Hi,

I’m new to cheese making having made two batches of Camembert to date both of which turned out well - had a good flavour etc. but both batches ended up very runny around the inner circumference of the rind after only a couple of weeks while the centre of the cheese hadn’t fully matured but had a nice consistency.  Is this a common problem and are there any suggestions for improving the problem.

Thanks
Peta

usually its when temps are a bit high it gets runny or suffocation, thats my experience.

Thanks I’ll pay more attention to both points on my next batch.

O, Welcome to the site !!!!!

I’ve had the same problem a couple of times, so consulted a local artisan cheese maker. His inputs were:

1) The culture is too aggressive. Either find a less aggressive culture, or back off on the amount. Too little and you just need more time. Too much and no way to recover.
2) I had been spraying the p. candidum on the cheeses. He said to simply add the culture to the milk and not spray. Trouble with spraying is that amounts and moisture are less controlled.
3) Temperature needs to be kept between 50 and 54 F.

So, on my most recent batch I added a small amount of p. candidum to the milk. Now, after 7 days I have a nice bloom of white mold. Plan to wrap all four rounds in cheese paper within a day or two. I will then age two rounds at 45 degrees in order to keep them longer, the other two at 54 degrees to eat sooner. So far, so good.

Thanks.  That sounds really useful.  I do add p. candidum to the milk so I’ll try a bit less and monitor the temperature a little more carefully. Good to be able to ask the questions - thanks for the site!

Rick Robinson - 24 November 2008 04:23 PM

I’ve had the same problem a couple of times, so consulted a local artisan cheese maker. His inputs were:

1) The culture is too aggressive. Either find a less aggressive culture, or back off on the amount. Too little and you just need more time. Too much and no way to recover.
2) I had been spraying the p. candidum on the cheeses. He said to simply add the culture to the milk and not spray. Trouble with spraying is that amounts and moisture are less controlled.
3) Temperature needs to be kept between 50 and 54 F.

So, on my most recent batch I added a small amount of p. candidum to the milk. Now, after 7 days I have a nice bloom of white mold. Plan to wrap all four rounds in cheese paper within a day or two. I will then age two rounds at 45 degrees in order to keep them longer, the other two at 54 degrees to eat sooner. So far, so good.

very nice ideas here !!  thanks