Whenever I need to introduce B. linens in an attempt to make one of the cheeses that require it and that I like, therefore want to make, I must wait for a local Lidl supermarket to bring one of their "french" actions. It`s mostly cheese, wines and other foods. Amongst other cheeses, there is this little red fella. It is a really small wheel of Munster. So when it is available, I buy a piece, try to make a cheese or two using scraped-and-watered solution and eat rest of it. It is ok for the price, it has a smell, I would say medium strong, reddish orange colour. I buy it more to scavenge B. linens than to eat it, really. It is the only cheese with genuine B. linens on a clean slate (without other mold cultures) that I can find here where I live. Cheesemaking powdered culture is out of my reach. And it works. Sometimes faster, sometimes slower. But it works. So yeah, as I don't have any other source to get this culture, I am doing it this way. But since it is available only few times a year for a limited time I must find a sustainable yet working way to make my own source of red bacteria so I could use it all year round. Last time I spared one chunk and froze it. In such state I used it twice. First time it worked ok, probably because it wasn't too long in the freezer, but second time, few weeks ago, not so much. It was a try at brick cheese, but it was too moist and attacked by brownish mildew or some kind of similar mold. And B. linens wasn't showing up to take over. So I had to eradicate all surface life and cut down moisture and temperature drastically. I did so with brine-vinegar solution, scraped off everything and put it in the fridge. Unless some of the Brevibacteria survive and overpower other bugs it will be yet another failure for me. My impression is that it was way slower and weaker this time. I think that potency and "life" of B. linens in that frozen piece was at its end. Maybe even dead completely. It has been in the freezer for quite some time now (close to a year, I would say). Now this Munster is available again and this time I think I will try to make a solution to store in fridge, not freezer. For use directly in milk and for wash. 1 cup of water with 1 tsp of salt and few scoops of scrapings of the red surface stirred in to dissolve. Or maybe even 1 liter of water with 1 Tbsp of salt. What are your thoughts? Could it work? Did someone have similar ideas, experiences? Is there a danger of spoilage of such a solution that could subsequently spoil the milk?
