Hi Everyone. Yes indeed – i get my Roquefort project back.

I m dealing with koji so much nowadays… and that’s a mould with spores and doing its thing. Well, there are the other ‘edible’ moulds from all around – and i m curious to learn just as much of them as about koji. Let’s be honest – for now, i know some bits – but not enough. NEVER.

If someone missed it – you can check it out here and there… and all around. Those were my very first attempt with cheese ‘moulding’. Now i look back and it was soooooo silly and amateur hahahahahahahaha crazy. BUT i had to go through all those steps to know what i do know now. And it seems just crazy eeeeeeasy.

So. Roquefort. What did i know about it.? That its blue. Hah. Actually its white but spores up blue. Very pretty and it makes it ‘easy’ to identify (in the right circumstances). What else? Hm. That when i first tried to grow it on nuts it took AGES. Ducking ages – like 4 weeks or so. But i followed all the instructions and i had nothing just a small bag of spores. Now i know its waaaaaaaay more difficult to grow it from a spore than from an actual mould. A few weeks ago i started ‘the FATHER’ – as one of my vegan cheese books said. It took sooooo long again that i thought that the spores are just dead (well i ve got them since the beginning – yes 2 years now). Once it grew some mould by that time the cashew tasted sh*t. I used seasonings and wine and nice stuff – but yes. Because the whole process took like 4 weeks again all the other ingredients turned to taste disgusting. Useless. Yes. But i ve got a FATHER!!! now.

So Father is just sitting in a plastic container at the back of my fridge and slowly eats and digests all the cashews and coconut fat and other ingredients i used to make that unsuccessful cheese. BUT now i can use a piece of it to inoculate any new surfaces and the speed of the growth can be doubled up. Even if you are a good student and u keep your stuff in the fridge. YES YOU HEARD ME RIGHT. TEMPERATURE.

This is the other and most brilliant thing i learned during my new experiment. The time i can save by playing with the temperature.

I used to think that Roquefort needs chilled environment to grow. I don’t know from where did i get this – maybe cause before in my mind only the bluecheese existed as a thing and we keep dairy cheeses in the fridge, right? Also all the recipes (making vegan cheeze) called for fridge ageing. For 4-6 weeks yes. NAAAAAAAAAAAH :) so i tried.

I launched a toasted cashew cheeze. Everything as usual, toasted the nuts for deeper flavour, blanched with boiling water, added salt, some fresh young miso, coconut oil for fat and some bits of the Father. Blended the whole thing together. Came out the right texture – then i halved it.

So I placed Rockie A in the fridge covered with a wet cloth and plastic bag around to get a nice humid environment.

Then i placed Rockie B on the top of Samantha (my fermentation chamber) in my loft. Same, nice wet cloth around and a plastic bag – to make it cozy.

The next few days were quite hot. HOTCH’ yes. Up in my loft the temperature probably reached the 25 easily. If not more. So I checked my Rockies after 24 hours.

Yes. So only 24 hours passed and Rockie B was waaaaaay ahead of Rockie A who was just enjoying the chilled fridge environment.

So… frankly i thought that Rockie got inoculated with my other koji spores from somehow – as it was so quick and pure white. I have never seen this developing on the surface clearly so i did have a moment i was thinking its not Roquefort – but then what the hell is it? hahahaha

It became clear the next day (day 2) that it is my Roquefort. As tiny blue spots started to appear.

So after the 3rd day while Rockie A only had some small white dots on the side… Rockie B(alboa) :) was stunning.

So even 3 days experiment showed that Roquefort does love a warm environment to grow. Way more than being in a cool fridge. Of course its easy cause I’m not working with dairy right? Well yes and no. Did u know that for making dairy yoghurt u keep your milk around 40 degrees for 5-10 hours? How safe do u feel that is? hahahahahahaha that is the process of ‘souring’ things. Thanks lactobacillus.

After 4 days.

So. Yes. Wait. And how does it taste? Right? truth or dare. Both HAHAHAHA. Of course i licked my fingers and tried the results before arranging them in proper cheese wheel moulds.

They both tasted good (AND IM NOT LYING HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA). Obviously, the mouldy flavour is coming out from Rockie B and way more Lacto fermentation, u can see its way juicier and greasy but in a pleasant way. Rockie A still hiding the blue signs but also got a moderate Lacto sourness coming thru. I tore them into pieces and arranged them in a final wheel mould for another… week maybe. We see how it goes. But its awesome. Beautiful and tasty. Now i understand more some basic rules and will try to inoculate many more different substrates. ITS CRAZY EXCITING. Wonderful moulds. We die and they will still be around.

stay tuned. coming back… :P