Okay, I don’t really know what happened, but suddenly my newest provolone (about a month old) has started growing blue mold.
I’m guessing that at some point or another I was slovenly concerning my hand washing, between performing maintenance on my cheeses.
I checked this provolone just a day or two ago and all was good. I had it hanging in a makeshift cheese cave (stainless pot in a 50 degree closet) and it was looking perfect.
Well tonight I decided to look in on it once I was finished with my other cheeses. When I opened the lid and lifted the hanging cheese up, there were spots of blue mold all over both of the balls.
This was not a typical, too high humidity, green mold. This looked exactly like the mold I have growing on my Stiltons. As I said before, there’s not much doubt that at some point or another I contaminated the provolone from not practicing good enough hygiene.
On the bright side this cheese is fantastic.
Since I saw this as being a problem that I would not win, I simply wiped the mold off with vinegar and then rubbed the balls with a brine soaked cheese cloth.
After that, I sliced the outer layer of the cheese off and we have been enjoying it on crackers. The texture is as perfect as it gets and it already has an aged provolone taste. Now I’m wondering if I should eat all of my provolones at the one month mark.
The reason i saw this as a problem I would not win is because I made a mistake with this cheese.
When it was time to brine I absently mindedly mixed up a mixture of salt and water. Now I learned long ago that to keep provolone stable you use the whey to brine but this time I simply lost my mind and dumped it in a water brine.
Well the exterior of the cheese melted and when tying the cheese it cut into the surface. Sure enough, most of the blue spots on the cheese were in these indentations made by the twine. No matter how diligent I would have been in cleaning this cheese, I’m sure that one single spore would have survived and this would have been more than enough to keep getting the bluing.
So, it seems I am making a habit of eating my cheese early, due to mistakes. Even though i’m not happy about the mistakes, I am happy that I’m finding out that quality cheese can be eaten long before they are supposed to be ready. So far I have found that Gouda, Stilton, and Provolone can all be eaten early and still have a fantastic taste. The Gouda I discovered a couple of years ago but the Stilton and Provolone are totally new discoveries.
Of course I wouldn’t recommend this for all cheeses but I’ve found that certain types are great while young.
Lesson learned: Blue mold is VERY aggressive and has to be treated as such. Second lesson learned: Provolone is great at a young age.
A very informative evening, all in all.
Dave
