Here are photos from my first ever blue cheese make. I just love the notches in the last photo - it looks just like everyone else's! I'll keep you posted and cross my fingers for the blue (my own culture on bread) to develop.
I'll cross my fingers. Exciting with the homegrown blue.
:-) Danbo
Hi Frodage,
Welcome to the blues club.
Which Gorgonzola recipe did you use for this make? Also, what was the filtering step for?
Larry
Hi Larry,
Your G. picante was my inspiration to join the blues club! ;)
I used the one on Ricky Carroll's website, "Gorgonzola Dolce". The filtering step was because I grew the mold on bread, then just crumbled the bread into the milk for rehydration. I didn't really want the bread crumbs in the final cheese.
Today is the second salting and a pool of water has appeared on the top of the cheese. Should I mop it up, or just let it evaporate?
I'm excited to see how this one turns out, Frodage. I remember the grow your own spores thread. Makes sense.
As far as the water goes, I just leave it on top to reabsorb or evaporate. There's still a significant amount of salt in it. Worst case, it'll go away when you flip the cheese.
Looking good...
Larry
Here's a photo of the top of the wheel, showing the pool of water extracted from the cheese. It evaporated by mid-afternoon, which is for the best. If I had mopped up the water, I would've taken away salt from the cheese.
Here are the make notes in the attached spreadsheet.
Jim, I took a quick look at your make notes. Regarding the fast floc time, it's probably just the 1/2 tablet of rennet. The 24 minute time to cut was good I think. If you can source liquid calf rennet it's much more controllable.
Regarding salting, you're going for a total salt load of around 13 to 16.4 grams, right? And that total is divided up in some fashion over 2 or 3 days? Just wanted to make sure, because the recipe on Cheesemaking is a bit fuzzy. The liquid on top of your cheese was about what I'd expect. Most of it does reabsorb, and some of it drains off. It's all good.
Looks like a cheese to me. :)
Larry
Thanks for the boost of confidence, Larry! You are right about the amount of salt. I'm aiming for 4.1g x 4 days, or 2.5% of the cheese weight from day 2. The sides are now pulling away from the mold, which I presume is to be expected.
Yep. That's exactly what they do. As I salt I slip the mould off so I can pat some salt on the sides, and then slip it back on.
I just finished salting mine and put it in its box in the "cave".
Oh, if you want a bunch of blue on the outside, what might help a bit is a day or 2 after you're done salting you might want to gently wipe the cheese down with a cloth soaked in water or in a mild brine (3-5% or so) to get the heavy concentration of salt off the outside. I don't do that with mine, but I don't care if they blue up on the outsides.
Larry
Here is a photo of my make-shift cave. I had to store Notchy at 20C and got up to 70% RH. By the time day 7 (today) came around it looked like there was some blue on the flat surface.
Have a look at the sides and, yes, there is blue in the notches!
"Blue, blue, my world is blue!"
Now it's pierced and in the crisper. More photos to come.
Congratulations on the blue, Jim. A couple things... It looks to me like there's some condensation on the inside of your box. If so, your humidity is probably in the 90s somewhere, which would be a good thing.
Also, do you have a way to get the temperature down around 12 to 15°C? Maybe that's what you were referring to in putting it in the crisper. :)
Larry
Looking good! :-) Before you know it you cheese will be all blue... :-)
@Larry - you are right about the condensation. On day 5, I had just washed and sterilized my temporary see-through cave (also known as a seedling tent). The condensation was because I didn't want to contaminate it by drying with a tea towel! I left a crack in the air vent and by day 7 the humidity was down to 70%.
I wanted to reduce the temperature and thought about using ice water in my travel mug, but that only brought the temperature down by 1 degree.
So by day 7 I thought, "I have got to get this into the proper cave (aka meat crisper)." So, now it burbling away at 7C and 60% RH. Here is a photo of it after piercing.
Jim,
Humidity in the low to mid 90s would probably be a good thing for blue development. 60% is probably too low. The blue won't develop and the rind on your cheese will dry out really fast.
I think that's probably what happened to Susan with her Rindless Blue?? Coastal Blue??.
Temperature is a bit low also, but I think you can live with that as long as you get your humidity back up. Blue formation and cheese ageing will be pretty slow at 7°C, but it will happen.
You might want to check the calibration of your hygrometer, because it was reading in the 70s even when you had condensation in the box. There are several threads here on how to do it, but basically, you place your hygrometer in a sealed bag with a container of wet NaCl and let it stabilize. It should read 75% under those conditions.
HTH,
Larry
I love a good gorgonzola for chef's salads, bleu cheese dressing, and a bleu cheese steak sauce I make but have never tried making one. That's because I also love Stilton. LOL Maybe next blue I'll try gorgonzola or maytag. Yours looks great!!
Thanks for your advice and support! Here is a photo of the developing blue. I brought it onto the counter to warm up for 1 hour and set it back in the meat crisper upside down. I will check out the hygrometer calibration threads.
Looking good, Jim.
Larry
Looks very nice! :-)
Quote from: LoftyNotions on January 31, 2015, 09:14:23 PM
Humidity in the low to mid 90s would probably be a good thing for blue development. 60% is probably too low. The blue won't develop and the rind on your cheese will dry out really fast.
The rind is rather hard, the blue colour hasn't developed much more, it crumbled a bit, and I'm getting worried. In an attempt to raise the humidity, I've placed four cups full of water with paper towels to try to more effectively evaporate the water.
Any other suggestions, please?
Jim, are you putting a lid on it?
With my Gorgonzola, without any dishes of water in the box with it, with the lid skewed off by about 1 inch I get humidity in the low 80s. With the lid covering the box, but not tightly, humidity runs in the mid to high 80s. With the lid on tight, humidity runs in the low 90s. I'm assuming your refrigerator is a frost free model? That might be drying you out if the box isn't covered pretty well. How big is your box compared to the cheese? A tight fit would provide more humidity, assuming a box that has little air exchange, but that can lead to amoniation if done for too long.
Some cheeses get really blue on the outside and some don't. For me it's what's on the inside that counts.
At some point, the only additional advice I'll be able to give you is... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-diB65scQU (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-diB65scQU) :)
Larry
Thanks Larry. The waiting is the hardest part.
Notchy is fully blue on the outside. To keep moisture in I wrapped it in cheese polythene (à la Malembert). Today it is fully blue on the outside.
The unwrapped ones are from my second go - and they are turning blue right on schedule. These I won't pierce until next week.
Tomorrow the whole thing goes into the fridge.
Almost bought a wine cooler as a cave during the Target liquidation sale. Does anyone else use a Sunbeam wine cooler as a cave?
Looks good...
Jim, I don't have a Sunbeam, but I do use a wine cooler as one of my caves. It's a good starter cave, but I'm now looking for something bigger. This wine chiller has its cooling plate in the back, which does cause thermal gradients from front to back. I had to make some shelves to replace the wire racks that hold wine bottles. The plus side of having the cooling plate in the back vs. on top is that nothing drips on the cheese. Temperature control on mine is good, and does cover the range we need for cheeses.
For my next cave, I'm looking for a frost free upright freezer and will get an external controller for temperature and humidity. I think Al has a freezer with coils running under the shelves and he doesn't need any external humidity control. Hopefully he'll weigh in on the benefits of his cave.
The first 2 photos here are of the outside of my wine cooler. The second 2 are of the inside. Notice the chiller plate in the back with ice on it.
If the Sunbeam is a thermo-electric cooler I think I'd avoid it. Consensus from articles I've read is that they aren't very reliable. The old-fashion compressor styles seem to be more reliable.
There is a lot of cave related information here: https://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/board,181.0.html (https://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/board,181.0.html)
Especially on this thread: https://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,10288.0.html (https://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,10288.0.html)
Larry
Quote from: LoftyNotions on February 08, 2015, 06:20:50 PM
For my next cave, I'm looking for a frost free upright freezer and will get an external controller for temperature and humidity. I think Al has a freezer with coils running under the shelves and he doesn't need any external humidity control. Hopefully he'll weigh in on the benefits of his cave.
Larry
Larry, IMO a frost-free upright freezer is a very good choice for a cave. When you have an environment that is 55F and 85% RH the dew point is only a few degrees lower (maybe 51F or so) which means if you have exposed coils (whether in the back in your cave or in the shelves) you
will indeed have condensation and icing on these very cold surfaces. This will happen with any refrigerated enclosure and frost free isn't an exception. But I think the advantage of FF is that (1) it does de-ice when needed and the condensate is routed somewhere other than the top of your cheeses and (2) the airflow helps prevent temperature stratification.
And by the way, your comments on helping to make blue cheeses earns you a cheese. Thanks.
Here are my three blues as of 14Feb2015 (Notchy in the back, big and little from make #2 on the right and left, respectively). They are above my new cave - a Rona special wine cooler. Thanks to LoftyNotions I got a refridgerater style instead of Peltier cooled.
The second photo shows them from above for colour comparison. Notchy is at 5 o'clock, little at 9 o'clock and big at 1 o'clock. Notchy has some yellow on this side, while the younger ones are blue and white.
I am loving this hobby. And can't resist eating them! Thanks to Danbo, I only have to wait two more weeks! ;)
Beautiful cheeses!!! AC4U Jim!! John, mines not frost free but I wipe the droplets off of the coils whenever I tend my cheeses and keep the vacuum packed ones on the top shelf with the most moisture. The bags catch the water. You can see the droplets on this pic. BTW Those droplets help keep that thing at 85% RH all on its own. ;D
Excellent, Jim! They're all really looking good.
Larry
Quote from: Al Lewis on February 17, 2015, 03:36:15 AM
John, mines not frost free but I wipe the droplets off of the coils whenever I tend my cheeses and keep the vacuum packed ones on the top shelf with the most moisture. The bags catch the water. You can see the droplets on this pic. BTW Those droplets help keep that thing at 85% RH all on its own. ;D
My first cave was a 2 cu. ft. "dorm" fridge with coils on top and I had the same problem with "rain". I fixed it by cutting a rectangular piece of 3/4" foam polyurethane (the pink stuff) to fit under the top coils and angled to direct condensation to the back and it worked very well. I first used a pan but then the moisture would condense on the cold pan bottom and "rain" as well :(.
By the way, I noticed a stash of brewskes' in the lower left of your picture. Cheers ;)!
Almost one month since Notchy was brought into this world. I take it out for a breather every few days. The smell of ammonia is getting stronger. I pierced it for the second time today, in an attempt to air out the ammonia. Next, I'll wrap it up and put it into the fridge for a month at 4C.
My first blue cheese: cut and tasted after three months. What a miracle: it tastes like a gorgonzola! The paste is yellow with grey-green veins. Yay!
And most surprising of all, this cheese survived a cross country trip! Raise a glass to Frodage and his experimental blue cheese!
And now you're an official member of the club, Jim. Have another cheese. That's a really nice Gorgonzola. Congratulations!
Larry
Congratulations on the lovely blue Jim! I will have to give it another try soon. By the way, Gianaclis Caldwell says it is a fine idea to make a slurry of blue and milk taking the blue from a cheese you like!!
Very nice! :-) I never heard of mobile caves before - that's a first! ;) AC4U
Great work - AC4U!
AC4U on your very traveled blue cheese (http://www.z4-forum.com/forum/images/smilies/smilie_thumbsup.gif)
in a month we will be taking our assortment of cheese on a 900 mile trip to our new home, we are so excited ^-^
Thank you for your guidance and inspiration. This hobby is firmly established in this household!
Fantastic job!!! AC4U!!!!
Ooooh another Blue on the loose - it is a thing of beauty 8)
Also a cheese from me.
-- Mal
Thanks Al and Mal.
I'm gonna have to put this on my to do list. It is a beautiful thing. Congrats.
Hi Mr Kim,
Thanks! Nice strat, by the way.