I am really hoping for some help.  I’m a very novice cheese maker.  Aside from the easy instant cheeses, I’ve now made 4 batches of brie.  #1 was WAY too salty, #2 had mold problems, #3 & 4 look nice before you cut into them, and taste good, but are all soupy around the edges with a bit of more solid cheese in the middle.  I made it with this recipe: http://schmidling.com/cres.htm#brie and the only things I changed were I used both the Dairy Connection MM and MD cultures 1/8 tsp each.  And in attempt #4 only waited 1 hour after renneting.

I ripened in a wine fridge that’s about 55-56 F and about 80% RH for 8 days, flipping once in the middle.  And then I wrap them and put them in the fridge (42 F, not sure about the RH).  I took the first one out at 17 days and it is not so soupy but a little more bitter.  A week later the other cheese is very soupy, but more tasty, both taste pretty good.  The pics are of the second cheese.

The thing is, the solid part of the cheese doesn’t have that smooth creamy texture, it is a little grainy.  So I don’t think it ever has that nice commercial texture and then it just goes to liquid.  What am I doing wrong???

My first guess would be its too warm and its ripening too fast, a slight ammonia smell will also be present the higher the temp. Second is if the cheese is suffocated it will turn to soup, been their done that. Ive been threw all that when I first started, its just getting the hang of it. Temp is very important and dont always rely on one recipe, get a bunch and compare. My website shows the first disasters i did

It will be challenging for me to lower the ripening temp as that’s as cold at the fridge gets.  What temp do you do yours for and how long?

I used two of the plastic lined cheese papers since the cheeses were too big for just one.  Is that okay?

47.5 its warm here and the fridge is crap so it can fluctuate 8 deg with the room temp, my 2 bries i have in their right now are ripening faster then I would want. By the way, the bitternes can happen from the type of milk u use (I had that at first and I changed brands) and too much rennet will do that as well.

It looks like you age yours about 2 months, at 47.5 the whole time?  When do you wrap with cheese paper?

Yours look great, BTW!  Exactly what I’d like and I bet they were yummy too.

I’ve only made one Brie batch, but it worked out pretty well.  Mine was ripened at 12C (53-54F) and was pretty much ripe all the way through at about 7 weeks, but 8-9 weeks was probably perfect.

Other things might be that it was too liquid to begin with, so maybe if your curds were cut a bit smaller, or left to drain a bit longer, or flipped a bit more in the molds to help drain a bit more whey out. I also flipped mine every 2 days while the mould was growing, and wrapped it after 8 days.

Hope this helps

it’s caused by wrapping too early, the cheese’s suffocated ...

the cheese needs to breath

Samuelito - 22 June 2008 02:16 AM

I’ve only made one Brie batch, but it worked out pretty well.  Mine was ripened at 12C (53-54F) and was pretty much ripe all the way through at about 7 weeks, but 8-9 weeks was probably perfect.

Other things might be that it was too liquid to begin with, so maybe if your curds were cut a bit smaller, or left to drain a bit longer, or flipped a bit more in the molds to help drain a bit more whey out. I also flipped mine every 2 days while the mould was growing, and wrapped it after 8 days.

Hope this helps

Did you ripen at 12C the whole time?  The few recipes I’ve read all ripen at about 55F for a 7-10 days and then wrap and transfer to 45F for 3 more weeks.

Mine was 12C all the way

Hi Charlene-

My little dorm fridge is 50 F and I aged mine at that temp the whole time with good results.

Heather

white mold cheese process:

1- the mold start feeding on the cheese leaving behind enzymes which increase the cheese pH and same time smoothen (to cream) the texture and add its unique flavors.
2- now this process begin from outside (outer surface) to inside slowly.
3- so when u cut the cheese before time,  u will find smooth and grainy inside that shell
4- if every thing goes correct (humidity and temp) the process continue until it soften and smooths all the wheel.
5- after that the smooth texture start to liquefied, also from outer to inner slowly same as above.

your problem is that the temp was high, and the mold was so active , so it ripened and over ripened (liquefied) quickly on the outer layers, before even got inside (in ur case still grainy).

now for you, u just make it at lower temp , and u will be fine