Hola from Spain!
I'm so happy to have found this forum.
I've been doing homemade cheese occasionally for a few years. The last 2-3y I was just doing bries and vegan cheeses.
It was almost 3 years since I didn't do a pressed cheese (I was not super successful with them, for the same problem I'll explain here).
Please, find attached the pictures of my Emmentaler
Yeah, I know it looks bad
It's a 10 days old Emmentaler, now at the room temperature phase. I followed the cheesemaking recipe for Swiss cheese. But the specific recipe is not my problem.
My problem:
The rind has been kind of sticky for all these days.
I experienced this exact never-dry-sticky-rind in the past. Other hard cheeses I made were contaminated with the exactly same yeast-bacteria that keeps me in the loop of this greasy rind with rancid smell (b. linens, I guess). The
smell is definitely strong and not good, it's yeasty-rancid.
I don't know how to achieve those golden mate dry rinds that people get in just a few days!.
Thinks I have done that may be right or wrong:- after the brine, I didn't let the cheese dry at room temperature. I put it in the wine cave at 13ºC for a week and changed the underneath wet paper 2-3 times a day.
- The first days the cheese was full of mold spots. I think the cave was too humid. I took the molds out with a knife and covered the spots with salt.
Today I've washed the rind with white wine and the smell has improved - the molds have kind of been reduced.
Please, can someone tell me other tricks to achieve those dry mate rinds you get? I know it's difficult to say without knowing more details, but any idea / comment will be appreciated so I can continue experimenting.
Thank you very much