So I cut into my first blue, made 4-5 months ago. The taste is blue-ish, for lack of better word. I poked, but no good veining in the cheese. It is soft and I have had it vacuum sealed in my cheese fridge for aging.
The more close up picture looks like there is a yellowish discoloration just under the surface. You can make it out on the picture.
Normal, or something else?
Looks like the curd was very soft when made. Also, you cannot wax or vacuum seal blue cheese. The air makes the blue grow.
The interior discoloration is from sealing your cheese up before the PR has had a chance to fully develop and even if you let it develop and then sealed it you have cut the oxygen off and all the blue will die off.
If you let the cheese breath for a few days the PR Wil start to grow again,
It won't be as good but you just learned a valuable lesson in blue cheese making. If you can eat it and enjoy, good job, if not, lessons learned (http://www.z4-forum.com/forum/images/smilies/smilie_thumbsup.gif)
I remember reading here that after the blue has developed to the point you want it, it is okay to seal up the cheese. My one and only experience with doing this is that it continued to age and develop a lovely complexity of flavor. But again, I stress, this was at the point where it was a blue as I wanted it to be -- the blue definitely stopped growing once sealed!
Fantastic. I did not know that.
I will open it back up and try it in a container in the cheese fridge
Next one I will also perhaps do a very little pressure or will make sure I drain longer?
Thanks so much!
Blue Cheeses are typically wrapped in thin aluminum foil to slow the growth of the blue.