Brie has a soft spot

[Brewddah]

I'm fairly new to cheese making. I successfully made chevre, and decided to move on to something that has to age. My brie-style has been aging for 5 days at 55F, and the fuzzy white mold is coming along. However, there's one spot that does not have as much mold, and it feels squishy. Is it ruined? What should I do?

 

[Gadjobrinus]

I'm fairly new to cheese making. I successfully made chevre, and decided to move on to something that has to age. My brie-style has been aging for 5 days at 55F, and the fuzzy white mold is coming along. However, there's one spot that does not have as much mold, and it feels squishy. Is it ruined? What should I do?

View attachment 688412

What that most likely is is heavy proteolysis, "slip skin" or "toad skin." Even better is the french, "peau de crapaud." Tasty, no?

It is a typical problem among bloom-based, geotrichum-heavy cheeses such as brie and camembert. There are different strains of geo, some of which are more proteolytic (note: these also give great flavor, due to the breakdown products from proteins) than others. The lunar-landscape ridging I'm seeing there seems pretty classic.

So,

-did you use Geo? Which strain?
-how did you seed the surface, and are you continuing to wash or spray it with a geo solution?
-what is your aging temp? Residual humidity, or how are you keeping things moist?
-are you getting air to the cheeses for some portion of the day?
-did you brine, or dry salt?

Here's a good pic of one of my reblochons from years ago. Tastes great, epic toad skin failure:

Very flavorful, very wrong, goo just below the surface. An overamped affinage. You can see the wrinkly surface ("toad skin"), and the second photo shows exactly why it's called "slip skin" as it literally forms this heavily proteolysed layer just below the surface, total liquefaction, so the rind can just slip right off.

 

[Brewddah]

I did not buy a geotrichum strain, I inocculated the milk with the rind my favorite local brie-style. Admittedly I was rolling the dice on that one! I was not spraying the surface at all. I salted the surface with cheese salt, did not do a brine. I am aging at 55F in a plastic box. I have the cheese on a wooden mat with a damp paper towel off in the corner of the box. The cheese gets air whenever I open the box to turn it over twice a day.

This issue appears to only be on one part of the cheese. Is there any way I can prevent it from spreading throughout?

 

[Kent88]

Just asked a professional. She told me it is hard to know. It could be uneven, or maybe you had it in contact with something for a while and that might have messed something up. It might be going bad, but it is hard to know.

Do you have an earlier picture of your brie?

 

[Brewddah]

Unfortunately I do not