Hi folks,
I've been attempting to age Colby and Drunken Goat cheeses in a new cheese cave, which is an old bar fridge with the freezer divider removed (the kind of fridge without any internal air fan). I have an external thermostat device that only turns the fridge on periodically, so it's staying between 11 ºC and 14 ºC inside the fridge, but the humidity is really high.
Colby #1 went so mouldy that I gave up on it (although hubby ate it after I washed it with white wine and moved it back to the main house fridge). The Drunken Goat cheese was awesome until it grew a bunch of musty-smelling fluffy grey mould (Poil de chat?) and I couldn't really save it with a schmier. The musty smell got into the cheese and I couldn't bear to eat it.
My second Colby is in the "drying off" phase after my recent make, but it's again going wrong. I was hoping to wax it once it was dry to avoid mould problems, but I think I need some help!
I made the cheese on the 18th, so it's been in the cave since the 19th (six days ago)
* This is from my own goats' milk. I went for raw milk and it is super creamy (see pics below, I hope). This make is 3L worth of milk.
* For the first three days, every four hours I turned the cheese in its box, and wiped any condensation from the fridge to keep the humidity down
* Then I backed off to once a day.
* The cheese is drier and not collecting whey on the bottom any more, but the top surface feels tacky / sticky.
* There are a variety of moulds growing (again, hopefully the pics will work!).
* It smells sickly sweet--quite unpleasantly so
I've taken it out of the cave to a less humid place (but warmer, about 19 ºC) and I think I need to wash the cheese with a brine solution to remove or inhibit the mould. What should I do after that? Pat it dry and wax it even though it doesn't yet feel "dry"? Put it back into the cave? Attempt to get a schmier going?
I'm a total beginner when it comes to ageing, and the mould (and smell) is starting to get me down. Any help would be much appreciated!