My first attempt at Ricki’s Blue Cheese (non-Stilton) appears to be doing fine. It grew a slight light blue mold after 8 days and this past weekend it was a pronounced blue all over. Since then, the mold has seemed to take on a ashen green color with some hints of red smear. So what appeared as a bright blue has now turned to a darkened( almost gray) greenish color. For fear of maybe cultivating a bad mold, I wiped it down with a brine solution last evening. I might also mention that even though the humidity is running between 84% - 98%, the mold appears to have a dry look. There is nothing wet looking about this cheese.
With that said, my question has to do with the mold color changes throughout the aging process. Does one see these darker color variations vs a bright blue or green? I’m about 3 weeks into this cheese and haven’t reached the one month mark yet in order to do the scraping and smearing as outlined in the recipe.
Neil, you didn’t say if the cheese turned out bad or not or if this should be an issue of great concern.
The cheese (Ricki’s Blue Stilton) I made this past weekend and sat out in the kitchen until last evening was covered with a lite coating of blue mold. It also smelled just like blue cheese. Her recipe did say to wipe it weekly with a damp brine cloth.
Thats the cheese i posted pics a few days ago, next month it will be one year old ( wont last that long though). I did not touch the cheese even though it did weird colors. It turned out very nice. I wouldnt wipe it unless it looks like it needs it, my choice though.
Rick my Stilton crust is forming and it has green, blue, red, white puffs, and now it’s getting brown as well. At first I was a questioning the molds. Now I’m going with it. It’s also forming a sligh
Ha ha that’s funny. Apparently the rest of my message got lost.
Let’s try again:
Rick my Stilton crust is forming and it has green, blue, red, white puffs, and now it’s getting brown as well. At first I was a questioning the molds. Now I’m going with it. It’s also forming a slightly dry crust and I’m watching to make sure it stays humid enough. I decided not to scrape any more unless it gets slimy.
I think Neil lets a dry crust form without scraping. Is that right Neil?
Too funny. I experienced the same thing. I had 8 cheeses in the cave aging and once I put the Stilton in it was all about the smell. Now when I want to discipline my 12 YO I just tell here I’m going to “open the cave.” It’s that easy, it’s pretty stinky now!
Well I’m still watching this cheese in my fridge. I’ve wiped it twice with a brine soaked cloth and it does have a leathery look. There is no active mold growth going on since the leathery look took hold. It’s kind of a brown looking thing and has a strong smell, to be honest here, I’m not sure I’d even want to cut into it and taste it! Remember I mentioned in my first post about this cheese that it had that “wet gym sock” smell? Well, now it smell like a whole gym bag full of wet clothes! This thing is only about 40 days old too. I might try another attempt at this same recipe in order to compare the two outcomes.
I just can’t agree more about the exponentially stronger smell of the cave once the Stilton gets in there. Phew! Still, I can’t help it. I want to make another one.
Rick I just ordered some of those cultures you mentioned. Looking forward to the experimenting and getting more pronounced flavors in my soft cheeses. Butter…MMMmmm
LOL, well theirs a dif from strong and rancid. It actually works very well in potato base soups (with mushrooms). The blue cheese I have thats 12months old now u only need a thin slice to add to a sandwich.
