Brevibacteria linens Application Methods

[Alex]

I do not pasteurize milk for Limburger, I age it at least 60 days. To all cheeses that need B.L., I allways add it to the milk and never had any problem, Of course washing regularly with brine. On the coming fryday I am going to cut a 2 months old Limburger to taste it. I intend to taste it in one and two more month again.

This is how the cheese looks after 2 months and a slice of it:

[DeejayDebi]

Looks really good Alex. Is this limberger? I've never even seen a limberger before it doesn't look scarey.  ;)

[Alex]

It is a Limburger. There are no scarey cheeses for me. The more they stink, the better. I understood your opinion is different. Giv'em a try. Sto hesitating ;).

[Baby Chee]

That is an excellent looking cheese.  I want to eat it.  Now.

[DeejayDebi]

Actually Alex I have never seen it but I have heard it is scarey. I don't know what it taste like but my favorite cheese smells like dirty gym socks.

[Alex]

As you describe it, that's the prefered cheese by me.

[DeejayDebi]

Hmm maybe I should make a limberger. I like strong smelly cheeses with a good Italian bread and olive oil!

[Minamyna]

Francois when you say geo and yeast with the b. linens what does that mean? and what percent of a salt solution should I use?

Thanks!
Jenna

[FRANCOIS]

I always use 3% salt solution for washes.  Brine I go for about 20%.  Geo/yeast means just that.  B. linen washes usually require other microboes to get the rind prepped, so geo 13 with any of quite a few others (like KL71, OFR9 (a mix) and PLA ( a mix) or any of their ingredients individually).  I treally comes down to what you can get from your supplier.

[linuxboy]

Jenna, I do exact same as Francois. 18-22% brine when getting the salt into the cheese out of the press, and 3% washes for regular b linens. B linens needs a pH of 5.8 or higher, and when you take the cheese out of the 20% brine, it's usually somewhere around 5.2. So before b linens can grow, something needs to eat up that lactic acid that's on the surface. Yeasts are really great for that, they both bring up the pH and also produce byproducts that the b linens uses as food.

[MarkShelton]

Does the geo raise the pH also? I didn't have any kl71 when I made my reblochon, and I'm not seeing any kind of color change from the b. linens. Next batch I'll definitely get some, but will I get any b. linens growth on my current batch?

[FRANCOIS]

geo 13 will raise your surface pH slightly but it is normally used because it establishes very quickly, and dies quickly.  It will grow first on the rind and help protect it from parasitic mould while the yeasts act on it.  It will also die off quickly and let the b. linens start to work.

[Minamyna]

so yeast as in bread yeast???!!??

[linuxboy]

Yes, saccharomyses. But more often, it is debaromyces or kluyveromyces, and goes likes this:

Kluyveromyces deacidifies surface some in 1-3 days. It's fast
Then a geo or a penecillin type will start a bloom in 4-6 days, finishes that pH increase up past 6.5.
Then the geo will die off and the b linens will feed on it. The b linens starts about a week into it. B linens MUST have the right food and pH to grow. This includes pantothenic acid. Yeasts produce this naturally. If you were to raise the pH up somehow to 7 on the rind, but didn't have the right food, the b linens still wouldn't grow.

Francois is right, IIRC, the geo strains have different levels of protection against contamination. Geo 13 is helpful for protecting against mucor.

To get a good b linens growth, you either need a tuned cave and smear the culture from an existing cheese to a new one, and then wash it (this is how the smear rinds were originally done), or add some geo or a complex mix like PLA to your b linens 3% wash to help deacidify the surface and pave the way for b linens.

[edit] If the geo runs away and you start getting a slip skin, you can switch to a higher salt % brine, to a 8-10% with just b linens. Geo doesn't like the high salt % and will die off and the b linens can grow on top of it.

[Zoey]

Interesting comments from Francois and linuxboy. (Sorry for bringing up the old thread once more..)

I wonder, if using an existing cheese as the b.linens source brings on the other necessary microflora (yeasts and geo)? Of course this probably depends on many variables, but in general, does it sound doable?

I'm still disliking the idea of additives, and I consider powdered and/or commercial cultures to be additives just as any other. So I'm trying to get my microflora from "human sized" sources, sources that I can understand and imagine.

Also wondering, if I'm using an existing cheese, do the cultures only exist on the rind, or can I use any part of the cheese to make a wash? (I'm thinking hygiene here, so a part of the insides would probably be easier to isolate in a clean environment.)