Well here we go; I started a Stilton type (have to call it a type) blue, always wanted to make my own, I did a lot of home work over the last few months and have made a few blue type failures, they were edible and not to bad, they were not quite what I wanted of course and I had to remind myself they were only a test, I used Doc Fankhouser's blue cheese recipe and they ended up more like that blue cheese salad crumble stuff, like I said edible, but-well, JUST-NOT-RIGHT, anyway I told the wife I was goin to the next level and I was going to buy the right Ingredients.
I got on line and did a lot of research, came up with The cheese maker and placed an ordered.
Mesophilic Starter (DVI), Penicillium Roqueforti PV Mold, Dry calf rennet among a few other items.
I decided on the Stilton recipe from 101 recipes for cheese making. Beginning on the 26th of January from start to finish not to hard and everything really went well, one thing I didn't have was a round mold to put the curd in so I improvised and punched holes in a food container and packed that after lining it with cheese cloth so instead of round it's kinda square;
Everything seemed to be going alright until 2 days ago a lot of moisture and the slight smell of ammonia, but then again I had some damp paper towels in the ageing container to keep the humidity up so I pulled all but one out (I had 4 in there) I also placed a humidity monitor inside. Today I checked it and the humidity was of the chart 100+% and a stronger smell off ammonia not overly powerful just stronger than before, so I pulled the last damp towel out and aired the container for awhile, on the 17th it will be one month into ageing, it was very blue and has started to get some wight and green mold. If I understand what I have been reading as long as the smell doesn't get over powering and no super ugly mold this is semi normal?
Is there better ways to bring down the humidity? It's supposed to be 75-80%,
guess I will have to see what happens tomorrow, the change in the mold isn't so much a bother as I know this type likes a brown or tan rind just hope I don't ruin it, it's lookin purty decent for a first timer.