breakinglight11 | Dad's homemade Brie

My dad successfully made Brie!

Brie is a tough cheese to make because you have to encourage the growth of the proper sort of mold without fostering the wrong kinds of mold that will make the cheese taste bad. It can be difficult to do and often you won't realize that anything went wrong until the cheese has matured. My dad's cheesemaking teacher suggested that he just eat all of his bries as soon as they were fully covered so as to not give them a chance to grow anything bad. Commercial Brie is aged for a long time to improve the flavor, but their facilities have controls on them to prevent the wrong kind of mold that home makers don't have. Dad gave me two bries several months ago and likewise encouraged me to eat them early. One of them I did, but when I was cleaning out the fridge the other day I discovered I had left one the other untouched for several months. I was worried it had grown something awful because of dad's warning, but when I opened the Tupperware, it occurred to me that it had not been exposed to air since being packed, and appeared to have the right look and smell. Amazingly, everything seemed to be in order. In fact, it seemed good enough to take to the Labor Day party I was attending this past Sunday. So I did, and after allowing it to warm up for a little bit, I tasted it and discovered that it was actually pretty darn good. So I'm extremely proud of my dad for making a Brie that not only came out okay, but held up even after little bit of aging. I'm no expert on Brie, or any cheese really, but I thought it came out well.