The blue mold in my cave has been a problem for a while now. I decided that Washing my cheeses more often would help keep the blue molds away but they remain steadfast!
Does anyone have any advice?
I'm washing with white wine, salt brine 3 times a week.
It's mostly on the tomme but sometimes spreads to my alpine style cheeses. What am I doing wrong?
I'm starting to feel really deflated and frustrated and it's making my job kind of sad. Any advice is welcome! I want to enjoy my time in the cave again.
Lower the humidity perhaps? For a while I had uncontrollable mold, and almost gave up, but then started cracking my ripening containers a bit and it got better. If too high humidity isn't the problem, then try taking everything out and bleach it.
Whenever I finish a blue I clean out the walls and racks in the cave with a diluted chlorine bleach/water spray in a pump bottle. Spray everything and wipe it down. That gets rid of the molds living in there.
Keep up the spirit! :-)
I've been keeping the humidity low as well as the temperature , and increasing the salt in my brine and increasing the b linens on the cheese.
I am noticing that the blue mold grows predominantly on the sides of the cheese and not really on the top and bottom.
I will try bleaching all the boards as the wood shelves have blue mold on them too. Thanks for all advice
You're both increasing the salt in brine and linens?
One or the other...
If you put in too much salt it discourages linens, if you put in less salt linens is happy. Both work. My examples are a Double Gloucester and a Tilsiter.
More salt-geo
https://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,13693.0.html (https://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,13693.0.html)
Less salt-linens
https://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,13985.0.html (https://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,13985.0.html)
But you also treat them differently. Do you want linens or a slightly cleaner rind that is less predictable? I've only done the one with more salt once before.
Stinky- wow! Thanks for that very informative post with links! I didn't know that linens didn't like salt I was just trying to murder the blue mold as it won't go away and is aggressive.
I suppose I should think about what I want. I suppose I am going for a linens growth but not super duper linensy. And honestly just any treatment that gets rid of blue mold.
Quote from: Mermaid on March 27, 2015, 10:12:30 PM
Stinky- wow! Thanks for that very informative post with links! I didn't know that linens didn't like salt I was just trying to murder the blue mold as it won't go away and is aggressive.
I suppose I should think about what I want. I suppose I am going for a linens growth but not super duper linensy. And honestly just any treatment that gets rid of blue mold.
Hm. I would start by cleaning out the cave with some bleach water, if you haven't already.
Quote from: Al Lewis on March 27, 2015, 06:56:26 PM
Whenever I finish a blue I clean out the walls and racks in the cave with a diluted chlorine bleach/water spray in a pump bottle. Spray everything and wipe it down. That gets rid of the molds living in there.
I ditto Al's recommendation having gone through a couple of blue incursions myself. If you have a lot of PR spores floating around you can put a bandaid on (i.e. wash) but the blue will return. I've got an "infected" cave myself that I'm going to sanitize because I'm getting tired of constant washing.