Well, thought I might as well post a couple pics. Cave has settled down, RH, Temp., air flow all good. I ended up just draping some cheesecloths on the shelves, which seems to have done the trick - temp and RH isn't affected (all monitors at cheeses are great), but airflow is really reduced, feels great, actually. And cheeses have responded. Might be hard to make out, but the nice rosy bronze of linens developing on these hard cheeses - that's just a 6 pound "hard alpine" for want of a better word, to the left, and two Abondances (with a more forward, animal, aromatic design to the make - more "Beaufort" like, but Abondance form) next.
Then, my make table. I've a pre-press area to the left, a spout built into the thing so all whey empties in a bucket, and my press to the right. Assorted milk cans, etc. The usual fun stuff I try to convince my wife is all part of the master plan.
I recently switched out my 20 gallon for a 25 gallon vat. I find the Abondances range from about 18 1/2 gallons to 25 gallons or so make, and I'm going to go forward with 21 gallons, so this larger vat is perfect. Ths winter, I hope, we'll be fully in copper.
Some bumps in the road recently but fighting back and looking forward to continuing these Abondance trials. Done until January, however, as I can't get raw milk in these quantities till my farmer-friends' youngest comes into milk (3 in milk, when all are producing). So I'll be making Vacherin Mont D'Or.
