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Hi,

I'm very much a beginner and have just about progressed beyond throwing gallons of milk down the drain as I couldn't get  a clean break.

I tried my first blue.  Kinda looks okay (and tastes okay) but the blue top is not very appealing?

Any thoughts?

CallumS

If you want to achieve a rindless blue, you have to salt the heck out of it to create a heavy salt gradient at the surface of 6-10%, to inhibit blues. The salt will dissipate over time. if you take a look at roquefort, gorgonzola, Rogue's blues, etc, that's how it's done, by salting after demoulding.

The rind is concentrated blue flavor. The best part.

Sometimes it can be overly blue,
I had some left over of from my mini stilton (500gr each) which continuted to blue and it was so pungent it burned on the way down.
Everything tastes weird after it, it messes with your flavour budes

Ah, salt.

I've shied away from salt.  In my initial experiments (trying to get a basic cheddar style), I rubbed with salt and wrapped in a clean handkerchief each day.  The result was a salt cake.  It looked right, it cut right, it crumbled right.  The look was good and the feel was good.  But it tasted awful: pure salt.  I guessed the salt had just been sucked right in by the moisture in the cheese.

For this blue (and a reasonably successful "soft brie" style), I put in the correct amount of salt into the curds before pressing/draining.  I had previously used free-running table salt (ignoring the cheese-supply web site's adverts for "cheese salt" (whatever that is!)).  However, for this one (and the brie), I used rock salt that I ground up in a pestle and mortar.

So, the questions are: (1) how does one get a "heavy salt gradient at the surface of 6-10%", (b) what salt does one use?

It's all good fun, isn't it?  I'm amazed by the number of people that ask for their own handmade cheese.

CallumS

Basically you want to wight the cheese, measure percentage of rock salt\kosher salt (non iodined which is anti microbial hense not recommended for cheesemaking)  according to recipe and just toss the cheese in salt, covering all sides.

Normal flake salt, the all-purpose stuff. Works best on a proper 8" diameter, 6" blue wheel. Small wheels are tough, very very easy to oversalt, and the gradient doesn't last as long, so you will get surface growth.

The blue cheese i made from 1 gallon milk, i salted the outside with 1 tablespoon of rock sea salt. It was enough to inhibit blue mold from growing fast, my rule of thumb 2 1/2 teaspoon of fine salt or 1 tablespoon rock salt per gallon of milk.  After 23 days there was still very little mold growth but the paste of the cheese has decent blue mold growth.