I'm trying to perfect my camembert method, and have been having a bit of trouble with uneven mould growth. I'm determined to innoculate via spraying (suspended mould spores), but there's a definite dearth of information out there on this method, so pleeeease, anyone who has experience in this arena, if you are able to answer any of my questions I will be forever in your debt.
1) What's a good spray recipe? (I'm currently going with 100ml water + 1/8t sugar + 1/8t salt + 1/8t Pen C + 1/32t Geo C.)
2) If I were to, say, double the concentration of sugar, salt, Pen C, and Geo C in my 100ml solution, would that essentially double the effectiveness of the spray?
3) How many sprays should I apply to each cheese? (Currently going with one spray on each top, one on each bottom, and a couple on the sides.)
4) How many times and with what frequency should I be spraying the wheels? (Some things I've read suggest spraying once a day for the first three days. But this seems to contradict the imperative that they remain as dry as possible.)
5) How long should a spray last for, refrigerated?
6) Can the spray be frozen and still remain viable?
7) Am I right in thinking the finer the mist (from the atomiser), the greater and more uniform the distribution of spores?
8) Any other tips relating to methods I haven't already asked about!?
Thank you from the bottom of my heart <3
Why are you determined to use spraying? When I first started making bloomy rind cheese I experimented with both methods and for me found inoculating the milk with the cultures to get much better results.
Susan
Various reasons I'd rather not get into :) many drawn by the economy of spray inoculation + stubbornness.
I have had little success with spraying. I would agree with Susan that inoculating the milk is the way to go.
:( The first batch I did with spray-innoculation turned out absolutely perfect. And as I understand, it's the method exclusively used in large-scale production... So still holding out hope for my knight in shining armour!
Your first batch turned out perfect but yesterday you asked about spraying. If it truely was perfect, why all the questions?
Because I've since had little success!
I've never tried spraying, and from the other responses, I'm guessing that may be true for most on the forum.
But maybe we can pool our collective wisdom (in my case, more like a tiny drop of mist than a pool ...) and come up with some ideas.
Can you say more about the results you are getting? Or better yet, some pictures?
My first thought, based on what you've said thus far, is that it would be to your benefit to spray more than once; I would think that would give you a better chance of more uniform coverage.