My first blue

[StuartDunstan]

Hi John,
I was interested to read that you didn't put the blue cheese morge into the main make, but that you sprayed it on the outside of the finished product. Was that in the original receipe? I've been putting my version of a morge (just blue mould grown on sour dough bread) right into the make.

Hi Frodage. Have you had good success with making blue cheeses using mould grown on sourdough? I've been keen to try this technique since reading about it on David Asher's website.

[jmason]

Stuart, read some of your earlier posts but haven't seen you post lately.

Anyway, not frodage, and I haven't made a cheese with it yet but after reading the thread linked below I made a culture of a blue mold using the technique I describe there.  Just looked in on it yesterday and it's awesome.  Not really a sourdough but a long ferment homemade bread (I'll start a new pain levain (I don't call it sourdough because I prefer a not so sour spontaneous fermented bread, the really sour ones always seem to absolutely destroy the gluten structure whereas mine rise well and get a nice oven spring) after the weather cools.  Anyway I have no doubt it will culture well in cheese, it engulfed the bread in just a few days.

https://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,14683.0.html

[StuartDunstan]

Stuart, read some of your earlier posts but haven't seen you post lately.

Anyway, not frodage, and I haven't made a cheese with it yet but after reading the thread linked below I made a culture of a blue mold using the technique I describe there.  Just looked in on it yesterday and it's awesome.  Not really a sourdough but a long ferment homemade bread (I'll start a new pain levain (I don't call it sourdough because I prefer a not so sour spontaneous fermented bread, the really sour ones always seem to absolutely destroy the gluten structure whereas mine rise well and get a nice oven spring) after the weather cools.  Anyway I have no doubt it will culture well in cheese, it engulfed the bread in just a few days.

https://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,14683.0.html

Have been rather busy lately, but am now jumping back into the cheesemaking. Thanks for sharing your technique. The original method I was referring to is this: http://thewayofcheese.com/penicillium-roqueforti-aka-blue-mould/, where Mr Asher just uses sourdough by itself to cultivate some blue mould. I've just made up a batch of blue cheeses using the normal method, but am now considering doing a second smaller batch so I cna try this out.

Cheers,
Stuart.

[jmason]

I saw his method, actually I think it might have been from one of your posts.  I'm sure it will work.  I just have a mycology background and wanted a little more controlled inoculation and incubation so opted for the pressure cook thing.  My biggest concern with not sterilizing the bread and container is that thricoderma is also everywhere and also appears green and it doesn't smell or taste nice like roquegorti does, not sure if it would grow on a acidic media like cheese but it will grow like the dickens on bread.

John

[Frodage]

Hi Frodage. Have you had good success with making blue cheeses using mould grown on sourdough? I've been keen to try this technique since reading about it on David Asher's website.

Hi Stuart,
I have had good success with my blue cheeses (four eaten, one in the cave). The blue-cheese-on-bread method specifically mentions sour dough, so perhaps the acid is important. I'm looking forward to using different cheeses to start the mould growth and seeing how the different strains give different cheeses.

[jmason]

OK, so these went much longer than I had planned due to an inactive or weak blue culture at the start.  And this allowed a lot of pc, maybe geo, and obviously linens to colonize it before a more active blue morge was used to wash it.

The end results are not what I was intending, but not terrible either.  The dryer looking one was neglected for months and the cave was obviously too dry.  The mix of linens and blue flavors is an interesting one, but not the clean sharp blue flavor I was after, but it is a rather nice rustic cheese and a bit more crumbly than the other wheel.  The other wheel was cut into and partially consumed over the few months the other was neglected and it has lived in a big ziplock bag for that time, flavors are similar but it is creamier due to being sealed against moisture loss.  The cave is gonna need a good bleaching before I can age anything else in there but I think this small cave is destined to become a dedicated blue cave once the big cave is in place.

[Frodage3]

Nice cheese, John. AC4U