newbie - 15 February 2009 01:22 PM

I’m not advocating this, just reporting on a book I’m reading.
IMHO I doubt that 30 seconds would ‘melt and deform’ the cheese, but it will certainly kill the baddies and the smell.It would be worth a try.
It’s too easy to lightly dismiss a new idea without putting it to a test.

I am not dismissing anything here, and i am very open for any idea, i just wrote my own personal opinion about this method , that’s all

go ahead and try it, and send us ur test results

newbie - 11 February 2009 01:53 AM

If I may butt in.
The book I am reading offers a cure for mould which I have never heard of, so I offer it here.
Hot Salt Water Cure
Boil some water with about 3 tablespoons of salt per quart. Then use a spatula to lower the cheese into the boiling water.
Let the cheese remain under water for about 30 seconds, then remove. The mould will be gone, and usually the smell associated with the mould will have disappeared.
I have not tried this, so I cannot vouch for it’s efficiency. Without rancour, I don’t suffer from moulds.

Guys, gave this a try and as for leaving you with a nice looking wheel of cheese after the process, it does not work.
I unwrapped a wheel of Gouda this morning and right away knew that something wasn’t right.
First of all, the wheel was pretty damp and there was a “sour” smell issuing from the cheese.
It seems that I got in too big of a hurry to wax this wheel and it was not sufficiently dry. The result was whey leaking out of the wheel and resting between the cheese and the wax for over 2 months.
I tried wiping with brine and also with vinegar but still didn’t like the smell of the wheel, but regardless I sliced off a very thin piece and immediately spat it out.
Well tonight I figured I had nothing to lose so I gave it the hot water treatment.
I dipped the cheese into “near” boiling water (212 degrees….just starting to boil) and began to count.
Well at a count of 10 I could see the surface starting to soften and by 20 seconds I could see some serious melting going on.
At that point I lifted the cheese out of the water and it was really melted about a 1/2 inch into the wheel.
I have not smelled, or tried the cheese after doing this.
I immediatly dropped the wheel into a container of saturated brine and will leave it there for the next couple of hours.
I don’t have a lot of hope for this cheese, but I figured I had nothing to lose from trying the hot water treatment.
It really ticks me off when a cheese goes bad, and especially so a Gouda. This is a 10 hour cheese and those are the ones that should NEVER go bad.
Oh well….
Live and learn, right?

Dave

Okay, I let the cheese soak in brine for right about two hours and the smell was still not right.
At this point I began to think that it might just be a surface problem so I proceeded to cut a 5 in circle out of the middle of the 6” diameter cheese, and trim off all of the surface pieces.
Well lo and behold the problem was on on the surface and as far as taste goes, this might be the best Gouda I’ve ever made.
I did take a small taste of the “rind” after the hot water treatment and it was still just as rancid as before. I’m just thrilled that I was able to salvage probably 85% of this wheel.
The texture sort of sucked on this wheel as it is soft, yet crumbly. Also there is a lot of open places in the cheese. This was long before I started pressing with higher weights and of course this one was made without the aid of a Ph meter.
I will say that the surface knit of this wheel was perfect but like all of my previous Gouda attempts the interior of the cheese was not solid.
I’m going to try another Gouda sometime in the next few weeks to see how it goes with a Ph specific recipe.
I feel very confident that by hitting the Ph marks and pressing with the higher weights I will finally get the wheel of Gouda that I’ve been searching for over the last 3 years.
Thanks to Newbie for suggesting this method but unfortunately it did not work for me.
At least it gave me something to try instead of just chucking the wheel in the trash.

Dave

Good luck ! your problem reminds me again as to how important it is to salt the outside so that any potential bacteria is squelched even when their was seepage,  Im even considering making a “salt sauce” that is highly concentrated/saturated and then paint it on the surface before waxing it (after it dries) we put allot of work into making our cheeses and its very disappointing to have it gone to waste.

Thanks Dave for sharing us with your story and test results, and now , u r sure that boiling the cheese for 30 seconds will deform the cheese and will not solve the problem