Making a B. linens solution from store bought cheese and storing

[lafux]

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?

[Mornduk]

The washing solution will be ok, it's almost fool proof.

I store my washing solution in a tupperware in the fridge. I started with ~5% alcohol (so made it half wine half distilled water) and 3% salt. Just by washing the cheeses the natural B.Linens in the environment (e.g., your hands) was incorporated in the solution pretty quickly, and it works although it's mild. Later on I found and Alpine I liked, blended the rind in distilled water and strained it into my normal washing solution, similarly with a Limburger one (that goes into a different tupperware though). I use it to wash, store in the fridge between washings, and top it with a mix of 5% alcohol 2.5-3% salt when it's running low. Every month or so I strain it into a new sterilized container (otherwise with the air inside and the drops that get into the lid etc. I would get some blue growth). Right now I have four, one for Alpkäse that has been running for a couple of years, one for stinky, one for Appenzeller, and the younger one for Reblochon that is just a few months old. They are all fine. You have a great post on washing here.

If you want a solution to add to the milk, that's far more complicated and prone to failure. As you have discovered the % of viable product will diminish until it does not work. And the % of it getting contaminated and spoiling the whole cheese you make with it will go up. You could freeze it immediately, then next time you want to make that kind of cheese you make a yogurt out of it and use 1-2% of that to inoculate the milk. After a few months the frozen "mother" will degrade and you will notice it because it will take longer for the yogurt to firm up, then you get your last batch of yogurt and freeze it in portions to "refresh" the mother culture. But again, if what you want is just the rind, I'd go and just use the washing solution instead of adding it to the milk.

[Bantams]

No need to inoculate for washed rinds/B linens.  As long as you wash the cheese every 1-2 days with a light brine solution (3-4%), with or without alcohol, on a higher pH wheel, it will show up on its own. 

[lafux]

Thanks for the responses. It surely sheds a new light on the topic. Related cheeses that I have interest in making are Port Salut, Brick, Munster and Tilsiter. Cheesemaking.com gives recipes where 3 of 4 require B. linens to be added directly to milk. So yeah, I will probably freeze one piece of the bought Munster and use it like before for next few months. Also, I will try this hack with inoculated yogurt for adding directly to milk further down the line to see whether the results will be better/stronger. Honestly, I dint know when this "source" of  B. linens will be available next time so it would be wise to stash it any way i can.  Lastly, now I understand a bit more about difference between brinewash introduced B. linens, that is actually natural way of introduction through touch, and "stronger" introduction, through adding B. linens (in my case in form of a solution) to the wash, but not to the milk itself. For example, Butterkäse, that is also on my list, doesn't have B. linens listed in ingredients, but is said that is more than likely to appear and that through control of it this cheese gets it taste. Ive read that post before, but will do again. Obviously, there are still stuff that I dint fully understand. 

[Mornduk]

I wouldn't follow the recipe's instructions to be honest. A lot of cheeses can have the stuff affecting the rind (B.Linens, P.C., etc.) either inoculated in the milk at the beginning or just sprayed/rubbed/added to the rind at the end. Inoculating in the milk is easier so it gets called for preferently by recipe-writers. But in your case it's a no-brainer. Maintaining a washing brine solution is easy (just store in the fridge) and almost 100% safe.

Going the yogurt method to add to the milk is a lot of work and very very hard to keep from contaminating your milk and spoiling your cheese sooner or later. I have done it to "capture" cultures from cheeses I really wanted to "copycat" as much as possible (impossible since you don't have the same milk but closer to it), but I would not if there was a safer, faster, easier method

[mikekchar]

Buying b. linens allows you some control over the variety of the bacteria on your cheese.  I have FR22, which I like because it's slightly less aggressive than my local version.  Also, it has a nice red/pink color, where my local variety is orange.  However, I would never bother putting in your milk.  Just add a tiny bit to your washing brine.