Small Farmstead Cheese Cave Project (RAFI grant)

[Chops]

Our farm, Bosky Acres, near Charlotte, NC. received a grant to install a cheese cave. We are a small goat cheese operation, working towards aging our goat cheeses.

Here is a link to the blog which tracks our progress. The pre-cast concrete box was delivered and set last week.

http://thecheesecaveproject.blogspot.com

[linuxboy]

That's terrific. You must be so excited. Welcome to the forum

Looking forward to reading more about your progress. Thanks for sharing.

[Gina]

Congratulations! Nice looking project. Keep us posted.

Chops, you also might be interested in an on-going thread of another member (coffee joe) who is building an underground cheese cave in Brazil:

http://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,4148.0.html

[cdonaghe]

What a terrifice project. Congrats on the grant... Let us know when an update is ready.

Charles

[Mondequay]

This is fabulous! I enjoyed watching the videos and love to see grants awarded to farmers (and cheesemakers!) I've written several grants; it's not easy. Congratulations!

[FRANCOIS]

Congratulations, but two comments:
1.  The cave looks like it is sticking out of the ground.  It will need auxilliary heating anc colling if all sides are not below 4' of earth.
2.  There appears to be no provisions for ventilation.  Ammonia is heavier than air and will sink and stay in the cave if not ventilated out.  Besides an operational hazard it will destroy equipment quite quickly.

Good luck.

[coffee joe]

Very cool. The Advantages of the First World! I'll be a few more months doing mine! Keep us in the loop with the progress.

[Sailor Con Queso]

Francois, You have mentioned ammonia accumulation a couple of times lately. At what point and for how long does that happen? I assume that it is primarily within the first 3 or 4 weeks of affinage.

[FRANCOIS]

It is continuous and actually accelerates with age of most cheeses.  it is a serious problem for caves that rotate stock and are chock full with high ceilings.  Roth used to have major issues with ammonia building up in their swiss caves to the point where it would flow up stairs and into the plant. 

Ammonia in high concentrations is really, really rough on equipment.  I have been in a few caves to help out where you couldn't stay inthem for very long, your eyes and lungs would burn.

[Chops]

Thanks all for the congrats; there is much work left to do, and I will be posting progress on the blog, and coming to this thread now and again to update, or ask questions.

@Francois; The hole has been dug, and the box set: next is insulation, and a pipe system to temper incoming air. Then we have a lot of dirt to move, but the front entry will be left open for construction of an ante room for sink and storage and processing. We will be running power and water to the structure. Once the ante room is completed, the whole shebang will get buried under lots more earth. A ventilation system on a timer is planned, to remove ammonia, and exchange fresh, humid air. If the temperature is not low or stable enough, provisions for a coolbot will be made. The one side of the cave entry is planned for mechanicals. I posted some slides of the next steps on the blog, as the rain this week has left nothing else to do.

[DeejayDebi]

Congrats Chops! Tanks for posting the blog it was really interesting to see. Good luck with your progress and future enterprises.

[gmgonzalez]

So, I am fairly new to this cheesemaking with my own herd of goats.  Am interested in the cheese cave idea....where can I link to for even more info?

also, for grants....I am starting an institute to teach the general public various things in addition to cheese making, and have been looking into grants.  Info?

Finally: My barn sits on top of a hill.  We are rebuilding the barn to have a sanitary area just for milking/collection/cooling, etc.  In your opinion...any of your opinions!...best to put a cheese cave close to where you are making the cheese, or closer to the house (basement also built into a hill) which we are also rebuilding.  Don't want to put one in and then find out it'd be better at the other location! LOL!

thanks!  and congrats!
gina

[FRANCOIS]

Chops,
I noticed the rendering on your blog has quite small air pipes.  You are going to want to use much larger pipes (at least 6 inches), the pressure drop on those small ones is going to be large enough that you will short circuit air through the door to the cave.  Not to mention you are going to need a massive fan to actually pull on it.

I recommend putting in a tank or two underground to break up the air flow and improve heat transfer efficiciency.

[ArnaudForestier]

Old thread, but Francois, I'm reading through both Gianaclis Caldwell's Creamery Advisor text, as well as Peter Dixon's Journals, back issues.   Dumb question, probably, but:

I recommend putting in a tank or two underground to break up the air flow and improve heat transfer efficiency.

You're talking about air tanks, for the inlet line, yes?  Can you elaborate?  Inlet line(s) to tanks, to low in to the cave, with a high out?

[FRANCOIS]

Yes.

Most people use 4 or 6 inch PVC drain lines, so you can use small concrete boxes as the tanks.  Just small cisterns are fine.

Dixon's stuff isn't bad, but the Creamery Advisor is pretty alarmingly wrong more than it is right.