Below is a link to a discussion I thought to invigorate the tradition of Cloth Banding - Cloth Wrapping - Lard/Fat Covered hard cheese -- way to go !
http://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,10146.0.htmlMy Christmas offering is going to be a cloth banded cheddar with an English Pale Ale and I wanted to make sure what was going to be served was aable to be consumed because let tell you is was looking horrible in the cheese cave.
So this is 1 of 2 @ 12 weeks. The other, after tasting today is going all the way to Christmas.
The first image is what was developing after 4 weeks and we decided to go a bit further.
The second is the outer layer as it was removed
The third is the layer next to the cheese and believe it or not the under side was relatively free of mould.
The fourth is the other side with the crusty stuff - a big patch of mould was settling in so I rubbed salt and it dried it out and halted the spread.
The last is the underside - note that nealy all the mould has stayed on the outer of the layer of cloth but very little had reached the cheese by 12 weeks.