Baby Blues and Daddy Blue

[DoctorCheese]

I followed my heart on these ones (and maybe looked at a recipe for some of it). The baby blues I plan to eat fairly young once they have had a coat of mold for a week or two. Daddy blue will be aged until I get impatient or need room in my fridge. Daddy was pressed with 12 lbs of pressure and babies were pressed using however much 2 cans of tuna weighs. The blue cheese recipes I saw typically had really long forming periods but did not
"require" pressing. I am prepared for the consequences of my actions . Happy new year you cheesers. 

[Danbo]

You have been busy... AC4U...

Happy new year!

[DoctorCheese]

Update-- There is just a tad bit of blue mold growing all around all three of my blue cheeses as well as what I think is a soft almost velvet layer of P. candidum. I am very excited!

[Al Lewis]

When you press blue cheese you close up the thin gaps between the curds so there is no where for the veins of blue to develop.  Hope they work out for you.

[DoctorCheese]

Thanks Al. I suspect that there will only be blue veins where I punctured the cheese which was a risk I decided to take for various reasons. All three of my cheeses aren't very thick so I am hoping that the punctured columns of blue mold along with the outer layer are enough to impart some flavor. Fingers crossed

[Al Lewis]

The outer layer will form a rind and will have little to no taste.  Sorry.  It will still have a taste of blue though regardless of the veins or rind.  I've done cambozolas in the past that didn't have a hint of blue but tasted like it.

[DoctorCheese]

Here are my blue cheeses so far. They are 10 days old and I can see hints of b linens, geo, and obviously the blue mold too  I decided (because I am young and restless) to poke more holes in them so they would get more blue inside. I then tasted the little bit of residue left on the poker, which tasted bitter, blue moldy, and had the consistency of flour slurry. Does this sound right for a very young blue cheese?

[awakephd]

Yes, that sounds about right for a 10-day old blue. It won't taste very good until it gets to 12 weeks or so -- though you don't have to let the blue develop for all of that time; you can bag it if you want to "stop" the blue at a certain point.

[Al Lewis]

Totally agree with Andy. 

[DoctorCheese]

Look at this mold please... is that orange color alright? I originally thought what I was seeing was b linens on the surface, but it's actually some kind of mold. I scraped away some to be sure. Should I be worried? Is the cheese ruined!? If it's not ruined what should I do?
Thank you

[Gregore]

With that much blue on the outside your worried that something else will take over ? 

Even if something else does decide to grow it won't get far , and it certainly will not ever ever ever add a flavor that will compete with blue .

And taste is all that counts in cheese .

Just keep ageing it out .

[DoctorCheese]

And taste is all that counts in cheese .

I just worry because I know some molds could release toxins on to my cheese e.g black mold. It doesn't matter how good it tastes if it kills me 

[awakephd]

Hard to be sure from the picture, but to me it looks like you've got some geo at work. It can be a yellowish color. It is normal and desirable for most mold-ripened cheeses.

[Gregore]

I have tried looking for the post by Linuxboy about cheese molds where he mentions that  cheese does not support bad mold or at least the secondary  growth that leads to toxins . 

Blue molds on other foods are not good for you but on cheese that is another story

I started at the oldest of his posts and spend hours looking but only made it 1 /10 of through all his posts

[DoctorCheese]

I got curious what the flavor/texture would be like at 20 days of ripening. The paste has become less grainy than day one and is still bitter. It seems the blue mold has behaved as expected and only grown in the puncture holes. I ate 1/4 of the piece and put the rest in a poor mans vacuum sealed bag to ripen further. My other blues are still maturing as before and I will sample them at the 40 day mark.