I have a little wedge of goat cheese that has developed a nice blue mold. The good eatin' kind, not the yuck kind. I wonder if there is any way to use a bit of this mold or a bit of the cheese itself to innoculate further batches?

-- Lynne (boodad@us.inter.net), August 10, 2001

Answers

Try it.

Another idea is to buy some blue cheese and culture from it, then compare the two to see which is better.

Don't be too worried about disease, just start out eating small quantities at first. Blue chees affects my intestines, but it doesn't seem to do any long-term harm.

-- Rick#7 (rick7@postmark.net), August 10, 2001.

I worked in the production department of the once famous, now bankrupt 'Egg Farm Dairy' and that is exactly how we made 'our' blue cheese. We purchased Stilton, crumbled it in a batch mixer with kosher salt and added it to the curd. In 8 weeks we had a mild blue, 10-12 weeks a pungent blue and if the conditions were favorable, the Gods were smiling, and the cheese didn't go rot in 16-20 weeks we had the real good stinky blue with a brown crust that you wouldn't even think of eating on a first date!

-- Kathy (catfish201@hotmail.com), August 11, 2001.

Forgot to mention in the previous post, we always pierced the cheese after about 2 weeks when it was good and firm. 1/4 inch steel rod poked all the way thru, with the holes spaced about 2 inchs apart

-- Kathy (catfish201@hotmail.com), August 11, 2001.

I made my first bleu by mixing crumbled stilten into some feta curd. I bloomed swiftly and well.. especially after I skewered holes through it in a fairly tight pattern. I age it in lidded bowls in the frige.. the down-side? Bleu mold is a very happy persistant mold and now it wants to invade ALL of my cheese.

I had a big rectangular tub of chevre aka fromage blanc aka farmer's cheese that got lost in the bottom of the frige when I injured my back.. by the time I could bend over and find it it was covered with a velvety blanket of bleu and smelled delicious! So I stirred the mold in and kept watch. I've done that a few times and have ended up with a most delicious creamy bleu. It has been going with occasional stir-ins of fresh fromage blanc since June.

-- Ellen (gardenfarm@earthlink.net), October 31, 2001.