Blue cheese

Ok, The girlfreind loves her blue cheese. Real blue cheese you know the kind that almost wimpers when you cut into it. Problem is it is very hard to come by and very very expensive. I had a thought last night, the mold is just a simple bacteria that is living in the cheese. If I where to take a wheel of regular goat cheese and making a few holes in it then placing some of the bluer bits of a commercial blue cheese in these holes. Then I would place it in the cellar in a fairly humid box (tupperwear with a wetted sponge) until it starts to grow. What do you guys think? Would this work?

Wing nut

Wing Nut said:

Ok, the mold is just a simple bacteria

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its a fungus.

I think it would work, same as how you would inoculate a cheese shortly after pressing. might not be as well incorporated as if you aged together though but my experience is limited.

They take inoculated tines and thrust them into the unaged cheese, at least that is how it is done now. Your idea would probably work to some degree, but you most likely are not going to get a consistent product. What you can do, is if you use a recipe for a regular type of cheese, inoculate with store bought Blue. However, in my experience with doing this, I'd have to take the stance of just buying the culture and doing it all from scratch. You can do this without a press, the curds go into molds and held at the proper humidity and temperature. You are on the right track with the tupperware...but you have to be careful that you don't introduce other undesirable molds.

ahhh yes that sounds good. Hmmmm leeners here I come!

Wing Nut said:

ahhh yes that sounds good. Hmmmm leeners here I come!

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Try here as well.

zoebisch01 said:

They take inoculated tines and thrust them into the unaged cheese, at least that is how it is done now.

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Common myth. The tines are not for innocculating the cheese. They are for opening up air channels because the penecillium mold needs air to grow.

Normally the milk is innocculated with the blue mold spores when the starter culture is added.

brewmonger said:

Common myth. The tines are not for innocculating the cheese. They are for opening up air channels because the penecillium mold needs air to grow.

Normally the milk is innocculated with the blue mold spores when the starter culture is added.

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It is true that aeration is the main reason, however, some makers will use inoculated tines so it is not a myth. My Uncle used to work for a maker in NJ and that was the method, the tines would be used to both aerate and inoculate.

To be more accurate, my previous post should say that this is the way it is done in some of the modern facilities. Some makers don't even use tines. But if tines are used, they are either only for aeration, or for both aeration and inoculation.

Let me know how this turns out for you bro! I'm a huge fan of blue cheese and I could eat it with almost anything. Good Luck!

I was just wondering if wingnut ever made any blue cheese.

Hehe. I haven't heard of wingnut since

Oh wait my bad, he was on 9/5 last

Hahaha, no I dropped off the face of the earth for the last month. I was forced to go sailing on a 105ft sail boat. No internet there. The blue cheese did not turn out well. It got fuzzy and never began to resemble the real thing. I tried a bit, it was terrible. I am nut shure what to do next time. I think I will stick to store bought.

Wing nut

Old thread, but I have a related idea:

Here in Volcán, Panama I have access to great dairy (just bought a gallon of fresh raw milk), but not cultures.

To get around the lack of cultures locally, my idea is to make an acid set cheese (queso blanco) and innoculate it w culture from the commercial blue cheese.

Any idea if the acidity will adversely affect the blue cheese culture?

Kicked off my experiment yesterday, liquified a few ounces of commercial blue cheese in warm raw milk, made up a batch of queso blanco, drained most of the whey off the curds, but left the mixture very moist, then poured in the blue cheese culture and mixed well. Let sit for a about 15 minutes then transfered curds to cheese cloth lined mold. Set aside to let drain at room temp for a few days to facilitate culture growth. Will then transfer to cheese cave environment and see what happens.

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Yep, that'll work. I've done nearly this exact thing before. Blue cheese is quite acidic.

I plated the PC on a agar agar places with lactose as a growth medium.

I'll look for some pics.

BTW, I used a recipe from Mary Karlin's Artisan Cheesemaking. Ingredients below (I didn't include the process, but if you want that let me know).

Thanks. Ive got "Artisan Cheesemaking".

How long do you think a culture could be kept viable in a pitri dish (or otherwise) for future use in cheesemaking?

Curtis2010 said:

Thanks. Ive got "Artisan Cheesemaking".

How long do you think a culture could be kept viable in a pitri dish (or otherwise) for future use in cheesemaking?

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No idea. But it's easy to "proof" PC. Just take a wee bit, put it on a moist piece of bread in a clear baggie, and wait a few days. Green = success

Del

My quick and dirty blue is in the cheese cave. Its not pretty, but it sure smells good.

How long before I should expect to see some mold growth?

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Curtis2010 said:

My quick and dirty blue is in the cheese cave. Its not pretty, but it sure smells good.

How long before I should expect to see some mold growth?

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From memory, pretty quickly (1-2 weeks). You can get other types of mold growth too, so you should wipe it down with a brined cloth every couple days until the mold starts to take hold, otherwise the outside crevices can grow stuff you don't want. Might want to flip it at the same time.

As the pH lowers it'll get creamier and easier to wipe those crevices out of there. You really don't want those. Once it's got a coating of blue/green, stab the crap out of it.

Thanks. Will do. Was planning to salt it today anyway.

Got Mold!

It even looks to be about the right colors: mostly bluish, some whiteish.

Now...what do I do with it?

I stabbed it mercilessly with a wooden skewer and put it back in the cave at 50F. What else?




Lost electricity yesterday afternoon and most of the night. Fridge got up to about 60F.

Pics:

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