Opening a 15 Pound Stilton

[Cartierusm]

So I opened this Stilton yesterday. Good flavor, really nice marbling, in the pic it looks a little muddled, but in person looks pretty good. This is about 5 months old.

[wharris]

WOW, this looks fantastic.  Was aged in a cheese cave?    or next to a case of 10w40 in the garage?



I ask because I wondered how you kept the other cheese, and cave itself from becoming "bleu" as well.

[Cartierusm]

I have 3 separate caves. Duh!

[Tea]

Well Carter, as usual your stuff looks wonderful.  Congrats on the successful aging of the cheese.

[DeejayDebi]

That looks really great Carter! Congrats! Three caves huh? That would be really nice.

[MrsKK]

You're making me hungry here, Carter.  Beautiful cheese!

[FRANCOIS]

Did you wash the rind?  If that is just native micro, your cave has hit it's sweet spot for sure.

[Cartierusm]

Yes natural, I don't wash the rind nor do I scrape it, it just happens perfectly by itself, although I spent lots of time making sure the cave regulates temp and humidity perfectly.

[FRANCOIS]

Just one more question, dry salt or brine? 

Ok one more, do you use Geo 13 on any cheeses?  I'm just trying to make out form the photo if that's p.cand. or geo.  It's yummy wither way.

[Cartierusm]

It's a stilton so it's neither, it's Pencilium Roqueforti. As far as the salt it's added when you mill the curds before forming the wheel.

[FRANCOIS]

From the photo it sure looks like a white mold over brown rind, maybe my monitor is showing it funny.

I had forgotten the stilton was milled, thanks for clearing that up.  I guess we used to make a "blue cheddar" here, but the product was deleted.  We do only high fat, open texture blues now.  One of them does have p.cand. on the rind though.  The blue mold is very strong flavored though, I would much rather have your stilton.

[Cartierusm]

Thanks. The rind when forming was blue like the ocean, look up my build logs and you can get an idea of the blue. But now it's more of a gray, there is some white high light, but absolutely no P. Candidum of any sort. The pics don't show up too well.

[Baby Chee]

This does look amazing.  It's one of my future projects, actually.  I can't believe the 17lb. official Stilton is $275.  With home making it can be done for circa $60.  Plus, my current Stiltons are driving me crazy as they mature....I'm going to ned a lot more.

[Sailor Con Queso]

Baby - THAT's exactly why it's worth using the best milk that you can get. 

[Baby Chee]

My wallet says otherwise.

If a local milker was offering $3/gallon I would undoubtably use them.  Maybe even $4/gallon.  $8/gallon?  Forget it.  I might as well buy a real Stilton.