Okay, so I was all proud of myself for getting my pictures organized and downloaded and started to post, and somewhere along the line I messed up with the pictures and now I can't even see that first thread. Rather than re-type all my prior babbling, I'm going to skip straight to the current picture and ask the actual important question here in this thread - should I try to get rid of all these white fuzzies on my Stiltons?
Thanks for the help - and please ignore the other thread even if you CAN see it. :)
Oops - my sincerest apologies. Was in a rush to get a cheddar started this morning, that's my lame excuse. While I was waiting for some stage or other on it, I came back in and did, oh, an actual search looking for references to the white mold on Stiltons. Found the answer (I think) - that it's to be expected and not to worry about it. So I'll leave it alone unless someone tells me differently. (I have not scraped or wiped either of the Stiltons at all, and don't intend to unless something really scary happens.)
Sheesh - how embarrassing - first actual cheese-related post and it turns out to be something I could bloody well have figured out for myself. Sorry!!
On the other hand, I'm having lots of fun completely messing up this cheddar make. Heh.
Mine had some white like your pix and it did not hurt the cheese at all. Turned out excellent. It grew on top of the tan colored rind. I will post pix of the finished product in a couple of days.
White mold is also fine, and your cheeses look great, however after this batch I would toss those bamboo mats as you can never get them clean and thus will harbour molds. If you Search on Bamboo you'll find lots of hits.
Thanks, Mr. Kim - that seems to be what's going on at this point - the white stuff appeared after the tan stuff did, so it threw me for just a little bit of a loop. I suppose it makes sense, though, if the tan is actually die-back of the blue, then there'd be room for something else to take over.
John - yep, I'd forgotten to mention that about the mats. Of course I'd been assuming that I could just scrub them a bit and then boil them for a while. Will the boiling not kill the mold? (But they look so PRETTY all blue like the cheese!) ;)
One of the reasons that I adore making Stilton is all the different molds that arrive on the surface. It goes from tan to white to gray--and they all meld together within a month and form the glorious crust that will become Stilton. Continue to turn them 2-3 times per week, and uncover them at least once per week for a half an hour to give them a chance to breathe. Do not scrape this cheese--you will lose the essence and interior qualities if you do. Good luck and keep us posted!
Note to self: John is always right about bamboo mats, John is never wrong about bamboo mats. (repeat three times) ;D
After the blue muenster escapade, I did scurry out to the craft store and get a bunch of those needlepoint-type mats. Have also decided that from now on, I do only ONE moldy-type cheese at a time, till safely stored/vac'd away. Heh.
Anyway, decided it was time to pierce these dudes - they are 4 and 3 weeks old now. I don't recommended using a double-pointed knitting needle to pierce - gets a little painful when trying to push it into solid spots of the cheese!
They look a little messy 'cause I did end up pulling out little teensy weensy bits of cheese here and there - but they tasted fantastic! I figure I'm only going to be able to wait another 4 weeks tops, before I crack open #1. It'll be 8 weeks by then, so it'll be great, right? Right? Right? Right! (of course it will!)
(Brie, I didn't scrape at all, and obviously I waited all this time to pierce, too, based on Stilton advice here, including yours. Basically just the ingredients were a la Ricki Carroll - methods were all from here. :) )
I'm ready for my closeup, Mister DeMille ...
Me too, Mister DeMille ...
They certainly look wonderful. Bet they will taste great too!
Lookin' good!
A beautiful stilton it is--congrats! Hold it for 3 months, cut and post again. Against all wants--do not cut before 3 months--you will be pleasantly rewarded.
Awwwwww ... now you've gone and busted my impatient bubble! I was going to cheat and cut them at 60 days, then vac-bag 'em for another 30 (or at least part of them)! But now that I think about it, the vac-bagging will take away all the oxygen for the blue, won't it? Darn. :)
I may have killed it anyway - I got sick again a couple of weeks ago and didn't open the container for air exchange for over a week. Still smells good, though, so I'll take me chances.
You did not kill it, it will be a fine blue. Patience.
Patience indeed ... which I ran out of. I rationalized it by telling myself that I wanted them to be a little milder ... so I opened 'em. Stilton #1 was 9 weeks, and Stilton #2 was 8 weeks. As you can see, I need to work on my piercing skills a bit - guess I should have done a bit from the top as well. Plus #2 cracked at some point, but it could only have been within a couple of days of when I cut them.
They were both, though, absolutely AWESOME! Surprisingly, the 8-week one was stronger than the 9-week one - perhaps because I had milled the curd smaller for that one? In any event, definitely the best cheeses I've made to date (except for one heavenly garlic cheddar), came out exactly like what I was shooting for.
Honestly, I can't believe such incredibly yummy cheese actually came out of MY kitchen. There's even a British lady (friend of my milkmaid) who liked it enough that she wants to BUY some. Not sure I'll be able to beat these. Ever.
Looks great inside! Can't wait for my first blue to be ready.
Looks great--live and learn with the piercing. You can vac-pack it now and hold forever!. Cut it into wedges and vac-pac separately and then you will have your own reviews for aging times. Congrats!
NICE looking cheese George...Im the same as you. ;D.always run outa patience with the stiltons. Might i suggest you take a piece of your cheese and age it further. Try loosely wrapping in a paper towel and then put it in a zip lock bag. Leave the bag open enough to awllow the cheese to get plenty of oxygen, but at the same time keep the RH up. After about a month take it out and give it a try. Ive had great results doing this. The cheese continues to age and change flavor for many months.
Wow . .. just wow. Very inspiring. I have been holding off on trying a blue even with some P.R. culture waiting in my freezer as I do not have a separate place to age them. But these are making my mouth water! I may just have to go buy some in the interim to tide myself over . . ..
Congrats, and I'm sure you'll make many more in the same 'mold' as these that will be as good or better!
Thanks!! I'm still giggling over these a bit. I cut both of them into quarters and vac'd each piece, gave quite a bit away (but one quarter got me free seafood, always a plus!). I have three pieces left, that I am hoarding all to myself. Mine mine mine all mine mine mine!!!!
I'm pretty sure I can get extra cream out the wazoo right now, so I'm really considering starting some more of these. Although if I'm going to deal with the PR floating everywhere, I might just do, like, four of them, then once they're done, they're done. LOL. But I still have to set something up to keep them more separate than I did before - I was thinking about the garage. Right now the temp there ranges between 48-55 - usually 50 in the AM and rising a bit if it's a sunny day. It's almost March, though, so that's going to change. What would happen to Stiltons if they were aging at, say 60-65 degrees? I was kinda thinking the PR would love it, but so might lots of other rather undesirable critters ... help?
I bought some GE compact fridges for about $130 each--when I set them to almost 0, they stay at about 50 degrees. I use one for my blues and the other for my white mold cheeses.
Oh my, I SO cannot get away with another fridge in this house! There's the one in the kitchen that my housemate uses (mostly, I keep a few small things in there), then the one in the basement that *I* use, then the one in the basement that's my cheese cave (all of these are full-size refrigideezers, BTW), AND the little dorm one that I have in the study just for my drinkin' milk etc.
Although I wonder if I could mess with the freezer compartment in the cave fridge to get that low enough. Hmmmm.
Up to now (aging is SO much easier in winter!), I've kept the cave at 50-55 for all the cheddars etc. Set of shelves in the basement stay at a nice 59/60 degrees right now, so used those for Goudas, Havartis, etc. Right now I've got a batch of cams and a couple of Bries (my first attempts on both) separated in mini-caves in the garage, since I can get that to a lower temp (right now) by the simple expedient of opening the garage door for an hour or two very early in the morning. These Stiltons I aged in the big cave fridge along with everything else, but I ended up with an awful lot of blue cheddars and other things, no matter how careful I was.
But I'm guessing that 60 degrees is NOT going to be a good idea for aging the Stiltons, then?
60 is too high--I age at 50-55 tops, and when my caves are full--I will pull the blues first to age in the regular fridge at 45 degrees. In fact, I don't know of any cheese that ages at 60 degrees for more than a few days. So, if you don't have enough room in your 50-55 degree caves, I would move them to the regular fridge.
Actually, it was the Goudas and the Muensters I had on the shelves - the recipes I was using for both of those said roughly 55-60 for a few weeks, then they went into the regular cave.
I did check the average temps here, though (not being terribly familiar after only being back here for my second winter, and last one was REALLY mild), and I think I'll be able to pull the garage trick until sometime in April, to keep it 50-55. Late April, if I'm lucky. By then it won't matter too much, if I make the next Stiltons fairly soon, as they won't require as much attention so it'll be safer to keep them in the regular cave. (She says with a ridiculously optimistic smile)
Thanks for the advice!
How about retarding PR growth (once its sampled as enough for my taste I like my blues fairly light,not burning your tongue sharp) by depriving it of oxygen and continue aging at 45-50f will it benifit or should I just crack it open at that stage?