So,
I love blue cheese, hate the price of it. Thought, what the hell lets make a blue cheese as a rank beginner with no other cheese making experience. Yeah I know.
Anyhow, I had some old cheese kits in the cupboard full of all the necessities like rennet and baskets and a thermometer, there were no instructions for a blue cheese so I googled it and probably made every mistake possible. For a culture I put 30gms of blue cheese and a tablespoon of natural yoghourt into 2 cups of milk and left it warm overnight. In the morning I had solid culture which I added to my warmed cheese milk. It's a week along now and I have....yay blue and white mould on the sides and tiny specks of blue on the tops and bottoms. It smells like blue cheese. Bonus, it's no longer the soggy mess it was when I first turned it out of the basket.
So anyway this project was just a disaster from the start but turned out okay at the end. Well, for now anyway.
I Used ultra-pasturised milk (unbeknown to me) so instead of cheese curds I ended up with a vat full of thickened yoghourt. I left it overnight instead of throwing it out, it still wasn't curd by the morning so in desperation I stirred it with a fig stick off my tree after reading on the net that fig latex can be used as a rennet. My yoghourt immediately separated into a sludgey mess on the bottom of the vat and whey onto top.
Persevering I strained it through a cheesecloth anyway. It pretty much had the consistency of a sticky paste and was too soft to put into a cheese basket, it just oozed through the holes. Not wanting to throw things out I lined my cheese baskets with baking paper and then put the sludge in it. Put it in the fridge for 2 days to harden up. Knocked them out of the moulds and left them at room temperature and they kept their shape, whoo hoo! I couldn't turn them though because they were too soft, so I placed them on a cheese mat and just drained off the liquid everyday for about a week while also leaving the cheese at room temp to dehydrate. The outer skin was very wet and I thought it could do no harm to just let it dry out.
I was seeing plenty of white mould growth after 4 days but no blue mould at all. I kept it at room temp, near a window with plenty of airflow and let it dry out enough until I could start turning it without it falling apart and finally poke holes through it. The crack you can see on the side there isn't dryness it's where the curds were too soft to handle when I turned it for the first time. It's stopped draining now and seems quite firm to the touch. I think I can finally rest this one in the cheese cave where it's cooler now. I've salted it for a few days, tasted it so far and it tastes like good strong blue cheese. There are no off smells just good clean cheese.
I think this one will never be as firm as it should but I can see the mould growing in some of the holes of the cheese so I have hope it will become edible.
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A very interesting story. I like your perseverance and willingness to experiment.
I will be interested to hear what happens.
The one limitation which I think that you may experience is a lack of openings in the cheese for blue mould to develop.
How are you going to age it?
I have a cheese fridge. I can't get it down to 10 C but can get it to about 15C. Worst that happens, I'll throw it out.
Great job! Yes, it sounds like mistakes were made but it looks like your perseverance may just pay off!
I think everyone, no matter how much they have read or prepared ahead of time, always feels lost on their first few cheeses, and something always doesn't go exactly right. But at some point you just have to take the leap and try to make a cheese, and experience will teach you from here on out. Best of luck, let us know how this cheese turns out!
Awesome. I really wanted to try doing something like this some time (on purpose). I'm really glad to hear that someone has done it :-) Definitely let us hear how it turns out in the end. BTW, I've found that when I've had blue mould on my cheese and let it go, given enough time it will have a nice blue flavour, but without the veining. I'm sure it will work out.
Quote from: cheesehead94 on December 26, 2018, 12:13:51 PM
Great job! Yes, it sounds like mistakes were made but it looks like your perseverance may just pay off!
I think everyone, no matter how much they have read or prepared ahead of time, always feels lost on their first few cheeses, and something always doesn't go exactly right. But at some point you just have to take the leap and try to make a cheese, and experience will teach you from here on out. Best of luck, let us know how this cheese turns out!
Thanks, yes lost at sea is how I felt. I checked it this morning and seems to be totally covered in a nice white\blue fuzz now. Only 3 more weeks of aging to go before I crack and cut it to see what I've got.
Quote from: mikekchar on December 26, 2018, 08:12:36 PM
Awesome. I really wanted to try doing something like this some time (on purpose). I'm really glad to hear that someone has done it :-) Definitely let us hear how it turns out in the end. BTW, I've found that when I've had blue mould on my cheese and let it go, given enough time it will have a nice blue flavour, but without the veining. I'm sure it will work out.
Here's hoping. It's nicely coated now so just a lot off finger tapping to do in the next three weeks.
Cheesemaking - the only hobby that enables you to get excited about mold on your food. O0
Mold growth update. Coming along nicely.
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Time for a cheese update. The rind is coming along nicely it's starting to smell more like camembert than blue cheese to be honest. I tasted it recently and unfortunately at 2.5% salt its too salty. It's edible but it's not the kind of cheese you can spread on a cracker and eat. It has to be mixed into a salad or something because the salt is quite strong.
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The missing rind is where the cheese had touched as they ripened and stuck together but it seems to be growing a new rind there anyway. It's a very soft cheese like neuchatel. It won't slice it's going to spread.
Quote from: stinkycheesefan on December 29, 2018, 12:01:54 AM
Cheesemaking - the only hobby that enables you to get excited about mold on your food. O0
Hey Stinky, let me give your first cheese for jumping headfirst into this cheesemaking thing! :)
This is really brave tackling a blue cheese as a starting point. Reading through your make, missteps, and corrective efforts is commendable and it's difficult not to recommend this make for further laudable exposure here (https://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,10888.0.html). ;)
You should upload your pics to the forum rather than use PhotoBucket to host them. If your subscription dies or that company goes away, so do your pics, leaving your dialogue with no photo support.
Keep up the good work.
-Boofer-