Calling all cheesemaking experts: the following message was recently posted to the forums. Please leave a comment if you have any suggestions!
Hi, my friend and I have embarked on the cheesemaking journey and have run into problems while aging a parmesan. The cheese was brined in a salt bath for 24 hours. We are storing it in a rubbermaid container at 55 degrees in a "cold room" in the basement of a house, the room has a slight damp smell to it. 93% humidity (We now recognize the humidity is too high and have since corrected this by moving it to a different room) After a few weeks of aging, it has taken on a moldy smell!! There has been occasional mold on it which we wiped off, but now the smell seems to have permeated the cheese. I have washed the cheese to try to get rid of the smell, but the cheese still has a faint stench. Can this cheese be saved? If so, how? Also, there is a crack in the cheese about 2 inches long, is this a big deal?
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Keep it but it may not be good.
You should have extracted more water of the curd, before putting in the mold and before the brine wash.
The change in temperature and humidity made the cheese crack.
Has you cheese made a good rind? if not, maybe put in a cold room to dry out and make sure that the rind develops in cold storage before starting to age.
Do not keep washing, your cheese already had a lot of moisture. Leave it to grow a mold but only if the rind is fully formed.
You could also apply some heat to the outside to melt some of the curd and form a rind.
Basically, you are having problems with your rind and that is partially due to the amount of rennet that you used.
Thanks for your help!!
The musty, moldy smell is gone now, I was starting to think everything was ok.I think it has a rind (touching it, it feels hard, not sure how else to tell) How do you apply heat to the outside? If I am having problems with the rind, can I wax it instead?