Aging without a cave or spare fridge...

[artemis]

I live in a an apartment that doesn't allow me to have space for a real cave.  I am pretty new to cheese making (only made 4 so far).

I'm wondering- once my cheese has dried out (couple of days on the counter, then a couple of days naked in the veggie drawer in the fridge) I vacuum seal them up.  But now what?  It will take WAY longer to age these cheeses in the fridge- is it ok to pull them out in the evenings to hang out on the counter at room temp?  Then back in the fridge overnight... 

Is it better to have constant, even temperature- or to give them a break from the chill and a chance to get to the temperature they should actually age at... Or do I have to just give up on making cheese that needs to age?

Thanks for any ideas and help.
Adele

[H-K-J]

A cooler, a bottle of ice, a bowel of water with papper towels to wick moisture, cheese mats and pooooffff yuh gotta cheese cave
I can keep my temp at 50 to 55 deg. and a humidity 85 to 90%

[artemis]

Wow!  So a bottle of ice is enough to keep it fairly steady?  I guess you'd have to replace once or twice per day?
I'm drying it out and vacuum sealing- so hopefully that means humidity would be less of an issue...

I actually have a cooler that I could use for this... I'm going to try tonight and see if I can't get a fairly constant temp going.

Thank you for the inspiration... nice thing is that I can move it around as needed as well, or keep it in the storage locker.

[H-K-J]

I replace my ice (at the moment) once every other day, in the summer you may have to change once a day, or just add more ice.
I keep mine in the coolest room of the house which helps keep the temp down a bit.
If you need less RH just remove the bowel of water and damp paper towel's

[BobE102330]

Artemis, if you are vacuum bagging then there is no need to worry about humidity. 

[tnbquilt]

I congratulate you for looking for a method that will work in your situation. I think that shows a lot of initiative in a person, "I want to do this and this is what I have to work with". I appreciate that in a person.

[H-K-J]

Improvise, overcome and have fun

[artemis]

Well it's not perfect, but we'll see how it goes.  I've got ice packs under a tupperware barrier here in this image.  It got the temp to 57 degrees.  This morning it had gone up to 61, so I replaced the ice packs with a larger frozen container from the bottom of my freezer.  Again separated so it didn't touch the cheese.  I'll check the temp again when I get home, but I have a feeling it will cool it down a bit more than the ice packs.

Thanks for the encouragement!  Making cheese is too much fun- gotta find a way to keep it going 

[H-K-J]

When I'm not ageing a Stilton and have other cheese's, the R/H isn't such a factor, the cooler/cave still stays at circa 70 to 75%
if they are vacuum bagged the temp stays the same (50 to 55 deg.) and I am still able to age my blues over the bagged cheese's at the higher R/H.
Yes you have a slight labor intensive thing happening with the changing of the ice bottles, I have been using this for over a year and have never lost a cheese yet