Hey, this is my second attempt at a blue cheese, after forming the cheese, there seemed to be a decent amount of blue mold growing on the top and bottom of cheese. I put it in the cheese fridge at 55F and 85% humidity. However, it looks like all the blue mold is disappearing and being replaced by candidum? The curds were inoculated with mold from a tasty Stilton. It also looks like the cheese is drying out despite the humidity. Based on the photo below, is there anything I should worry about? Cheese is being turned every other day. Thanks!
http://imgur.com/AOvxFoi (http://imgur.com/AOvxFoi)
That looks very dry and forming a crust in the photo. Is it really that dry?
I agree with Bill. It looks really dry in that picture. Ideally the cheese should be in a mid 90s humidity for mold growth. Try putting it in a covered ripening container with a container of water with some kind of wicking in it to promote evaporation. You should have a light mist forming on the container walls.
Larry
I have a humidifier in the wine cooler, unfortunately I am travelling a bunch this month so I have someone else watching the cheese. I asked them to turn up the humdity and see what will happen (cheese wasn't dry a week ago). Its right now sitting in a plastic tupperware container with no lid. Aside from cranking up the humidity, anything else I should do? cut away the dry part?
Not top worry, here is a picture of the 6 pound Stilton I did. It turned brown on the outside but turned out great. :D
Quote from: ninintothevoid on January 31, 2015, 04:22:28 PM
I have a humidifier in the wine cooler, unfortunately I am travelling a bunch this month so I have someone else watching the cheese. I asked them to turn up the humdity and see what will happen (cheese wasn't dry a week ago). Its right now sitting in a plastic tupperware container with no lid. Aside from cranking up the humidity, anything else I should do? cut away the dry part?
I wouldn't cut any off it but, as Larry said, put a lid over the tupperware container. (Leave a little opening at one end. You should start to see it mist up.)
Like Al said, mold on the outside really doesn't matter, unless you think it does. My Gorgonzolas rarely develop much blue on the outside.
Maybe it's just the photo, but the cheese does look extremely dry. I'd still get the humidity up.
Nice cheese, Al.
Larry
I've kept the humidity up in the 90s. Cheese is not as cracked as it looked in the first picture, but it's still dry. Using a cup of water and a paper towel instead of a humidifier.
(http://m.imgur.com/10stxC8)
(http://m.imgur.com/MoCV9cI)
Looks fine. I keep my humidity right about 85%. Also sit my blues out at room temp for about an hour a day.
Al
after airing them for an hour, do you put them back in the container with the lid on?
I don't use containers for blues. I wrap mine in a single layer of butter muslin and sit them in the cave. That seems to keep the blue mold to itself and allows the air in the cave to circulate around it.
Quote from: Al Lewis on February 08, 2015, 01:17:45 AM
I don't use containers for blues. I wrap mine in a single layer of butter muslin and sit them in the cave. That seems to keep the blue mold to itself and allows the air in the cave to circulate around it.
That is an interesting thing to consider. I assume your using the cloth for mold isolation and not RH control? I do use mini-caves but more for getting RH higher than my 85% cave. Just got me thinking about whether disposable poly cheesecloth would be worth trying? I've got a bunch of the stuff laying around and I may wrap my last blue and my RH datalogger in it to see what happens.
Well so far my butter muslin wrap has worked fine for mold control.
The cheese looked even more dried out, so I decided to call it quits and slice it at 7 weeks. Surprisingly, it isn't as dry as I thought and has some decent blue veining. It probably would have been better if I aged it another month, but it was pretty tasty and easily spreadable. I'm going to have to find a better way to control the humidity, even with a bowl of water and a paper towel wick, the humidity varied from 60% to 90%. My portable humidifier died on me for no obvious reason.
That blue looks great! AC4U!!
Another cheese for you as well. If you want you can wrap the other half in foil or plastic and let it continue "blueing" in the fridge a while longer.
As for humidity control one thing I've learned is that whatever method you use to measure make sure it's reading correctly. If you don't have a certified hygrometer the easiest way is to place it in a sealed container with a saturated salt solution (here's some more info) (http://www.kingofthehouse.com/hygrometer/). If you use NaCl the equilibrium will be very close to 75%, and if you use KCl it will be 85% which is the reason I prefer to use potassium chloride. And as was said earlier mini-caves are nice because you can get pretty good at judging humidity by looking for light condensation on the sides of the box and adjusting the lid accordingly.
Well done, ninintothevoid. Have another cheese. I'm one of the short agers for blues, and typically I cut my Gorgonzolas at 6 to 7 weeks. I vacuum bag mine, which stops blue development, but they still age and further develop.
Larry
Nice blue... :-) Have a cheese!
Quick question, is it typical to have a lot of b linens on the outside of a stilton? Cheese tastes good, but the smell is strong(not ammonia, but like a limburger or mother)
I can't answer specifically for Stiltons, but for my Gorgonzolas #3 didn't have significant
B. linens but #4 does. I specifically tried to set up conditions for a wilder rind with #4 by increasing humidity into the mid 90s and by manhandling it every time i flipped it. I know that Boofer wears Nitrile gloves when he handles his cheeses, so that might be something you want to try on your future makes. It seems our hands are teeming with
linens.
Here is a link with some general rind formation info from Linuxboy. It's from the Tomme section, but it's helpful here too: https://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,5687.msg41588.html#msg41588 (https://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,5687.msg41588.html#msg41588)
And a small section of it:
QuoteHere's a quick rundown on the most common flora types and their preferred conditions:
- Geotrichums like 92-95% RH, high O2 levels, and 52F, and up to 5% salt, depends on variant
- Penicilliums, both roqueforti and candidum like very high O2, 95% RH, and 50-55F, salt tolerance usually at least 4%, can be as high as 10%. Likes dry rind to bloom.
- Debromyces and Kluyveromyces like standard yeast conditions, 55-60F, sugar, nitrogen source, etc.
- Misc Streptococcus like 2-3% salt, can be higher, pH >5.7
- B linens likes 98% RH, 52F, 3% salt min, 14-15% salt max, pH >5.8
HTH,
Larry