Hi everyone and happy Friday!
Well tonight I opened up my Stilton that has been aging for 8 weeks.
Some will think this is too early to open a Stilton....cough (Carter) cough..... but the recipe I followed said the cheese will be excellent at this stage.
Well even though this cheese probably would have improved with a little more age I had three reasons for going ahead and cracking it open.
1. First and foremost I was dying to see what was inside
2. I had another Stilton "room aging" and it really needed to go into the cave tonight since it has been at room temperature for a week.
3. When I pierced this wheel I gave it a couple of cracks and the cracks continued to get worse the more the cheese aged.
Well anyway, I am not sorry that I cracked this wheel when I did.
The texture is nice and firm yet extremely creamy.
I was also very thrilled with the amount of veining on this wheel, especially at this age.
From what I have read the veining begins at 6 weeks so I was expecting at least some veining to have taken place, but honestly this exceeded my expectations.
I have compared this cheese to some pics I pulled up on google and I feel that mine are at least comparable to the photos I looked at.
Not as nice as some but better than others and that is something that I can live with.
I have tasted a small piece of this cheese and it does have a very nice and very strong blue flavor. Exactly what I was hoping for since I love a strong blue cheese.
Anway, here's a couple of pics.
I feel that if nothing else, this vindicates me of my recent Camembert failure.
Dave