Brushing rinds

[scasnerkay]

Taking my cheeses out for a brushing, I decided to take some photos. It is very interesting how the rinds seem to stabilize at about 4 weeks, with less uninvited blue growing and needing much less vigorous brushing. I have stopped cleaning with vinegar and salt for the most part, only using a round dry bristle type brush. At present most of the cheeses are just aging with natural rind. I do vacuum seal when I run out of room and need to stack some cheeses at the bottom of the cave. Water tends to collect down there so they have to be protected.

[Danbo]

Very very nice! :-)

[serano]

quick question scasnerkay, are you not cleaning with salt and vinegar at all and just brushing from the get go?  I have a 2 week old cheddar with blue spotting similar to yours.  I've been salt and vinegaring it, but its very persistent.

I wanted to do a natural rind but am not sure when to stop treating the moulds and start brushing instead.

any help appreciated!

[Stinky]

Mold will come back, just about whatever you do. Just keep brushing or wiping and, if the humidity's not too high, it'll stop growing pretty much at all unless you mistreat the cheese.

[scasnerkay]

Yes I think it is fine to clean it with vinegar and salt- I do that too sometimes. But last several makes I have just been dry brushing, and that seems okay too!

[awakephd]

Susan, I'm curious about the "dry bristle" brush you are using - is this something like what might be used to scrub vegetables, or more like a paint brush, or ??

[Al Lewis]

A single wash with straight white wine would relieve you of the molds Susan.  You could then let it dry and go back to brushing.  Question, are you cleaning your brush after every use?  If not you may be perpetuating the problem.  The mold spores can  linger in the bristles.

[Mermaid]

Okay I've been washing with straight white wine and salt and still getting aggressive molds. I wash the brush every time .

Also when you all brush molds off of cheeses do you do so in place or do you move the cheese to another area to brush it? I have a cave full of cheese and it's hard to move each one just to brush it but I worry that I am spreading the spores around

[Stinky]

Okay I've been washing with straight white wine and salt and still getting aggressive molds. I wash the brush every time .

Also when you all brush molds off of cheeses do you do so in place or do you move the cheese to another area to brush it? I have a cave full of cheese and it's hard to move each one just to brush it but I worry that I am spreading the spores around

I pick it up and hold it over the sink or something.

You said you're controlling humidity. Do you use ripening boxes? If not, what is the humidity overall?

[Mermaid]

I have a large cheese cave with maybe 50 individual cheeses aging on wooden boards. I try to keep the humidity around 85 but the past few days it's been around 90. The temp is 48-51 degrees F.

[Stinky]

How long has the problem been going on?

90 humidity would probably do it, if it's these last few days...

There's a massive difference between my leaving my ripening boxes all the way shut or just a little crack.

[Kern]

I have a large cheese cave with maybe 50 individual cheeses aging on wooden boards. I try to keep the humidity around 85 but the past few days it's been around 90. The temp is 48-51 degrees F.

My cave is located in the garage.  I've noticed when the overhead door is open for a half hour or more that the cave humidity shoots up as the garage temperature drops.  Lately the outside temps have been running in the low 50's.  I think the problem I have is that when the cave refrigeration is not running that the humidity climbs to about 92%.  Once the overhead door is closed and the garage temps climb into the high 50's the humidity in the cave slowly drops.  I can accelerate the drop by opening the cave door several times over about 10-15 minutes and causing the refrigerator to run several times.  This is likely because the unit is frost free and some water condenses on the evaporator coils and is melted and drops into an evaporation dish below.

In any given air mass the relative humidity will rise as the temperature falls so long as moisture is neither added nor subtracted from the air mass.   A)

[Stinky]

I'd say 80 to 85 is a safer range than 85 to 90.

[Mermaid]

Okay thanks! I will lower the humidity today I have a large dehumidifier running

[John@PC]

Reading this thread a question came to mind:  Is there a good method to "buffer" %RH in a refrigerator-cave?  Frost-free fridges like Kern (and I) have tend to suck humidity out when the compressor runs which results in fluctuations like you see in the chart below.   When it is warm in my garage every time the compressor runs the %RH drops significantly, and while the humidifier eventually catches up the "average" RH is lower than my desired target of 85%.  I've learned to compensate for this by setting my controller to 90% setpoint in the summer but then when the weather cools I have to change or humidity will stay too high.

If we were talking about temperature you could just set in gallon jugs of water to buffer temperature changes.  But what could you do to create a %RH sink?

My first thought was putting an open box of baby diapers in there  :o :o.   Then I started thinking about having a whole box of diapers infiltrated with blue / red / white / whatever mold wouldn't be a good thing (but then again you could always "change the diapers" :)).   

Another thought was to go with a salt solution.  Potasium Chloride equilibrates to 85% RH so what if I put a pound or so of KCl in the cave?

Wood (spruce, etc.) is the more conventional - any other ideas?