Just cut this baby and wanted to share my success.
The recipe is from "200 cheses".
The taste is good but has some bitter undertone, may be too much rennet.
That's fantastic!
In this case, it's not very likely that the rennet contributed to the bitterness. With blues, it's very very rare. Most likely, it is the aging temp, or the amount of blue inoculant used (or salt level). Basically, there's either too much blue or it is too active, and that makes it bitter.
[edit] Could also be a stray mold that's on the surface, but that's less likely.
Wow, looks great, fantastic amount of bluing!
Very wrinkly rind, did you smooth it to get a sealed surface before piercing to get blue inside?
Thank you guys for your input,
No, did not smooth it. Definitely will do next time.
This time I activated the p.roqueforti by adding it to a 1/4 cup of distilled water and let it stand for ~3 hours at a room temperature.
Also followed someones suggestion from this forum and for the first 4 days kept it at room temperature covered with a 2 gal. ziplock bag.
May be keeping it at room temperature contributed to a bitterness.
Raw milk or commercial bulk? With raw milk, you can keep them at about room temp. With commercial regular milk, you can't, you'll have off flavors.
I once did a side by side after I had a very puzzling issue with bitterness. Didn't have raw milk, used some regular store bought stuff. Everything was the same (I kept good records), and I had bitterness. Did another batch, exact same everything except the milk. And there it was again.
I didn't test this to verify, but theoretically, the higher acidity and lipases in the commercial milk do contribute to a different proteolysis profile. So I suspect that is what happened to me.
In the times when I have gotten bitterness with raw milk in blue cheese, it's been a temperature issue, or wild mold causing it, or an especially high amount of roqueforti. Rennet is usually not an issue with blue cheeses.