I made an attempt at Fourme d'Ambert not too long ago and some of it tasted amazing. The outer part of the cheese had turned soft with a bit of sweetness and there was a nice blue flavor. The inner part of the cheese was not yet ripe and tasted bitter. I cut off the outer part and devoured it within a few days, and continued to age the inner part in the regular fridge. After a week or two it was just like a store bought blue cheese and also got eaten within short order. I decided to try this recipe again with the goal of making more of that super tasty outer layer. So this time I made 2 discs of cheese instead of 1 larger cylinder. I also used culture from a Cambozola that I grew on a piece of bread and then froze. The previous cheese had been inoculated with some blue cheese crumbles so I guess its no surprise that this cheese turned out differently.
I can post the details if anybody wants them but basically this is a Fourme d'Ambert recipe with 8 quarts PH cows milk and 1 cup cream. For the mold I took some Cambozola black label and rubbed the rind on a piece of sourdough bread and then incubated it in a ziploc bag for about a week. The cheese was lightly pressed in 2 of the 5-3/8" Tomme moulds and then brined. Aging was 4 weeks in the cheese fridge at 54 F and 1 week in the regular fridge.
The white mold in the Cambozola really took over more than I wanted. At about 2 weeks the blue showed up and the resulting bloom looked like one of my plush bath towels. And that's what it felt like too! I decided not to use the cheese as a bath towel though.
Today I cut into one of the cheeses and its really good! The blue flavor is not as strong as I would like. This cheese is more like a Brie but the middle has not yet fully ripened and still has a mild blue cheese flavor with some of the crumbly, slightly bitter taste you'd expect from a blue. The rind is nice and chewy with a fantastic mushroomy flavor. The color is really cool too, I love the 2-tone rind. If you like the taste of Brie and want something a bit different this would be a great cheese for you. Can't wait to make a grilled cheese sandwich out of this thing. I'm going to try this strategy again with straight PR and see what happens.
