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CHEESE TYPE BOARDS (for Cheese Lovers and Cheese Makers) => ADJUNCT - Blue Mold (Penicillium roqueforti) Ripened => Topic started by: Zoey on September 23, 2009, 07:39:47 AM

Title: Blue #1 (I'm such a mess)
Post by: Zoey on September 23, 2009, 07:39:47 AM

I was going for my first blue, using the John(CH)/DaggerDoggie/Fankhauser recipe.

- Warmed 10l whole pasteurized milk to 28C, added buttermilk 0,5% and diluted blue cheese (Finnish Aurajuusto 1 spoonful)
- 2hrs and I had a very nice clean break
- cut, let sit for 10min, mixed, started warming
- here I got distracted, and the next thing I know is the whey temperature was 50C! Oh no!
- Quickly turned off heat, took out much of the whey to accelerate cooling, added 0,5dl buttermilk in case my culture died, drained curds, let drained curds drip for 15mins in colander
- texture was pretty nice, a bit rubbery though. Not surprised...
- mixed in dry salt (about 3 heaping spoonfuls, to taste)
- placed in cheese form
- flipped without weight a couple of times in the evening and left over night
- in the morning, cut the cheese in half (it was too high for my fridge-cave)
- placed the halfs in 12C 70% fridge-cave

In the picture you can see my new cheese mold. Made from a plastic 1½ liter juice jug. My better half was kind enough to drill the holes for me. :)

So, is this a total loss? Did I kill the started with 50C, or the blue? Should I re-inocculate it with either or both? Should I just toss it? Since it's in two parts, I was thinking maybe I could just re-inocculate one and see the difference?

(http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2567/3947276768_bc3d95f371.jpg)
Title: Re: Blue #1 (I'm such a mess)
Post by: Zoey on September 23, 2009, 11:47:01 AM

Noticed that Road Rush made the same mistake in this thread: http://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,1461.0.html (http://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,1461.0.html)

Still don't know what to expect.
Title: Re: Blue #1 (I'm such a mess)
Post by: Zoey on September 23, 2009, 01:39:30 PM

Having this monologue by myself...

I decided to try again today without the heating part. See how they compare.

So today, I'm gonna do a half batch (since the last ones had to be cut into two anyway) with 5l whole pasteurised milk, 28C, starter + blue, then when clean break, make like fankhauser's neufchatel (place in colander, let drain), then mix in salt, put in cheese form for about 10 hours.

Another half batch I will cook at 38C before draining (I can just separate those before starting the cooking phase).

So the basic idea is to have comparison material for a) no cooking, b) cooking at 38C, c) overcooking at 50C. Hopefully I can make this fiasco into a learning experience.

After deciding about this retry, it seems pretty clear that I should re-inocculate one of the overcooked versions. This gives me the comparison versions c1 and c2.

Any guesses as to the results are welcome of course. :)

Updates below shall use the following terms:

A for non-cooked
B for cooked at 38C
C1 for cooked at 50C
C2 for cooked at 50C and re-inocculated
Title: Re: Blue #1 (I'm such a mess)
Post by: Aris on September 23, 2009, 03:38:56 PM
I recently made a hard cheese with yogurt as inocculant and the curds were overcooked, i dont know the temperature but the whey was scolding hot. Now after a week, the cheese doesnt seem to be developing/aging because it doesnt have that cheese smell like my previous hard cheese that was undercooked. I think i killed off the yogurt inocculant.
Title: Re: Blue #1 (I'm such a mess)
Post by: Sailor Con Queso on September 23, 2009, 05:08:24 PM
You probably killed the bacteria.
Title: Re: Blue #1 (I'm such a mess)
Post by: Tea on September 23, 2009, 08:30:33 PM
mmm I agree with Sailor.  The cultures that make cheese what it is, are very particular about the temperature that they live in.
Title: Re: Blue #1 (I'm such a mess)
Post by: BauerHaus on September 23, 2009, 11:04:44 PM
I think the better story is how did you... "- here I got distracted"?

Just yesterday I made a Gouda and mightly fought off my work from calling me in until after I had my cheese in the press.
Title: Re: Blue #1 (I'm such a mess)
Post by: Zoey on September 24, 2009, 06:27:26 AM
BauerHaus, you're right, that's the best part of the story. :) But I'll just leave it to imagination.

I made two more cheeses today, so now I have A, B, C1 and C2 aging together in my fridge-cave. Picture below.

A and B turned out perfectly as I had planned. :)

It seems that the hotter the cooking, the better the result stays together - even with this approach, where I mix in the salt and thereby break the curds in between.

I got my best curds ever so far. This time the curd forming temperature was a bit low - close to Fankhauser's suggested room temperature. The clean break formed in three hours, which was a bit slower than for the first two.

Afterwards, I did as I planned: cut curds, mixed, warmed to 28C because it was a bit below, took out the first curds (drained in colander), warmed to 38C while mixing, took out the rest of the curds (drained in colander), mixed salt with first curds, placed in mold, mixed salt with second curds, placed in mold.

So I'm expecting A and B to turn out very interesting. C1 in still the probably dead version. C2 might have some blue activity, but no culture, maybe. I added blue to C2 by spooning on it a little of the blue solution left over when culturing A and B (with addition of meso and rennet).

ATM my cave is 11,4C and 98%. I'm trying to lower the humidity. I placed a silica gel bag into the mini-cave (so that it doesn't touch the cheese). I don't know if the silica gel is powerful enough for so much moisture, but I suppose it can't do any bad. In the evening I'll check if I have to do something else for the moisture issue.

(http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2659/3949272035_542f46d3ec_b.jpg)
Title: Re: Blue #1 (I'm such a mess)
Post by: Zoey on September 24, 2009, 06:31:04 AM

Oh and well... it seems that A and B would be smaller than C1 and C2. Well, that's true, since they lost more volume while in the mold (no pressing). I also got a pasta plate full of leftover that I'm eating fresh, since it didn't fit into the mold. :)
Title: Re: Blue #1 (I'm such a mess)
Post by: DeejayDebi on September 25, 2009, 12:17:02 AM
Well they are looking happy right now anyway.
Title: Re: Blue #1 (I'm such a mess)
Post by: Zoey on September 25, 2009, 06:06:57 AM

I think the guesses are correct. Today A and B had a slightly sour, pleasant smell. C1 and C2 smelled sweet, the way my goudas have smelled right after pressing. So to me it seems like C1 and C2 haven't changed in acidity since draining. I'm keeping them along for a while though, but I suspect it soon to become a two-cheese-comparison between A and B. (still happy, since I'm curious about the differences)
Title: Re: Blue #1 (I'm such a mess)
Post by: DeejayDebi on September 26, 2009, 12:44:49 AM
This is a great experiment hon. Many of us will learn a great deal from your experinces.

BTW

I really like that container you got there!
Title: Re: Blue #1 (I'm such a mess)
Post by: Zoey on September 28, 2009, 07:53:02 AM

I definately hope this will be useful. :)

Still nothing new to report... except, before I forget, version A would need a pretty large mold, since it looses a lot of volume during molding. If I had made a full batch of A, I wouldn't have had a mold big enough for it. (in case it turns out to be the best one, maybe I could make 5-liter batches)
Title: Re: Blue #1 (I'm such a mess)
Post by: Zoey on September 29, 2009, 10:31:11 AM

Update:

A and C2 bloomed yesterday. I'm concluding that probably the culture in C1 is dead (C2 was re-cultured after cooking, if you remember).

The smell of C1 and C2 still suggest that the meso culture is dead. I'm planning on ditching both, only waiting whether or not C1 will also bloom.

So it seems that B hasn't bloomed as early as A. I would be surprised if it doesn't, but has anyone tried inocculation at starter adding time and then cooking curds at 38C? Could it be that p.roqueforti does not survive that? Of course I cannot rule out cross contamination, so I guess I'll never find out for sure.

Temperature has been balancing around 11.4C lately. Moisture too high... around 86-98%. Ideas to lower moisture are most welcome.

I'm really enjoying this test. It is fun to see how the differences affect the outcomes. Besides now I can learn really effectively.

I'm thinking about starting a new test soon, when I ditch C1 and C2. That should leave enough room in the fruit box for a gouda, so I can compare two gouda's: one aged in the blue container and another aged in another container (same fridge). So I can test airborne contamination and contamination by touch.
Title: Re: Blue #1 (I'm such a mess)
Post by: DeejayDebi on September 30, 2009, 01:39:06 AM
The experiment seems to be going well - even though two of the cheese seemed to have gone bad there's is a good bit to learn from this. Good job!
Title: Re: Blue #1 (I'm such a mess)
Post by: Zoey on October 08, 2009, 11:26:05 AM
This update comes in a bit late, but anyway:

Below some pictures of the situation on 30th september (in Flickr I labeled them 28th by mistake).

So I ditched C1 and C2 on 30th, after deciding the smell was unbearable (not the famous sweat socks smell, but really bad).

Now I have temperature 10C and humidity 80%. I'm pretty happy with that.

On monday this week (5th oct) I pierced A and B, using my thermometer stick as the piercing instrument. It worked pretty well. Cheese felt soft while piercing, even though it is solid to touch on the outside. I liked the soft perception, and am hoping for excellent texture.

A was markably softer than B, as it has been from the beginning.

Did I mention earlier, A bloomed a few days before B did, so I'm thinking the temperature might have slowed blue down. As you see from the pictures, C1 never bloomed, so at least 50C is too much for blue to survive (funny, since it seems to be so resistant to everything).

I'm getting RAW MILK on sunday! Whoohoo! So the experiment shall get follow-ups then (the long-promised comparison of cross contamination blue->gouda might be coming).

(http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3511/3992830692_4d3efba24e.jpg)
A, B, C1, C2 on 30th sept
(http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2642/3992071515_190650132b.jpg)
A, B on 30th sept
(http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2464/3992071467_e7a53936cf.jpg)
A
(http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3477/3992830514_3a2054a65c.jpg)
B
Title: Re: Blue #1 (I'm such a mess)
Post by: Zoey on October 08, 2009, 11:28:02 AM

And one more thing... after piercing on monday, I don't see any blue developing in the holes (now, on thursday the same week). I'll keep you updated if/when I see something in there.
Title: Re: Blue #1 (I'm such a mess)
Post by: DeejayDebi on October 19, 2009, 06:22:45 AM
Looks like I didn't miss to much on this thread while I was gone ...

So what's happened in the past week? What did you do with the raw milk? Has anything grown in the holes yet?
Title: Re: Blue #1 (I'm such a mess)
Post by: Zoey on October 20, 2009, 06:48:38 AM

Nothing but turning done since my last post. The cheeses look really blue by now, I would be surprised if no blue on the inside, but the holes have now disappeared under the surface mold. I'm not sure if I find the smell pleasant or not... It's something between moldy and (very mildly) rotten, I'm hoping it's moldy. :)

Waiting 'till 21st november to cut them. Thursday this week they would be one month old, and 21st november 60 days.

The raw milk turned into a gouda-type cheese. I've been planning to post about that for a week now, but somehow I got distracted... (search for reasons of distraction in my following posts today)
Title: Re: Blue #1 (I'm such a mess)
Post by: DeejayDebi on October 21, 2009, 12:42:56 AM
Maybe the holes just filled up with mold? Hang in there time is ticking by!
Title: Re: Blue #1 (I'm such a mess)
Post by: Zoey on October 23, 2009, 10:58:43 AM

Debi, that's what I meant. The holes are also full of blue by now.

I have an issue however (no pics yet, sorry):

It seems like a light white mold has taken over the surface lately. It's a soft, hazy, outwards growing type like in brie etc. Does that always grow on blue? Somehow I think not... so what can I do to remove it? Salt?
Title: Re: Blue #1 (I'm such a mess)
Post by: Sailor Con Queso on October 23, 2009, 02:21:20 PM
Blues will naturally start turning tan after aging for a while. If you had a good coat of blue, then it is going to outcompete everything else.
Title: Re: Blue #1 (I'm such a mess)
Post by: DeejayDebi on October 24, 2009, 01:57:37 AM
Re-stick the holes. Make more air flow for the mold to grow.
Title: Re: Blue #1 (I'm such a mess)
Post by: Likesspace on November 05, 2009, 02:21:47 AM
I wouldn't worry much about not being able to see bluing within the holes. From looking at the exterior of your cheese I can almost guarantee that there are some good things happening within the interior.
I think you will be pleasantly surprised when you cut into one of these wheels. Blue is such a fun cheese to make but I know how stressful it can be while waiting to see the results of your efforts.
It looks to me like you have done a great job and I can't wait to see the final results.

Dave
Title: Re: Blue #1 (I'm such a mess)
Post by: Sailor Con Queso on November 05, 2009, 04:04:32 AM
I agree. Poking more holes now would risk introducing unwanted molds into the interior. Blues are magical and it will turn out fine.