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Wayne, You are going to LOVE making Stiltons!
Seeing that blue mold form for the first time is like seeing your first curd set.
It really is a fun cheese to make and the taste is out of this world.
Looking forward to hearing of your results.

Dave

Which strain Wayne PV or PJ, expensive isn't it.

PV and YES  it is expensive.  25 bucks for 10 doses
http://www.dairyconnection.com/mold.htm

Not saying it's better, but in the three blue cheeses I've made, Ive just used a little ground up store bought blue cheese in milk as the inoculant and within a few days I get strong blue mold growth everytime.

For my last two I bought a package of crumbled blue cheese for salads (picture here) and froze the rest so for $4 I have enough to make 10-20 batches.

It is one strong bacteria!

P. roqueforti ? 


Well isn't that clever.  Perhaps I will dedicate some of my future stiltons to providing a mother culture...
This may be my first, and last purchase of Penicillium roqueforti.

Oops, sorry Wayne, just read your post above and realized you already ordered some, sorry.

John I think you meant it's one strong mold, not bacteria. Making blue is not hard take a small piece of cheese like john did and put it on a wet bamboo mat and put in a cool dark place, in a few weeks you'll have more BLUE mold than the package you bought. I left my little cheddar, you know the one that has 10 different molds on it, in a frig in the garage that was off for weeks. Now this was before I even had blue mold from the store in the house. When I picked up the cheddar the entrire bamboo was covered in dry mold spores and they were  definatley blue.

Carter, thanks, I'm corrected, was thinking mold and typed bacteria.

It is one strong mold!

Of course it is, what do you think the smurfs are made of and why Gargamel always wants to eat them.

I need a hairnet and got to keep the Pug hair out of things.

I also use Star San.

I wonder though......... 600 years ago, I imagine a cheese maker in rags, stirring a cauldron of curds and whey and making cheese.  With goats and sheep walking about it.

How sanitary were they?

Brian

"Bring out yer dead" How sanitary? Remember the plague? Of course you don't you died. That's how sanitary.

 

  Pretty funny.

New here...............what is StarSan; is it purchased or do you mix it up yourself?  And BTW, I have some of that Lavender/TeaTree/Eucalyptus spray cleaner and I love it!!!!!

WHOW DO not use any secented cleaners at all! You want neutral. Not only will the cheese pickup the scents of the cleaner but they will pickup the chemicals.

Star San is a food safe sanitizer that a lot of us use here as well as brewers and wine makers. It is acid based, not burn through your skin acid more like citric acid. The best part it is safe to use right away without having it dry. Spray it on wait a couple of minutes and you're good to go. Although what I said is true and the manufacturer says it's ok and wont' affect the food in any way by using it without rinsing a lot of us here from the old days are just used to rinsing anyway. So we spray or dip and wait a few minutes and then rinse with tap water and then use.

It comes in a concentrated solution so you'll have to mix it up. For 5 gallons use 1 oz. and for a spray bottle use 1/4 tsp.
Oh, and welcome.

   Oh my gosh, c'mon, I already know better than to use it on surfaces/equipment used for food preparation...................I just mentioned it because a poster earlier had said something about a cleaner similar!  It has no chemicals - just vinegar & essential oils, and makes a nice, all-around cleaner, that's all I was saying.

Do you know what's in the StarSan, or could you post a link or something?  What I have been using is dairy cleaning equipment solutions from Hoegger's Goat Supply...................I have a dairy soap, a sanityzing solution, and an acid wash detergent that helps get rid of milkstone.