Soft-ripened cheeses have a thin, white or cream-colored rind that is soft and edible and sometimes a little fuzzy. The rind is often flavorless, however, if the cheese is overly ripe it can have an unpleasant aroma and flavor that is like ammonia. The texture of a soft-ripened cheese is soft or semi-soft, often very creamy and luscious and sometimes even runny. The flavor of soft-ripened cheeses is typically described as buttery, mushroomy, creamy, grassy and/or garlicky.
A soft-ripened cheese has mold (Penicillium candidum, camemberti or glaucum) added to the milk or sprayed over the wheel of cheese. This mold creates the soft, white rind and also helps the cheese ripen from the outside in. Meaning, the cheese begins to ripen closest to the rind first, and the middle of the wheel of cheese is the last part to ripen. If you've ever cut into a wheel of brie or a triple-creme cheese that is soft and runny around the edges and a lighter color and firmer texture in the very middle, you've seen an example of this. Once a wheel of cheese has been cut into, it no longer continues to ripen.
If a cheese is not categorized as soft-ripened, then it is either a fresh cheese, washed rind cheese, or natural rind cheese.
- Fresh Cheese: Fresh cheese does not have a rind and is not aged for any significant period of time
- Washed Rind Cheese: Cheese that has been submerged in or wiped down with some sort of liquid. The rind is typically red or orange.
- Natural Rind Cheese: The outside of a natural rind cheese cheese hardens naturally from contact with air.
- Brie
- Camembert
- Fromager d'Affinois
- St. Marcellin
- Pierre Robert
- Mt. Tam
- Humboldt Fog
- Truffle Tremor
- Bucheron
- Chevrot
- Sweet Grass Dairy's Green Hill
- Brunet
- Robiola
- Champlain Valley's Triple Cream
- La Tur
- Nettle Meadow's Kunik
- Green Dirt's Farm Wooly Rind
- Mt. Townsend Creamery's Seastack
