Blue cheese

Blue cheese is a paste that grew mold on purpose inside. FAO’s ripening types include cheese ripened by mould as well as by bacteria and enzymes ¹. Cheese cultures already names the mechanism: molds that marble a blue are inoculated or encouraged later, often by piercing so air reaches the interior. That is a vat and cave decision, not a folklore of unfiltered air.

The four-stage skeleton is unchanged: coagulate, drain, salt, ripen ¹. Openness in the paste — mechanical holes from the make — gives the mold roads. A tightly pressed, closed cheddar-family paste is the wrong geometry.

Aging is still composition plus looking #

CDR’s aging advice does not exempt blues: moisture, fat, pH, and salt set the trajectory; temperature and humidity are the room; periodic grading tells you whether the mold is the one you wanted ². Their shop interval is on the order of every two to three months for long aging, as professional practice. A blue that is too wet and under-salted will not become “more complex”; it will become a composition failure. See Affinage.

Piercing schedules, cave temperatures, and Penicillium dose vary with the make and aging room; they belong in a specific make sheet.

What to notice #

Look for even veins, not a grey smear under the rind only. Smell should be piquant and mushroomy, not ammonia as a room stench with a soapy paste. Taste salt and the spicy mold line separately from bitterness. The Cheese rind may be foil, leaf, or a natural coat; it is still a humidity membrane.

Bay Area teaching example: Point Reyes Farmstead Cheese Company makes Original Blue on the coastal dairy. Taste with Tasting cheese. Fermentation continues in the paste, slower than the vat. Lactic cultures in the vat are still Lactic acid bacteria, whatever genus names the 2020 split assigned ³.