Quick Stilton Question

[Gobae]

LOL   BTW Gobae  http://www.cheesemaking.com/store/pg/26-Making-Cheese.html  "I will present a recipe for a 4 gallon batch since this is about the smallest size I recommend. It is difficult to measure less culture."

Interesting. Her culture/mold amounts for 4 gallons are almost identical to the ones I used for 1 gallon. Which explains why I didn't experience any "difficulty measuring less culture". In fact, the Karlin recipe I was following actually calls for even more culture/mold/rennet for a 1 gallon stilton than Carroll's. I, however, actually used less because "thecheesemaker.com" (where I get my stuff from) says to follow his packaging info not recipe amounts when there's a discrepancy. Typically this is 1/2 of what Karlin calls for in her book.

But yeah, nearly all of my makes are 1 gallon. I can work with 2 gallons but that's my max.

[Gobae]

Sounds like you have been bitten by the cheese bug.

Oh yes, most definitely! Much to my wife's chagrin, this has been going on for 2-3 years now. But now that I've been having more successes I've really picked up the pace. I don't have a press yet, but it's actually been a good thing because I've made cheeses (brie and camebert particularly) that I wouldn't have tried otherwise.

[H-K-J]

I have made 1/2/3/4/5/5-1/2 gallon makes all quite successfully, as I made each larger batch it came to me that it takes the same amount of time and work (to me anyway) to do any one of them.
I came to the conclusion, why make the smaller ones?
After making 4 or 5, 5 / 5-1/2 gallon makes the novelty wears off and (I Hate to say this) you sort-of get tired of the cheese (did I say that )
that said, our next make will more than likely be a 3 gallon one
I'm doing this as we are about to throw away about a pound and half of a 22 month old blue.
I don't mind a blue that bites back a little bit, I just don't like them chasing me around the kitchen
anything smaller than 3 to 4 gallons would be a waste of time.
Sorry to each his own as they say

[Al Lewis]

Welcome back!

[Gobae]

Here we are at 10 days.

[Al Lewis]

Well it's certainly blue!  Did you "rub it up?" 

[Gobae]

I did a bit. But stopped when it seemed like I was on the verge of dislodging the curd chunks. I think I'm going to rip up the curd by hand (after the draining) next time instead of cutting it in to even squares. With a wider variety of random shapes it'll probably pack better in the mould.

[Al Lewis]

I agree.  I always just break mine up into walnut size chunks but you always get the little pieces that fill in the cracks.

[H-K-J]

I agree.  I always just break mine up into walnut size chunks but you always get the little pieces that fill in the cracks.

Me to, 

[AnnDee]

HKJ, that is 1 pretty looking hoop!

[Al Lewis]

He makes his.  Pretty cool and probably the best stilton maker out.  He's the one that showed me how so if you have any questions on stilton, he's your man.

[AnnDee]

I definitely have a lot to learn and stilton is one of the cheese on my cheese agenda.
Hope everyone won't get sick of me asking too many questions. Lol.