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GENERAL CHEESE MAKING BOARDS (Specific Cheese Making in Boards above) => INGREDIENTS - Lactic Acid Starter Cultures => Topic started by: Matthewcraig on February 20, 2014, 06:56:57 PM

Title: My journey to making penicillium roqueforti
Post by: Matthewcraig on February 20, 2014, 06:56:57 PM
This topic is going to be dedicated to my journey making the infamous roqueforti blue mould, I know that 100s of years ago they used bread to incubate mould for cheese I know that sourdough is well known to go off and produce blue roqueforti, so I am going to make it from scratch.

Day 1 I put 2 tbs of rye flower in a cup with 1tbs of strong white flour 3.5 grams of yeast and a teaspoon of sugar, I then added 6 tbs of warm water and stirred it well to form a paste. What I am making here is the culture for the sourdough bread every day I will put up and update of the progress until it is ready to make the sourdough bread.
Title: Re: My journey to making penicillium roqueforti
Post by: linuxboy on February 20, 2014, 08:20:21 PM
What are you using as the inoculant? The practice in Roquefort was traditionally to put a loaf of bread next to aging cheese, and the natural prevalence of the ambient p roqueforti strains inoculated the bread.
Title: Re: My journey to making penicillium roqueforti
Post by: graysalchemy on February 20, 2014, 08:25:37 PM
I inoculated a bit of fresh sourdough baguette I made with some blue cheese. It grew all the way through the bread. Sourdough is supposedly to acidic fro other microbes to take hold so the PR will take over. I used some this week on a blue I broke of a lump and placed it in some boiled and chilled water , shock it up and drain off the fluid. It hasn't started to go blue but early days yet.

If you were making sourdough why did you put yeast and sugar in, they will compete with the natural yeasts and bacteria in the rye flour, not what you want.
Title: Re: My journey to making penicillium roqueforti
Post by: Matthewcraig on February 20, 2014, 08:40:42 PM
I am making the sourdough starter so these are needed to even start the dough and I am spraying the finished bread then keeping it in an airtight box.
Title: Re: My journey to making penicillium roqueforti
Post by: ArnaudForestier on February 20, 2014, 08:56:34 PM
Cool project, Matthew, looking forward to seeing it develop.  Not sure about your experience, but I've maintained two starters, a rye and a wheat starter, stretching back to 2004.  Neither one was started with sugar; especially with rye, and its pentosans, enough available nutrition for ambient yeasts and bacterias to kick in without much of anything, in my experience, but water, time, and a good feeding schedule.
Title: Re: My journey to making penicillium roqueforti
Post by: Matthewcraig on February 20, 2014, 09:10:05 PM
Thank you very much if it dosent go to plan I will not add sugar to my next attempt :)
Title: Re: My journey to making penicillium roqueforti
Post by: ArnaudForestier on February 20, 2014, 09:33:35 PM
Oh, Matthew, I wasn't saying that's bad, just that I haven't found it necessary.  But that's just my experience. 

Cool you're doing this - cheese to you!
Title: Re: My journey to making penicillium roqueforti
Post by: Matthewcraig on February 20, 2014, 10:19:09 PM
Thankyou very much :)
Title: Re: My journey to making penicillium roqueforti
Post by: H-K-J on February 20, 2014, 11:08:52 PM
I have wanted to figure this out myself, am keeping an eye on your thread O0
I do hope this works would be great to be able to make my own PR 8)
Title: Re: My journey to making penicillium roqueforti
Post by: Matthewcraig on February 20, 2014, 11:22:31 PM
I have wanted to figure this out myself, am keeping an eye on your thread O0
I do hope this works would be great to be able to make my own PR 8)

No problem I will try to post an update most days
Title: Re: My journey to making penicillium roqueforti
Post by: graysalchemy on February 21, 2014, 09:08:09 AM
Have a look here (http://thewayofcheese.com/penicillium-roqueforti-aka-blue-mould/) I found it a great help.

This is my culture. It was a solid piece of bread but I have broken it up to aid drying. As you can see the PR runs all the way through and there is no sign of any other mold this is now over a month old.

(http://i885.photobucket.com/albums/ac55/artimaging/IMG-20140221-00130_zps8d12a180.jpg)

Another tip is to ferment your final dough for 36 hrs as it is the acidity of the sourdough which provides the environment that only the PV will thrive.
Title: Re: My journey to making penicillium roqueforti
Post by: Andrew Marshallsay on February 21, 2014, 09:31:54 AM
I have made a blue culture which I am using at the moment. (I notice that you have posted some valuable information on that thread, Matt.)
The inspiration came from this:
http://thewayofcheese.com/penicillium-roqueforti-aka-blue-mould/ (http://thewayofcheese.com/penicillium-roqueforti-aka-blue-mould/)
This is my second attempt at this. The first grew some lovely mould from a blue which, I understand, uses a fairly unique strain of PR, which they grow on bread. That first effort, although it grew some nice looking blue mould, also had some black and chrome-yellow growths alongside of it. I ditched that. For the second attempt, I blended up a solution of the cheese and sprayed it over the whole surface of the bread slice.
Title: Re: My journey to making penicillium roqueforti
Post by: Matthewcraig on February 21, 2014, 11:30:09 AM
Thankyou raw prawn I am also going to spray onto the bread
Title: Re: My journey to making penicillium roqueforti
Post by: linuxboy on February 21, 2014, 01:24:13 PM
Quote
which provides the environment that only the PV will thrive.
This isn't the case, other molds can grow at the higher acidity levels.
Title: Re: My journey to making penicillium roqueforti
Post by: graysalchemy on February 21, 2014, 01:27:12 PM
Off course but hopefully the PV will get a head start and dominate and outcompete other microbes in the favourable environment.
Title: Re: My journey to making penicillium roqueforti
Post by: jwalker on February 21, 2014, 04:26:20 PM
Very interesting , I have been thinking about this for a while too , but wasn't sure if it could be done at home.

Will the yeast in the bread have any effect on the cheese ?

I'll definitely be watching for some cheese trials.

Title: Re: My journey to making penicillium roqueforti
Post by: graysalchemy on February 21, 2014, 04:35:58 PM
The yeast will be dead as a dodo being baked in the oven for for 40 minutes at 450f.
Title: Re: My journey to making penicillium roqueforti
Post by: linuxboy on February 21, 2014, 05:17:37 PM
Quote
The yeast will be dead as a dodo being baked in the oven for for 40 minutes at 450f.
The mold will use some of the dead yeast as food. Lots of b vitamins.
Title: Re: My journey to making penicillium roqueforti
Post by: Matthewcraig on February 25, 2014, 09:00:44 PM
I have just made the bread and I have halved it, half for the mould and the other half for some butter and jam :) anyway I have sprayed it will a mould solution so that will start it off hopefully. I will update this with more pics once mould starts growing .
Title: Re: My journey to making penicillium roqueforti
Post by: Matthewcraig on March 21, 2014, 08:57:18 PM
Sorry for the lack of an update have been to busy making cheese well here are a few pictures to blue seems to be doing very well and can be scraped off easily, don't really know when I should 'harvest' it any ideas?
Title: Re: My journey to making penicillium roqueforti
Post by: linuxboy on March 21, 2014, 09:10:55 PM
3 weeks is rule of thumb. after 4, you won't get too many new spores.
Title: Re: My journey to making penicillium roqueforti
Post by: Matthewcraig on March 21, 2014, 09:13:58 PM
Ok Thankyou very much
Title: Re: My journey to making penicillium roqueforti
Post by: Spellogue on March 22, 2014, 04:27:30 AM
So then, do you just crush up a chunk of dry blue bread and make a slurry to vat innoculate the milk at the beginning of a make, or is there more to the process of getting the PR into the cheese?
Title: Re: My journey to making penicillium roqueforti
Post by: Matthewcraig on March 22, 2014, 09:05:52 AM
What I am planning to do it scrape the blue mould of the bread and strain it through a tea strainer so I am left with just the mould and less crumbs.
Title: Re: My journey to making penicillium roqueforti
Post by: Matthewcraig on March 29, 2014, 10:14:23 PM
Sorry for the lack of an update been to busy to scrape off my mould, I don't really know what I am going to do next, I am thinking of drying out the collected mould then freezing it, anyone have any ideas?
Title: Re: My journey to making penicillium roqueforti
Post by: linuxboy on March 29, 2014, 11:30:47 PM
Without lab gear, your best bet is to slowly dry out the concentrate (don't heat, at least not above ~85ish F, use fan instead, thin layer, then pulverize powder). And then store powder in fridge. Freezer, unless you completely dessicate or freeze dry, will give you lower viability. Can also just dry out the bread and use after pulverizing. Lower concentration per gram then.

With lab gear, centrifuge, collect concentrate, purify if necessary, and store in hypotonic solution in fridge or lyophilize.
Title: Re: My journey to making penicillium roqueforti
Post by: Matthewcraig on March 30, 2014, 11:43:50 AM
I'll go that without lab gear path, Thankyou very much for the help :)
Title: Re: My journey to making penicillium roqueforti
Post by: graysalchemy on March 30, 2014, 11:44:30 AM
I found that with mine the bread substrate was infected to the core, so I think I wil grind it up to a powder and use that, though I may mix with water on the day and strain through a tea strainer.
Title: Re: My journey to making penicillium roqueforti
Post by: Tomer1 on April 07, 2014, 10:00:05 PM
I've done this before,  after using it in a blue stilton style cheese it turned out the strain I got was overly strong in flavor and has a big of a musty\dump celler aroma.
But hi, If im stranded on an island with a cow\sheep\goat and want to make some blue cheese, Im possitive I can :P 
Title: Re: My journey to making penicillium roqueforti
Post by: graysalchemy on April 08, 2014, 04:02:10 PM
Had some of my last lot at the weekend and it tasted just fine.  ;)

Got some more sourdough going mouldy as we speak.  ;D
Title: Re: My journey to making penicillium roqueforti
Post by: Roof Possum on September 17, 2021, 12:04:17 AM


Just wondering if any of the folks who took part in this discussion are still around, and what their experiences have been trying to make Penicillium roqueforte.  I am in Nicaragua and can't get hold of blue cheese to start my bread starter with, so if anyone has found other ways to do it I'd love to hear..
Title: Re: My journey to making penicillium roqueforti
Post by: mikekchar on September 17, 2021, 11:57:44 AM
I wasn't part of the discussion, but my wild blue mold is delicious.  I have made many intentional and unintentional blues with it.  However, it's really a matter of you can't grow a plant if you don't have the seeds.  I would say make some cheese, keep it on the cool side (say 10 C) and keep the humidity fairly high.  When blue grows, encourage it.  Let it go for a few weeks an then eat it.  If it tastes good then you're good to go.  If not, then there probably isn't anything you can do.