Joining the Blue Bandwagon

[darius]

I just HAD to start a "stilton" a few days ago.

Actually I started one on April 27 when the tornado band hit from Mississippi to north of me in Virginia, and I lost power, internet...  one tree, and the stilton in the make.

Just smoothed this one and it's ready for the cave.

[Tomer1]

Its like an awesome cake!
Can I get one for my birthday?!

[darius]

LOL, it DOES look kinda like a birthday cake, doesn't it?

I only have 2 molds (so far) and the taller one wouldn't hold all the curds.

[sstrantz]

Yay!!! A new one and no electricity loss!

[darius]

You're funny, Sue!

I was really surprised at the ease of smoothing the voids. I had saved a couple of tablespoons of curds from the make to use for the voids, but only needed some where one edge had crumbled. The rest smoothed easily with the spatula I use for icing cakes. Messy, though since it was at room temps.

[darius]

Help!! BIG Oops... I used Linuxboy's recipe and directions from here:
http://www.wacheese.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=71:stilton-approximation-howto&catid=38:bloomy-rind-and-blue&Itemid=58

I was following the directions step-by-step, but somehow missed the step of adding salt to the curds. What can I do at this point, if anything?

[linuxboy]

You can surface salt, or brine. IMHO, brining is a little tough because this cheese is rather acidic. Surface salting would work pretty well.

[darius]

How much surface salt to a 1300g wheel?

Or do I salt more than once?

[JeffHamm]

That looks great!  I'm thinking of making a stilton like cheese soon.  We're going to be away for a week in the near future though, so I'm putting it off until we get back. 

- Jeff

[linuxboy]

How much surface salt to a 1300g wheel?

Or do I salt more than once?

What coarseness salt? For medium, flake type salt, I would salt twice. At day one out of the mold (should be about day 5-6 from the start of the make), and at day 3. I would salt at 3% of weight the first time, and about 2% the second time. You could also do a light salting the third time, about 10 days from the beginning of the make.. maybe 1% more. Depends how salty you want it and how you want to surface to grow. You could also do something like 4-5% right away to build more of a salt gradient and have less mold on the surface.

[darius]

Thanks, Pav. I have flake salt and will salt it asap. Don't know how I missed that step!

[darius]

Jeff, good luck when you make yours. The recipe I used is really great (if you don't forget the salt!) and pretty easy to do. The first one I used (the failure due to tornadoes) wasn't as easy through the steps.

[darius]

At the beginning of this thread, I mentioned I had started my first 'Stilton' when the tornadoes hit and I lost power... including the online recipe and instructions I was following.

I decided to save it anyway, just for the experience. When we got power again and I checked the recipe, I found the biggest thing I missed was the size of the curds. By the time I could read the recipe, it was many days later so no changes were possible.

At any rate, here it is at 26 days, just pierced. (The second one above that looks like a birthday cake is coming along, slowly. It's rather moist on the surface so I'm opening the container more often now.)

[JeffHamm]

Thanks for the update.  I won't be able to start any more cheeses for a few weeks, but a blue is in the plan for the fairly near future.  I want to try and age one out for 90 days.  Will see.

- Jeff

[mtncheesemaker]

Both your cheeses are looking good! I must jump on the Stilton bandwagon soon.
Pam