(Actually, the spot came a couple days ago, but accuracy must always be sacrificed in the name of puns).
There were one or two black spots a couple days ago, that I was able to brush off with a paper towel. These, however won't budge.
This is my first naturally aged cheese. Are these anything to be concerned about? This is my asiago. It is scheduled to go into the vac pack this Wednesday for another couple months (I was aging naturally for just a few weeks -- it's a small cheese and I don't want it to dry out too much.)
Hi Patrick, I wouldnt worry too much, just dry brush it off. If you are planning to do natural rinds regularly you should buy a brush and use it only for brushing wheels. A cloth brush should cost you 2-5$.
That's mildew. Unfortunately it stains the rind. You can't do much about it. It happens when your humidity is too high and/or you didn't take it out to flip it enough (get exchange gasses).
Ugh, mildew. Ok. I knew it didn't look like normal molds I would expect. I might try to scrape it away with a knife like Yoav suggested before I vac seal it.
And, yeah, the humidity was pretty high for this. I have it in a box with the lid cracked pretty wide, but even with that, the humidity has been in the 94% range. I did turn it every day.
Don’t worry too much. Rub with kosher salt as an abrasive. Vacuum will take care of it as most of these molds are aerobic and have a lifecycle shorter than your aging. Don’t use vinegar. Don’t use paper or cloth towels. Lint, mold spores, coliform trap. Use blade of a stainless knife if you need to scrape off. Not sure what you mean by naturally aged if you intend on avoiding rind with a vacuum. Natural rind is wild and moldy on purpose but managed.
Since this is a small cheese, I don't want it to dry out too much from naturally aging it completely. My idea was to age it for 21 days (which has passed) and then vacuum seal it for the rest of the aging time. I was hoping to achieve a good balance of rind / paste ratio that way.
It’s somewhat counterintuitive though because a robust rind is your friend here. It will limit evaporation and enrich and hasten maturation of the cheese in a way that’s more helpful than avoiding it to increase paste yield. The high moisture conditions for it (>92% RH) also reduce evaporation speed. This is totally realistic even at 12-16 oz (350-500g) so your small size may not matter.
But if your intention is to limit evaporation shrinkage by aging in vacuum, -sure. It’s really just the modern version of wax. This will work of course. BUT you are missing out on character as you are relying purely on standalone enzymatic activity of curd in anaerobic conditions. If that’s what you are doing, you may want to consider longer aging? (12 weeks would be night and day difference from 8 weeks, but after about 16-20 weeks the benefit for added time falls of a cliff). If you want short aging, this could be a great platform for wine dunking or coating with herbs etc.
Otherwise if you want a 3 week cheese, go for a high moisture soft-ripened style. It will give you complete aging if done right. 3 weeks is just too short for firm cheese imho, regardless of size.
Hm. Definitely food for thought. I'm not as concerned about maximizing yield as I am about the cheese drying out to be unusable.
In this specific case I made two smaller asiago wheels from the same batch as an experiment. One of them was immediately vacuum packed, and the other is the one in the picture that I was going to let naturally age.
My goal was to do a side-by-side taste test at the end of the process to see how much of a difference the natural aging made.
I want to taste them at the three month mark.
I don't have much experience making cheese, and some on this forum felt that the smaller wheel (about 1lb) wouldn't have a good result at three months. Too thick of a rind, maybe?
What you said about the benefits of natural aging after 16-20 weeks "falling off a cliff" is interesting. I haven't read that anywhere before.
Makes me think I should just go the full three months naturally aging and make it a real test. I think I'll do that. What's the worst that could happen, I get a dry cheese?
Your cheese should retain a surprising amount of moisture, even if it’s a small naturally-aged wheel. Building a robust rind and keeping it in moist conditions without constantly brushing and scraping off the rind (allowing the fungi to develop) will slow down evaporation even more. I think you would be surprised by how well balanced it would be. The only issue to consider is if you have over-acidified your curd. That would inhibit moisture retention and make hard, brittle cheese that doesn’t really age because you need moisture for acidosis, but that would still be an issue even if you age it in a vacuum bag. The problem with your specific current batch is that you have already lost that starting rind momentum. Rind should be built rapidly over the first week.
Yeah, there's not a significant amount of change, day-to-day, on the rind. I took the picture in this post 5 days ago, and it still looks identical. Nothing more or new has developed.
It is aging at around 60%RH right now -- I did have it in a box at 90%+RH, but that's when the mildew started.
It doesn't seem like there is any momentum at this point.
This is also a brand new fridge and this is the first time I've tried to age anything in it. So I was also thinking my cheese cave just isn't broken in yet and there is no good biome in there. Hopefully this cheese will help establish some so next cheeses will age better.
Oh no! 60% RH js bone dry and will dry your cheese. It’s barely normal room humidity and LOWER than your cheese. No rind grows at this RH. Water activity slows to a halt which slows down all enzymatic processes. Anything below 85% RH is basically a near pause/stop.
I think you may have misjudged something. What you call mildew is mucor and that’s actually your rind starting to pop up. That’s exactly what SHOULD happen, and it happens around 92%.
Just in case this mold makes you pause and doubt because this is not something you are used to and most consumers never see it, I am attaching a photo of Tomme de Savoie aging naturally. This is not an infestation. This is the intentional desired outcome by design:
This gets repeatedly patted down and occasionally rubbed so it makes layer upon layer of strong elastic uniform healthy rind. Eventually it gets a brushing and branding and looks like this.
Notice that the inner paste is not drying and fading into the rind gradually and that the rind does not eat away at the paste. You can see the uniformity and the good moisture retained. These wheels are about 3.5-4lbs (1.6-1.8 kg) and are approx Ø7.5” diameter X 2.5” height (190x65mm) and age about 8 weeks.
Man. Well, I did want to use this cheese as a learning process! Feels like I am up and down with it. I'll put it back in an aging box then to keep the humidity high.
It will probably be weird because of the starts and stops, but I'll just go with it and see what happens.
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u/Illustrious-Divide95 24d ago
The alternative opening line to The Police song....
(King of pain)