It’s not so long ago that I was waxing lyrical about my lovely Caerphilly that tasted so good…..today I looked in the cave (after an absence of several days - pressure of work) and found that three of the wedges I had vacuum-packed had gone mouldy.
It seems to be only on the surface, so I washed them in vinegar and scrubbed them with salt, and repacked them.
I ate the slice I cut off, and the taste was reminiscent of the gorgonzola sauce my local Italian restaurant serves, not like Caerphilly at all. Fine if you like blue cheese I suppose, but I wanted Caerphilly….:(

So, questions;

How did my cheeses get blue/green mould on them? There is no blue cheese in the house, there never has been in the 20 years we’ve been living here, I don’t understand where it can have come from.

How is it possible for these three pieces to be overrun like this, while the remaining four wedges remain (as far as I can tell) pristine? They were all packed together at the same time, and kept on the same shelf in the cave.

Is this stuff safe to eat? It’s more than an hour or so now since I had my little taste, and I haven’t started foaming at the mouth .....

Is the mould likely to return once it’s latched on to the cheese? I washed it off as best I could, but the cheese does have some little holes in it that may harbour little blue-green mould nasties….Should I leave the cheese and see what happens? Slice off the outside bit and eat the middle quickly before the contamination spreads? Should I lower/raise the temperature in the cave? (At the moment the bit these cheeses are in is set at 16 Celsius (60 Fahrenheit), the outside temperature is low to mid 30s C)

Help!

Looks like a case of the “blue ghost.”  Your house is haunted!  Or at least your cave.

Seriously, there is obviously some contamination from somewhere.  The trick is going to be to find out from whence it comes.  I’m assuming these three wedges were in the cave as is?  That is, they were not entire wheels with the contamination inside?  How were they sealed?  Wax?  Vac?  Bare naked?

You said you tasted one of them - was it a normal flavor, or was it “off?”  Not knowing what the mold is, I’d be reluctant to eat it.  However, having trimmed it off, the rest should be fine.  When I was a kid that was standard procedure when a cheese got moldy - just trim it off and go for it.

As to the temp of your cave, that should not make much difference.  I usually keep mine at near 55 F., but the mold would grow there as well.  It’s the contamination that has to be identified.  Did you maybe use a bread knife when you cut the wedges?

Not knowing what the mold is, is a bit dangerous. Their is always mold in the air, thats how sour dough is made by wild yeasts in the air. In regards to Bread, mold starts from inside so if you see it outside then its already contaminated from the inside. If the area was contaminated from the start when making the cheese then its contaminated throughout the cheese. The problem is if its a good version or bad, more usual its the negative version.
Its up to you to be able to discriminate what kind of effect it will have, scraping it off might be fine and its just on the surface. See what kind of aftertaste you get and if it lasts on the tongue.
Could always use it to make a soup

The cheese started off waxed, then I took off the wax after three weeks, cut the cheese into 8 wedges, ate one and vacuum-packed the remaining 7. Four of the wedges are still snowy-white and beautiful, just these three are blue/green. If the contamination were in the cheese itself, I’d expect them all to be dodgy… (wouldn’t I?) Again, since they were all cut with the same knife and packed at the same time in the same environment using the same packing machine, if three got contaminated then surely they all would be contaminated…..(wouldn’t they?)

I think I probably used a Japanese hocho kitchen knife to cut the cheese, certainly not a bread knife. The love of my life may use the same knife to cut bread occasionally, but it would be properly washed before I used it for cheese.

When I cut one of the mouldy wedges it appeared white inside, so it seems the mould is only on the outside at the moment - though as I mentioned, the cheese does have some little holes in it, so I imagine it could spread inside given time.

The taste as far as I can tell is a typical blue cheese taste, though blue cheese isn’t really a favourite of mine (apart from that tasty gorgonzola sauce), so I’m no expert. There didn’t seem to be any ‘off’ flavour as far as I could tell.

If I put the affected wedges in the ordinary cold fridge, will that stop the mould developing any further? Will the application of heat (as in a soup, or faux gorgonzola sauce) kill off any toxic baddies?

Putting it in the fridge will slow mold growth, but not stop it.  Many foods go moldy in the fridge over time.  Heat may do the trick, but vinegar will kill mold.  Best bet might be to scrape off any color, then wipe it down with vinegar.  It would also be good to use it up quickly if you decide to go that route.  Since you’ve already tried it, and you’re still above ground, it would seem that it’s OK to consume.  So, enjoy.  Who knows; perhaps some day you’ll discover the cause.  But most likely it will remain a mystery.

The blue Caerphilly got turned into faux gorgonzola sauce for dinner last night, and very nice it was too….but it was just plain ol’ cheese sauce, no ‘blue’ taste at all, a bit of a let-down after all the trepidation….... Seems the heat killed off the moldies. I think maybe that’s a good thing.
At least it seems we will live to experience other variously-coloured cheeses.

... as we continue to boldly go where no cheesemaker,  er, few cheesemakers,  er, most cheesmakers have gone before.

Have you done any more cheeses since the blue incident?  And, if so, have you had any recurrence?

So most cheesemakers have at some time had to deal with mysterious molds? It’s good to know.

I discovered the blues when I was putting a Double Gloucester and Cotswold, properly waxed this time, in the cave. So far, they’re looking good (touch wood).

If it was “Blue Cheese” it would have left the taste. Blue cheese soup is one of my favs.

..so what we ate was just plain ol’ mouldy cheese?

To me that’s what blue cheese is - “plain old moldy cheese.”

That’s what TLOMF thinks it is, too. He doesn’t know he had blue cheese for dinner - he thinks he just had cheese sauce. Oh what a wicked wife I am. 

Hope he doesn’t read the posts on this forum!

lol He doesn’t read English unless he has to, so I think I’m off the hook.