I make cheese that looks good, nice shape, nice colour, texture okay, goes together as it should. But it is totally bland, no taste or aroma whatsoever. It does have a very slight smell and taste of milk, but it is not cheese even though it looks like it is. I've made cheddar, caerphilly, goudda and edam, they each have this characterless character. They don't smell bad, I suppose that is a step in the right direction.
Although I haven't aged them for many months, I would have thought a couple of months should allow some flavour to emerge.
I return to suspecting my novice technique. I made all these cheeses from frozen starter cubes, all the same batch.
If my starter isn't starting could it be the reason for my bland cheese? I am wondering if I made a bad batch of mother culture, it was my first attempt and I was very much in the dark. I used a third of a small mesophilic pack, containing 4 cultures, in 300ml pasteurised semi-skimmed milk. [The whole pack is supposed to make a litre of mother culture.]
I put a new batch on yesterday, with another third of a pack of culture in 300ml semi-skimmed. I'm still not really sure whether I've got it right. It has been in a temperature controlled bath [21-23°C] for almost 20 hours now and doesn't look like it is gelling. I'll give it a couple of days and then bin it. Perhaps my cultures are dead?
Until then, though, I won't jump to any conclusions. I'm not going to give up easily. I won't be the cheesemaker who can't make cheese.
Maybe I should explore making a buttermilk based culture.