Blue mold?

[bernardsmith]

A question. I culture all my milk with whey from kefir I make from grains. I don't drink kefir so I have enough kefir to make a hard cheese about once every three weeks. I noticed a few days ago that one of the batches of hard kefir cheese i had been aging had developed blue mold. I have not made blue cheese (with p Roqueforti for more than two years so I doubt very much that the mold is Roqueforti, but what is it likely to be? Is it likely to be safe to eat? If not, should I simply scrape it off the cheese and eat the cheese or should I trash the cheese? Is there a lab I could send this to that won't charge me an arm and a leg to identify the culture? Thoughts? Thanks.

 

[passedpawn]

It's still likely roqueforti. it's pervasive I think.

Don't know about a lab, but if you should know from the smell that's what it is. Growing a culture of it and observing colony morphology is the simplest way to identify yourself, though probably not accurate. I might be more adventurous, but I'd just eat it haha. I think most molds that develop in the presence of O2 are harmless; otherwise, our species would not be here to type on this forum.

As a famous journalist once said, we are not descended from fearful men!

 

[bernardsmith]

I ate the cheese and am still here. I am still uncertain about the nature of this blue mold but I now believe it may be on some of the plastic draining material I use to keep the bottom of the cheese above the bottom of the containers I age the cheese in in my cheese cave. Found another cheese - this one a cheddar that had some blue on the outside which I could easily scrape off - and that cheese was sitting on the same kind of material. (mats for needle point).