I'm expecting my first mold cultures to arrive by mail sometime soon so I'm wondering about how these are used for bloomy rind cheeses. Just to keep things organized, let me list down my questions:
- I've read that you can either spray the cultures onto a salted cheese or directly inoculate the milk. What kind of differences should I expect between the two? I do know that some cheeses like Cambozola can benefit from spraying to delay the initial bloom but is there a more pronounced difference?
- When directly inoculating milk, is the quantity of the cultures critical or is the proportion of GC/PC more important? The reason I ask this is because I make very small batches (3 liters) so it is harder to scale down.
- Does anyone know how much PC, GC, and (while I'm asking anyway) CaCl weighs for a given volume? I prefer weight measurements rather than volume as these tend to be more accurate. Then again, the weight for the non-commercial dosage PC and GC might be negligible, hence the question.
- If these cultures are dissolved in a light brine to be used as a spray, how long can they stay viable?
I think that's all that comes to mind right now. :D
Hi night sky
I'm from Iran so excuse me if I made mistake in writing.
1.You can inoculate the mold and ripening cultures directly into the milk and I think it is better than to spray it directly on cheese surface because when you inoculate into milk even distribution of spores occurred and problems related to weepy cheese emitted.
2.The proportion of PC/GC is 4/1.
3.You can get information about dosage of cultures from manufactures and at first you say what is your culture size.
4.Before spraying cultures on cheese surface re-hydration is required. Combine cultures with table sugar, pure salt, and distilled water and let rest at room temperature for about 16 hours to re-hydrate.
This solution can be stored in the refrigerator for two months.
Good luck
-Selenturk-
Good answer Selenturk. Have your first "cheese" on me. Welcome to the forum and tell us a little bit about the kind of cheese you are/will be making.
Thanks for answering Selenturk!
Just to clarify on the questions/answers further:
- Other than the distribution of the spores, does the inoculation method have any effect on the flavor of the cheese?
- Given that most recipes seem to follow a 4:1 ratio, is there a difference if for example I use 4g PC/1g GC compared to say 40g PC/10g GC. Please pardon the numbers, as I don't really know how much a "pinch" weighs, hence question #3, but I think it gets my point across. Anyway, if I were to guess, I'd say the proportion is more important but maybe someone can chime in?
- I've already looked through Danisco's datasheets and there's no indication of powder density and/or mass dosage. In fact they use the term "dose" vaguely. The cultures I bought are ABL and Sam3 for PC, Geo 15, and PS for PR.
- Two months sounds great!
EDIT:
So I crawled through the older threads and found an answer to the density question in this thread (https://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,15494.0.html) for a 3 liter batch:
PC: ~0.36g for a pinch
CaCl: ~0.8 mL which is ~0.8 g factoring in a bulk density of 60 lb/ft3 or about 0.96 g/mL
Given this information, would it hurt to use 0.4g of PC and 0.1g of GC?