Sticky rind on semi-hard and hard cheeses

[lota]

Hi Raz,
Thanks for all the information!
Here there is a resume list of the suggestions you all have made to change in the future, in order:

• At least, mesure ph of cultured milk to know when to add rennet. It should drop, in general 0.1 from the first value
• Use flocculation to know when to cut the curd
• Cook curds until they are dry: they will stick together when squeezed and fall back appart tthe hand when open
• Sanitize cave again with alcoholic esterilizer
• reduce humidity of cave to 75º
• Dry the rind with a fan for 2-3 days
• When the rind is done, I can do the washes if I want

[Capertee]

Hi everyone - I thought I'd post my follow-up question in this topic.

I have a similar problem with a slightly sticky rind on an alpine style cheese. After pressing and brining, I did a good job with a few rounds of dry salting to get a nice hard crust on the cheese, then started with the first round of morge wash.

However, I got greedy and tried consolidating two cheeses in one large plastic container in my wine fridge (sadly, I don't have a proper cave in my rental apartment) for ageing, although it was obviously too crammed and the high humidity has led to a stickiness on the rind. I presume it's the humidity as I've had similar issues with other attempts - I guess plastic containers don't have enough air exchange.

My question is on troubleshooting. I've had this problem before and tried removing the cheese for a short session in a drier (60-70% RH) environment, which cracked the rind. Any other suggestions? I was thinking I try another round of dry salting to kill whatever is causing the sticky / slimy coating, although I'd welcome other suggestions!

Cheers

[Bantams]

Yeasts and B linens will create a sticky rind, which is essentially what your goal is.  Just keep washing every other day and see what happens. Temperature and humidity fluctuations are not good for the cheese - the rind will crack. 

[mikekchar]

Yeah, IMHO, a tacky rind early on is desirable for virtually every style of natural rind.  It basically means you have yeasts growing really well.  Of course, it's bad if it's too wet :-)  If you are doing a traditional alpine rind, then don't worry about it at all.  If you have it happen with a brushed rind, you'll want it to dry off in a few days, at which point you should get a nice bloom of geotrichum. 

[Capertee]

Thanks mikekchar and Bantams- I'll continue with morge wash in that case and see how it goes.

I've also moved it to a larger container to provide some extra space.