For my Stilton last weekend I used a springform cake tin (thanks for the idea Neil!). After two days out on the counter I noticed a metallic smell and some pink mold growing. I scraped it off. I wonder if the metallic smell is from the mold or the bluing.
Also my curds were dry and did not knit together so I had to press them lightly with my fingers. Other wise the whole lot would fall apart. Next time I won’t press in the cheesecloth so long so I get a softer curd.
If anyone has any other curd tips for Stilton let me know. And if anyone has experienced pink mold, maybe I’m doing somethingt wrong?
Sounds like too much cooking and its dried out, The pink mold can be a contamination, ive seen it before but dont recall much of it. Scrape it of or apply moist towel with vinegar Metallic? maybe the pot?.
I posed the question to Jim at New England Cheese Making Supply and here is his take:
“The pink is probably B.linens and a result now of perhaps too much moisture .. it is a fine line between too dry and too moist
.. nothing wrong with that mold .. at this point I might also take the back side of a knife dipped in hot water to smear all of the mold evenly (like icing on a cake) and fill in all of those nooks and crannies ... let it dry down a bit more until it takes on a matte appearance and then poke and send to the cave the pink is pretty harmless (and will slow down w/ less moisture) but you should get it to dry down a bit more first.”
Just thought I’d pass this on for any of you Stilton makers out there.
I think u need now to poke it..
the colors are good, looks good, it is all about the taste when it is ready to be eaten.
did u use homo/pasteurized milk? did u use Cacl ?
I poked it after a few days but when I scraped, the holes filled in a bit. I will poke again just to be sure the blue fills in. Not sure how the surface should look. Recipes say to scrape off every now and then. It smells really good, but of course no one in my family agrees ha ha.
I used unpasteurized milk so I didn’t add calcium.
I used raw milk, but the additional cream was not raw (couldn’t find raw cream at the time).
Jim at New England Cheesemaking Supply recommended smoothing the cheese to spread the molds (Blue and B. Linens) on the surface at the very beginning of aging. Then a week later I scraped/spread the mold according to one of my books. I can’t remember if it was Tim’s or Ricki’s. I believe the purpose is to scrape any slime that forms so the crust forms. I didn’t have any slime but scraped smeared anyway. It’s probably not necessary unless there is slime. But then again I could be wrong, I’m a newby!
I found that scraping was a bit of a controversy, the blooming protest the cheese for other strains, including if someone accidentally sneezes, so its a protective blanket. once its finished aging then maybe scrape it and wrap it. But then been doing cheeses for just over a year so by no means do I have the jest of the pros.
I have pink mold forming on some of my cheeses…I panicked and ran to my cheesemaking practice book, which eased my anixous moment. They did state that different colored molds, red, yellow and dark are sometimes present to the blue cheese rinds. The book also stated that cheese buyers look for these molds as a sign of maturity.
I thought of the release pans as moulds but I went a different direction. I use PVC pipe (10”) cut at the desired depth. The PVC pipe has to be OK for water as any pvc pipe maynot be safe. My husband and dad cut it without any problems on a table saw.
I looked into PVC pipe and i didnt get any, all the pipes that were wide enough 6’ or so were not food grade, even the ones that are meant for “water” are not “food grade”. Also what u have to watch out for is that when cheese making, one is dealing with acids, these acids may leach from the plastic that is not “food grade”.
Oh my! I may have stepped into a bit of a mess :( I went to a specialty water works store for the 10” pvc…Lowes only had the 6”.
I have some store bought plastic moulds ... hence the logic.
I have looked for the large wooden moulds…but of no use and even if I did, I probably would not be able to afford them. Guess one would have to watch out for the wood interaction also.
Thanks
