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Just a quick update as I'm about half way through the maturation of my Stichelton and about 10 days away from piercing.

Conditions inside the mini cave have been very stable although I was probably running it a bit on the cold side for a few weeks while I was finishing off some cams in the same room. Temperature is now back to where I want it and I've got some interesting white and brown appearing (mostly on the ends).

Smells great, nice and mellow, like it's just waiting for the main event.

It's lost a small amount of mass and volume during the maturation but it's currently looking like I'll get a final yield of 13.5%

NICE!!!! AC4U
definitely looking edable waiting for the taste results

I dunno ... it's hard to draw any conclusions with such limited data to work with.

Just kidding -- quite an impressive data collection (and presentation) system at work there! AC4U.

Quote from: awakephd on February 10, 2016, 05:55:27 PM
I dunno ... it's hard to draw any conclusions with such limited data to work with.

(Thanks for the cheeses!)

Beautiful cheese! AC4U!!

Great looking cheese!  Looking forward to the tasting notes.  In the meantime have a cheese on me.   

excellent!

So yesterday I pierced it!

I followed Al's guidance on a 30 degree angle (I use disposable bamboo skewers) and it now has lots of holes.

I tasted some of the paste that was being extruded from the holes as I was piercing and it was very smooth and creamy with a lovely taste. I can't wait to see what happens once the blue gets going!

The plan is to let this mature for a further full 7 weeks - vintage grade!

Quote from: mikey687 on February 23, 2016, 07:19:39 PM
a further full 7 weeks - vintage grade!

What a fantastic phrase, "vintage grade" but how on earth could you wait another 7 weeks!?!? AC4U 

Mikey, I'm inspired and excited by your use of Potassium Chloride as an RH sink in a mini cave...had a quick look in this forum and can find very little on that approach - other than using NaCl to test/calibrate your hygrometer. Have you been logging RH fluctuations?
A few minutes on-line turns up a lot of info about using salt sinks, but not specifically for cheese making: NaCl=75%; KCl =85%; KNO3=95%.
I expect to have difficulty buying the pot.nitrate...
Do the sinks have to be as large as you made yours?

Another cheese for the result and for the in depth descriptions Mikey . 

Your mini-cave shows a lot of thought and engineering knowledge.  I'm surprised a cheesecloth "lid" would retain humidity that well but if so it definitely would  help with the air exchange rate that's so important with blues.   You're use of saturated salt moisture sinks is also unique to the forum I think as Wattlebloke says.  I have used both NaCl and most recently a half pound of KCl as a sink for a mini-cave with my last Stilton but didn't post details.  I left the lid on (a half-size polycarbonate food pan) and if I had seen your post I probably would have tried the cheesecloth!  I am a believer in using saturated salt solutions for calibrating humidity sensors and they are effective in mini-cave environments; here is a link with some good info. to "dial in" your target %RH. 

And it's my experience that you do need a pretty large surface area of salt "mush".  As far as I can tell though you can recycle as much as you need to.

More on RH sinks: A few days ago I set up two ripening boxes/mini caves in 3.5 litre food storage boxes (nearly a gallon), one with a slurry of NaCl, one with KCl, in both cases the slurry covers the bottom of the container in a thin layer. Surprisingly, both are maintaining an RH of round 85%: expected for the KCl, but not the NaCl. The lids are sealed tight, and it's amazing to see dry walls and lid: there is no build up of moisture inside, even though the cheeses are very young... I take the lids off daily for a few seconds, and fan in a bit of fresh air. Isn't science wonderful
I'll have to tweak this a bit when I make my first blue...

Looking perfect Mikey!!  Can't wait to see the inside.  Mine's still in the cave also.  Getting pretty ansie to open it.  Still fooling for that perfect mold for large stiltons.  Yours has perfect proportions.

Quote from: wattlebloke on March 03, 2016, 06:02:13 AM
the slurry covers the bottom of the container in a thin layer.

This is absolutely brilliant! The cheeses seem to be resting on a white plastic grid - did that come with the 3.5L box and if so, where can I purchase a set up like that?

The boxes in the picture, complete with grid, are made by Decor. Don't know if you have them in the US?