About a month ago, I received a very special cheese. A three-month-old Quickes Cheese! Why was is it special you may ask, as it's part of an initiative put on by our friends over at the @cheese_academy & @quickescheese to establish the Affineur of the Year! To be honest, it is a competition but it will be quite fascinating the direction that each maturer takes.
So what's my maturing plan, I think I'll be pushing some of the temperature and humidity norms of maturing cheddar cheese, just to see what happens. Looking at the cheesy stats, PH, water content and weight, I think this cheese can take it. Without revealing everything, It's a risky gamble but would provide some interesting talking subjects. Key points about our maturing schedule for the cheese, I'll be looking at increasing the rate acceleration of rind mould growth using our maturing rooms selective pressures, watching out for mites, changing turn schedules based on water content and maybe, just maybe a potential 'relarding' of the cheese (due to cracking, the risk of the early humidity changes. That’s a whole other subject. So, far so good).
I have also decided to trust Mary in her analysis of the flavour of the cheese, I'd rather not iron a core from the cheese as much as possible, to core a cheese at this early stage could provide more problems down the line.
I'll be collating all the data on how the cheese changes periodically and posting about it if anything interesting happens. Using the maturing rooms, I think the style of maturing might be best at 6-7 months, however, the competition will be going on for 9 months. Hey ho! We'll see how it all goes!
Photos below of it's weekly progress to see photos below of the stages so far. Really happy with the formation of the rind and the accelerated rind microflora growth.
