I am new to cheesmaking and have made about 6 cheese around 4-5 weeks ago. The Romano cheese seems to be doing good, several of the others are vacuum packed so it's hard to tell how they are doing but seem OK. But the Gruyere is soft and really slimy. It's even hard to pick up it's so slimy. A few days ago I wiped it down so it wasn't as slimy but now it's slimy again. It's in the fridge at about 85% RH and 55F. Do you think this is normal? Thanks.
Dave, I'm more or less a freak for French alpine cheeses. I'm not sure what rind microbial community you're wanting to build, but generally it's pretty B. linens and other corynebacteria heavy. That means the rind has to be prepared by yeasts and other de-acidifying species and, in the case of these long-aged, hard cheeses, often an initial rind preparation of salting - rubbing with coarse salt. A friend of mine, a top-level maker, recommends roughly 1 dry-salting session for every 2-3 pounds. These wheels here are Abondance and came in at about 20 lbs. I went conservatively and so did 10 sessions of dry salt rubbing, then into washing with morge. Mind you, lots of makers do a whole month of this dry-rubbing before beginning morge washing. There are a ton of approaches which I know can be more confusing than helpful.
There are all kinds of approaches and this is just one - dry salt to prep the rind for morge washing, then start applying your morge (salt brine, inoculated with species from wheel to wheel) like Shelly Belly says, until the end when you start pulling back to a couple times per week, then finally once a week until the end of affinage.
Just some points:
-IMO 85% RH is too low for this style of cheese. At this humidity, you're really going to have a tough time getting linens to take off - competitive edge goes to molds, though yeasts and cylindrocarpons like Mycodore can fight on pretty equal terms. You'll get some linens, but it will be like a lightweight taking some jabs in a super heavyweight slug fest, before hopping back over the rope.
As you move into low 90's RH, the yeasts and Myco, etc., will start to lose to geo's and linens will gain a better footing - the fight it out here, so you can end up with a mottled rind - which is awesome to me, but I love very rustic rinds on tommes and tommes, Abondance and Reblochon are about all I do. If you want a uniform, even rind, maybe pull back on the dry salting, for one, and start in on the washing earlier.
At 95%, you're moving into linens territory and the earlier species cannot prevail; at 98%, linens tends to be master.
FWIW, The cave you see above was maintained at 98% RH, 52F.
-The sliminess. Did this start over the last bit, or has it been there for a long time - how close to when you brined it did you start noticing the sliminess?
-What color is the slime? Is it kind of a sticky slime, or truly like a mucus-lime?
-Did you dry the wheel after your initial salting?
-FWIW, starting out, I'd recommend getting vat, pressing, drying and initial salt processes down, before worrying too much about rind species formation. So, to that end, imo the Danisco culture blend PLA is awesome. Yeast, Geo, Linens, even an Arthrobacter in there. From there, you can start messing around and add in some other species, like MVA, which is a staphyloccus (micrococci). They nuance flavor, aroma, color, even texture, if they are strongly enough proteolytic or lipolytic (be careful - some species can really obliterate proteins and leave you with an intense bitterness. Stay conservative on the proteolytic strength of a chosen species, is my recommendation).
Or, even easier, find a gruyere you really like, do what you can to maintain it aseptic until your cave, wash the rind of the bought cheese with your brine cloth, then wash your gruyere wheel. A good many makers in France and Switzerland have no idea what's in their morge. They just know it works, and it's been drawn from wheels forever, moving flora from one wheel to the next.
Or you can go absolutely insane, spend a ton of money trying to emulate alpine ambient flora and engineer morges. Mine:
"Morge 2":
Yeast: (14%)
DH (11.2%) (.8 grams)
Geo 15: 2.8% (.2 grams)
Arthrobacter (4.2%)
MGE: (4.2%) (.3 grams)
lactobacillus-Casei rhamnosus: (2.8%)
LBC-80 (2.8%) (.2 grams)
Linens (75%)
SR3: (21.5%) (1.53 grams)
FR13: (25.2%) (1.8 grams)
FR22: (28.1%) (2 grams)
Staphylococcus: 7%
MVA (xylosum) (7%) (.5 grams)
Originally, I intended for more linens in the blend. Original Morge, "Morge Blend 1":
Yeast: (10%)
DH (8%)
Geo 15: 2%
Arthrobacter (3%)
MGE: (3%)
lactobacillus-Casei rhamnosus: (2%)
LBC-80 (2%)
Linens (80%)
SR3: (15%)
FR13: (30%)
FR22: (35%)
Micro-Cocci: 5%
MVA (xylosum) (5%)
I know this is a lot. My recommendation would be to up your RH if you can, ensure you're finding a way to get some air in there (opening the door a couple times daily is better than nothing), and let's nail down the sliminess.