I had recently gotten everything ready to make homemade Brie for the first time, and hit a road block when I discovered I needed white mould powder. I spent sometime researching making my own from another cheese, but instructions were never included and most people said it was hit and miss in whether you could actually get mould to start to form on your own cheese. Theories seemed to be the cheeses from the store might have been bathed before shipping, killing off any bacteria that would produce the pennisillin needed.
I would really like to know how I can go about starting a mother culter or whatever it’s proper term would be. Or if it is worth my time to produce it.
Nice to have you on the forum. I wish I could help you with this one; but I’m not one to make bloomed cheeses. Neil will be along, and he’s got a lot of experience with them. I’m sure he’ll take care of ya.
So, is this your absolute first cheese, or just your first brie?
Thats how I started out by using store bought cheese. First make sure its a reputable one not one of the “retail” versions, the ingredients sgould give that away, so find an artisian one if you can. What I did is cut some strips and placed it into a jar of 2%milk or natural if you can get it, and let it sit for 24 hours. It should then inoculate the milk, keep it in a warm place not hot, then place in fridge. I did a pint jar, then poured half in my batch, you can refill the jar with more milk and keep it in the fridge and see how it goes.
Allot depends on the quality of the cheese you will use.
Good luck
I’m still fairly new with making cheese, I’ve done mossarella, feta, Havarti, Gouda, cheddar curds and sour cream so far. I’ve been limited as far as how big my pot is. Everything has been a 1 gallon recipe at a time. bought a “stainless steel” pot a few weeks ago that’s 4 gallons but I think it’s a fake stainless steel or poor quality as my milk does not curd at all when I use it. Any tips on finding a good stainless steel pot that fits 2-4 quarts but doesn’t cost a third of my rent lol
I’d say you should check out the Goodwill and thrift stores in your area. An enamelware canner would work, and you could get a 5 gallon size fairly cheap, if you can’t find stainless.
I’m curious about the Havarti you made, as I’m doing my first one today - it’s in the press right now. Would you share your recipe? And were you satisfied with it?
Just because I’m a smart alek, I can make all colors of mold without trying very hard. Sometimes it’s white, sometimes it’s blue, or green. Once I grew black hairy mold all over something.
Long time ago that I visited this forum and funny to stuble into this discussion right away.
That’s because I just today finished my first grow of blue mold.
Here is the description, placed on a Dutch forum by a microbiologist (so he knows what he’s talking about…):
Get a clean glass jar of about 1 liter (quarter).
Put about two slices of bread in it, in peaces and cover the jar with tin foil.
Place the jar in an oven on 130C/266F for about 30 minutes, the bread will be sterile now.
Meanwhile, get a piece of your favorite blue cheese and cut a piece from the middle, so it can’t be infected with other moulds.
Make a slush of that with a little bit of warm water.
When the bread is sterialized, sprinkle the slush over the bread, together with a little water.
Make sure the bread is damp, not wet.
Close the jar and put it for 14 days on a dark place at room temperature. Shake the jar every day.
After 14 days, get skimmed milk from the supermarket and put about 400cc in the jar.
Stir very well, so the milk becomes blue/greenish.
Use a cheese cloth to filter out the bread and make ice-cubes with the milk.
Use one or two cubes per 10 liter milk.
I used a piece of Fourme d’Ambert for this, because the PR used for this is milder that e.g. in Blue Stilton.
Hi guys, yes, still doing cheese with some intervals due to some heavy DIY jobs at the house. And I have set up a Dutch cheese forum about 20 months ago. It’s only in the Dutch language and we have over a 200 registered users now and over 14000 posts.
Funny thing is that we have Dutch speaking members from Scandinavia, Mexico, Marocco, teh Filipines and all over Europe
