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CHEESE TYPE BOARDS (for Cheese Lovers and Cheese Makers) => RENNET COAGULATED - Hard Other => Topic started by: Tobiasrer on November 23, 2012, 05:00:15 AM
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This is my first make of gruyere, it is about 2 weeks old, and it has some mold that i dont think should be there.
I am assuming the red tinge is good based on pics but the fluffy white and greenish is bad? how do i treat them with out affecting the good stuff?
Sorry I am not a better photographer!
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I am very new at this so I'm hoping advanced cheese makers will chime in. I have never made Gruyere so I don't know what the usual options are for rind development. My Mary Karlin cheese book says to flip daily for a week and rub with simple brine twice a week for three more weeks. She says the salt solution will decrease the amount of mold that grows on the surface. At the bottom of the page she writes a variation for an aged Gruyere that allows for desirable mold growth and says not to rub it with brine but instead to dry brush it once a week for the duration of aging. (she's instructed that the cheese should be in a box at 54F degrees and 90 percent humidity)
The lush white mold sounds like PC mold. The orange sounds like B. linens. For me I just did rind maintenance on a washed curd cheese with less white than yours and some spots of blue. I chose to dry brush the whole cheese and use a bit of clean cloth moistened in brine to gently wash off any remaining sign of blue. On another softer cheese of mine (Reblochon style) I had LOTS of white growth like you show in your photos and I didn't want so much of that and I chose to wash it gently under running water with a soft brush. I'm expecting the Geo growth to grow back on that to finish it's ripening. Don't know if this has been helpful but maybe reading how I deal with molds will give you some ideas.
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That is a good explanation Tiarella, I believe you are right on for getting rid of the blue spot's.
I had some blue spots on my emmentaler, It was suggested that I not wash it but maybe once a week, so I took a large gauze cloth using just a small amount of my wash to wipe away the blue molds, worked very well.
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Sorry what do you mean by dry brushing?
I was succesful, for now at least, in wiping it way with the brine wash, we will see how it goes from here.
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Dry brushing is using a dry brush and no brine to brush off most of the mold. It can be very helpful to keep the mold down. With one of my cheeses today I dry brushed and then just used a barely damp cloth on the worst blue spots. If I wanted a natural molded rind I probably wouldn't wash it off. I'd just do the dry brushing when I felt like it was getting too much mold. The problem I have with washing with brine is that it creates yet more moisture to manage.
Now, maybe H-J-K can post a link to the thread where Alp talks about creating a traditional moldless rind the way they do it in Switzerland. Their method is to keep the rind too wet for mold and wash it often to have a creamy paste develop with B. Linens and other stuff and then that dries into a lovely protective rind. I'm writing from my iPad and don't yet know how to copy links into a post with it.
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I'm not sure, I think this is the thread or comment (http://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,10338.msg78521.html#msg78521) you mean Tiarella, after reading I had a better understanding of the wash concept (thank you Alp) :)
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Thanks, thats my concern with the brine wash is moisture, I have been having trouble ( Ithink its an issue) with it feeling slimy, I have basicaly taken the lid right of the ripening box. I keep it in my cold room (just canned goods are stored in there) that is maintained between 10-12C, I dont measure humidity, the thermostat upstairs has us at about 40%humidity, so I cant see the basement being over 80% but I will be getting a device from the cold room as well to be safe.