and stronger flavored. The bitterness is almost gone.

[Gürkan Yeniçeri]

There are some young provolone for cheap and some cheddar blocks which I want to cold smoke and age in my cave. I couldn't build the setup for cold smoking yet but will do it next month. 

[Aris]

Update:
The second experiment didn't grow any rind because the wrapper didn't have an active bacteria. The wrapper belonged to a President brand smear ripened cheese. From what i read, they produce stabilized cheese. Next time i will use an Epoisses to inoculate a cheese. Wild yeast grew on the rind though which produced a very nice fruity aroma and a slimy surface. I made another experimental unwashed cheese inoculated with a pinch of Cornybacteria  SR3. I smeared the old cheese using a plastic glove then i smeared the younger cheese to transfer the yeast so that it can deacidify the surface of the younger cheese. In less than a week the younger cheese is fully covered with a soft springy rind with a straw yellow color which will eventually turn orange and thats without any washing. I feel its starting to ripen because its getting softer everyday. The older cheese eventually formed a rind after 2 weeks because of the younger cheese. Some parts of the rind are still bald though and has specks of blue mold because the orange bacteria wasn't able to gain a foothold earlier. The younger cheese still has no mold after 11 days without any washing.