A blue was the first cheese I made, because if it was already moldy there didn’t seem like anything else could go wrong (little did I know).

This is the second blue cheese I made, pretty on the outside:

And delicious on the inside . . . with the sharpness of the mold interspersed widely in the cheese. The rest was re-wrapped and will be even better in a year 🙂

In all evidence of truth, my blue cheeses have come all from this:

Then did every elementary school kids’ favorite science experiment, moldy bread with a sprinkle of the crumbles.

There are lots of varieties of the mold Penicillium roqueforti (yep, you guessed that it’s not only an antibiotic but also makes Roquefort taste like Roquefort!) but I’ve only used this one.

The mold grows from the inside of the cheese, where the pH is low, and extends its mycelium until the pH rises, at the same time as there’s proteolysis and lipolysis goin’ on, cheesely fun!

This one was a failure:

And my first attempt at a Shropshire Blue was not a huge success:

Too late to correct the color, but it has been very thoroughly re-poked and hopefully will get bluer.

Absolutely delighted with this, gorgonzola pic(c)ante using the recipe from cheesemaking.com. So pretty on the outside!

And pretty much perfect, crumbly and blue (and delicious) on the inside:

Yum!

-R