Parmesan Blow-Up

[Lancer99]

Monthly oiling for my small collection of Parmesan/Romano types:



This is my third try at a Parmesan.  For the first two, I used yogurt and followed the recipe from cheesemaking.com.  For this one, I used Aroma B and followed the recipe from Caldwell's book.  Within a couple of weeks, it blew up and has stayed that way for about two months, and now is starting to crack.  Any ideas?



Tell me it will be okay delicious a year from now 

Thanks,
-Lance

Edit:I guess this is "blowing," Clostridium.  Does that mean I should trash it?

[DrChile]

I would not eat it if you suspect Clostridium... 

Trent

[mikekchar]

Yeah, I'm thinking the same thing, although there are forms of late blowing that don't make you sick.  But I wouldn't take the chance.

However, I'm noticing something a bit strange about all your cheeses.  Every single one of them seems to have b.linens and yet, they all look like they are too dry -- which is a bit of a contradiction.  The cheese at the far right is badly cracked as well.  How are you aging these?

I seem to remember you said that your cave turned out to be much lower humidity that you had originally thought (or was that someone else...?)  So that would explain the dryness.  You've got a little bit of geo on all of the cheeses, but then no other mold -- except for what appears to be mildew stains.  I'd like to improve my mental model of natural rind development, so I wonder if I can ask you some questions.  After the cheese is first salted, what do you do?  Does it go in the cave right away, or do you air dry it first?  After it goes into the cave, how often do you take it out and flip it?  When it starts to get mold, what do you do?  Do you wash it wish a brine solution?  What is the salt content?  When does the rind start to go pink?  After how long in aging do you first oil the rind?

[Lancer99]

Yes, the cheese on the far right is badly cracked.  It's one of the first cheeses I made, back when I didn't really know what I was doing.  I don't hold up much hope for it, but it still gets its monthly oiling.

That was me with the faulty hygrometer, but for uninteresting reasons, it turns out that my cheese vault was not far off from correct(ish) RH.

As for B. linens, is that because of the color?  If so, I think that may be because of my cam.  Looking at the pics on both my desktop and tablet, the pics make the cheeses look way more pink than they actually are, a nice deep yellow.  They were made before I deliberately introduced B. linens, and I always keep my socks on when making cheese

As for the rind, I have too little experience with them to make sense of what's happening or offer any advice.  They were all brined, then dried before going into the vault. One got white cat hair mold, t'others didn't.  One got lots of green (mucor?), t'others didn't.  They got flipped daily for probably a month, now twice weekly.

The only thing I can say is that after a few months they settle down and don' t get much mold, and that is mostly a bit of green.  I wipe it off with paper towels monthly before oiling them.

L

[Lancer99]

Oh, and today I discovered cheese mites (not on the Parmies though).  Will the fun never end?

-L