Stilton Update #1

Sailor Rick ♦ January 14, 2015 ♦ 1 Comment

Well it has been 10 days since the Stilton make and this update covers the first 8 days after the make. I just haven’t had time to compile my thoughts and photos into a post.

After the make and moulding of the cheese I left the cheese at room temperature in a container that was 95% sealed to conserve moisture and hold the humidity. My room temperature is 21 degC for 9 hours a day and 18degC for the remainder.

I flipped the cheese daily but did not remove it from the mould when flipping it.

The P. Roqueforti began to show its presence on the fourth day.

Day 4

Each day the blue began to creep into more and more of the crevices on the ends; but because I didn’t remove it from the mould I couldn’t tell what was happening on the sides.

Side A, Day 5

Side B, Day 5

I continued flipping daily until the great unveiling on day 8.

Day 8, Side A

Day 8, Side B

At this point there was a divergence in the various make recipes I have and I decided to deviate from the direction that Ian the ‘Cheese Yoda’ took where he smoothed the exterior surfaces of his cheese before placing it into the cool storage for longer aging. It is really awesome to have a couple of cheesemaking friends that I can bounce ideas off of and then we can compare and contrast our cheese makes which results in us all becoming better cheesemakers. I have another cheesemaking friend, Addie who I haven’t mentioned in these recent posts lately as he is off traveling the world and doing some cheesemaking consulting in India but he is also a great sounding board for ideas when he is here in Edmonton or has an internet connection.

Another difference I made was to place my cheese on a cedar plank that I had soaked in brine before use. I dried the exterior of the plank before placing the cheese on it. I then loosely covered the cheese with cheese cloth that was also damp with brine; placed it in a closed container and placed the container into my 12 degC aging cave 😉 for further aging.

 Walking The Plank To The Cave

Cheese Ready for Cool Aging

I will keep you posted on how this cheese progresses and I’m sure months from now Ian and I will compare our cheeses to see how they turned out so stay tuned!

Today’s Epilogue

First off in my initial post I wrote about how Stilton is an EU protected cheese; so with that in mind I have decided to name this cheese make so without further adieu

I give you:

* Stilmonton *

Side Note:

The League of YEG Home Cheese Makers

Both Ian and I are members of The League of YEG Home Cheese Makers a group of local cheese makers that we are trying to reinvigorate during 2015. The League has a Google+ presence as well.