Marking Pressed Cheeses - Date, Name, Etc

[Chicken man]

Hi All and good wishes.
I have graduated to hard pressed cheese and i wonder if anyone has ideas on
how i can identify, and date each cheese prior to waxing.
Can foresee this to be a problem in three months time and with a cave full of Wheels!
Cheers
Chicken.

[Brentsbox]

after I wax the blocks i add a piece of paper with whatever data I want on it and then put a thin coat of wax over that  to protect it.  If its a thin coat you will still be able to read the paper.   

[Cheese Head]

In addition to Brentsbox's ideas, you can find some other ideas if you search on word like "Label".

[Chicken man]

thanks  for the ideas.
Thats great
Brrk!

[coffee joe]

Welcome Chicken Man,

There are a few on this forum that sell or can tell you where to get customized followers for this purpose.

I am working on typeset DATE as well as other information such as our brand in relief. This is done by using printer type on a follower. (lead not a good idea! I'm waiting for my Times New Roman 22pt, to arrive in nylon)
In my case, this is a requirement of our health department since we are going to be selling unwrapped cheese. All the information regarding our date of manufacture, brand, tax ID and telephone must be in relief.

The photo is of one option a friend uses, I hope to get a cleaner look but we shall see.

[Alice in TX/MO]

I'm obviously the rookie, as you'll see from this photo.  I cut out letters from thick food grade plastic, and I place them on top of the cheese before folding over the cheesecloth and inserting the follower  in the mold.  There's QGF for Quirky Goat Farm, Ch for cheddar, J for Jack, and GR for Gruyere.  Next on my list will be to make numbers for dates.

[tnsven]

I love your idea, Alice! I'm going to try it!!

[coffee joe]

That idea is great. I think there will be lots of here doing this now!

[Alice in TX/MO]

I think I got this idea from a cheese website.  May even have been this one!

[iratherfly]

We've had a thread about this a few months ago. I also am working on this. My current experiment is rather easy:

Go to a hardware store like The Home Depot and go to the signage department. You can get great deep relief letters and get the bends to slide them into (This was meant so that these bends could be mounted on doors and then you slide in whatever letters you want).

These are of course NOT food grade, but if you cover them with Seran or Cling plastic wrap when you press them onto the surface they will be fine. The only problem is that they need to be pressed backwards if you want to be able to read it left-to-right...

I find that some print shops can make you custom stamps.

I also had good results with an extra large date stamper (meant for document boxes). You can get those at Office Depot or Uline. Again, put the plastic wrap between it and the cheese and remove the ink pad.

Another option is to have labels tied to a kitchen twine. You can simply wax the edge of the twine to the cheese or cheesecloth and the label hangs freely.

[Chicken man]

 
Thanks everyone!!
What a great response.
I especially like Joe's Pics.... this looks great.
Today i found a date stamp that i can customise the print on
It came with a full set of letters etc.
maybe i can adapt this for my pressings
Cheers
Chicken

[iratherfly]

Can you share? Would love to see it!

[Chicken man]

Hi Iratherfly
Im sorry, i haven't bought it yet.....and im fat out this weekend with other things.
So it may be a while.
If i do get it, i will post a pic of it and how i set it up
Cheers
Chicken

[Oude Kaas]

I simply number my batches (and refer to the make sheet) and print the number into the cheese. At the final turning of wheel I put the number under the wheel to be imprinted in the cheese. The numbers are cut out of plastic bucket lids, these are thick enough to make a clear imprint. See some imprinted cheeses below:
http://heinennellie.blogspot.com/2010/08/cave-content.html

[iratherfly]

Hey Jos! Long time no see

I use those tags for my meat curing but with cheese, I don't like stuff stuck to it and tying it to the rack is annoying since I move cheese around in different aging stages.

What do you use for number templates that you press onto the cheese?

The bottom photo with the bread slices... do you have cheese mites under the bread? Whoa!