
This blue cheese is based off a recipe for Stilton. I expected a crumbly curd with a slight creamy texture and a sharp bite. I hoped that the raw milk (all Stilton must be pasteurized by law) would propel my amateur efforts into a nearly uncharted realm of deliciousness. The wheel was aged for 3 months, which seemed to be plenty of time for the blue veining to spread throughout the cheese.
As I cracked the wheel's stinky rind, I worried the cheese might actually be overripe. Looking at the cheese, I saw the complete opposite. Only a few whorls of fuzzy blue mold hovered in the pale yellow paste. The taste was mild, with a light grassiness you'd find in raw milk cheese. The finish was slightly "blue," with a brief tingle of acidity. All in all mild.
So here's what I think happened: My cheese cave is buzzing with stinky bacteria, after all the washed-rind cheeses I've made in the past. They stuck to the wet rind of the blue and created the super-strong rind. Sadly, I think I overworked/overpressed the curd, resulting in too few air pockets for the blue to grow. Even piercing the blue cheese with the steel spike only added marginal blue veining to the cheese. The one thing I did get spot-on was the acidity. Stilton isn't salted for a few days, allowing the acidity to build up. As soon as you add salt to milk, the souring stops, along with the acidity.
To end on a positive note, it's hard to be frustrated when you're eating cheese and thinking about making more cheese to solve your problems.
1 comments :
I like the new look and format. (Quick recommendation - Move the text Culinary Pen at the top of the page so its not in the way. You could probably even remove it because you already have the name below the photo.)
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