Cheese Making Equipment, Cheese Caves
When making fresh cheese there is just the cheese making part of the process. For making aged cheeses there is often pressing and affinage, the French word for the controlled aging of the cheese. This aging needs to be in temperature and humidity levels similar to an underground cave, for periods of weeks to years depending how long you can or want to wait. Thus the term cheese cave. The temperature range for affinage is normally 10-13 C/50-55 F and the humidity is normally 80-90%. The humidity is critical as too low and the cheese will dry out and potential crack from uneven drying or if too high get surface mold. Getting this environment correct for long time periods is often more difficult than the initial cheese making. Note, while may people believe they live in very high humidity environments, they are seldom 80-90%, check with your local weather station.
No one has this magic Cheese Cave conditions year round let alone within a 24 hour period thus unless you have ready access to an underground cave the hobbyist cheesemaker will have to create this environment as do commercial cheese manufacturers, albeit on a larger scale. Creating this climate for your cheese to age needs to take into account:
- Your local climate depending on your geographical location, i.e. cold snowy winters in Canada or hot and humid in northern Queensland Australia.
- The climate where you want to make your cheese cave, i.e. cool damp basement of house, outside on patio if no basement.
- Amount of cheese you want to store.
- How you are going to control temperature, such as ice, refrigeration, or possibly warming.
- How you are going to control humidity, such as adjusting lids daily on food grad plastic containers, or having many bowls of water in your cave to add humidity, or less - weekly with larger and thus more stable cheese caves.
- How much energy you want to exert on maintaining your cheese cave's temperature and humidity over weeks to years.
- Your finances.
Taking into these criteria, no one solution fits all. The following are some examples of don’t and do’s, no matter which you choose, it is recommended that the more serious cheese maker purchase a digital thermometer-hygrometer to measure your temperature and humidity:
- Modern house fridge – Not recommended as forced air with heat exchanger outside fridge and thus air inside fridge is ~32% humidity even when set to warmer than normal temperature and very difficult to increase to and maintain at the required humidity level.
- Old style house fridge – Possible (if you can find one) as not forced air and heat exchanger is inside fridge normally as the upper silver freezer section and thus air inside fridge is not de-humidified and depending on your ambient humidity, easier to maintain at required level.
- Small picnic – drinks style plastic or foam cooler box – Possible with ice or freezer blocks but hard to control and maintain long term (change ice out twice per day, adjust lid to adjust humidity). If in high ambient humidity then ice blocks will sweat moisture from air often giving too high a humidity.
- Large picnic – drinks style plastic or foam cooler box – Same as above but easier than small one as more room to locate ice away and perspiration away from cheese and as larger can change ice out and adjust lid to adjust humidity once per day.
- Chest style freezer – More expensive and normally requires warm temperature thermostat as most freezer’s thermostats do not allow them to be set above freezing. Advantages of automated temperature control and as larger, easier humidity control.
It is recommended that the potential Cheese Cave maker review the Equipment - Aging Cheese Board or by searching the forum to review peoples Cheese Caves and experiences to help determine the best route for them and their requirements.
