OK. I decided to experiment over the weekend. I made a 3# Emmental and added dried blueberries to the curds just before pressing. My thought was that the blueberries would rehydrate somewhat from the moisture in the curds. After brining for 6 hours, the blueberries on the surface are obviously VERY salty but I hope the ones on the interior will develop a nice flavor from the Propionic shermani. My intention is to remove those surface blueberries after aging. This will leave a hole where the brined blueberrries were at. I will replace those with fresh blueberries (stuck back in the holes) before serving.
The surface blueberries obviously rehydrated. During pressing, the juice ran and blended into the cheese matrix with lots of purple veins. Looks very cool. We’ll see how it turns out. Was this a crazy idea?
