Fan for old fridge cave

[jawnn]

I am thinking that I don't need much air movement since most people do not even think about it. so I am going for a 43cfm in my 3 or 4 cubic foot cave. found one at only 2 watts ac. what do the experts think.

[B e n]

I age in boxes or vacuum bags in a stagnant fridge and it seems to work fine. I wouldn't use a fan unless you are trying to blow across water to drive humidity up or something like that.

[mikekchar]

I would not use any air movement in a fridge unless you have a specific reason in mind.  It's not generally beneficial, though it can be good in specific situations.

[eric1]

What are the issues?  I've used a fan to melt ice faster to keep the temperature where I've wanted it.  What kind of problems can I run into doing that?

[mikekchar]

It's fine if you are using maturation boxes.  However, if you are keeping your cheeses in the fridge as they are, too much air migration dries out the rind and causes issues with getting the proper mold growing.  In a large cave, it's necessary to move CO2 around, etc.  But in a fridge, you should be opening it up every day anyway.  Sometimes you need it if you have humidity problems in one area, etc, but it's kind of a tradeoff.

[jawnn]

If I dont need move the air arond I need to learn more about cheese boxes. My hard cheese’s been growing a lot of mold, should i just keep washing it off with brine? I want to eliminate all the unnecessary hassle and go to mold ripening, but can i just eat the mold trying to grow on my cheeses. It looks like blue mold but I am not familiar with what they look like. And I think I Better put a lid on them. I did send out 21$ for penicilium candidum but not the Geotricium candidum yet.  I am hoping that I can get some kind of cheese locally that has the right spores. Can they grow on bread like the blue Rockfort?

[mikekchar]

I just use plastic boxes I got in 100-yen stores (similar to dollar/pound stores in other places).  You want something where the cheese takes up about 1/3 of the space: 3 liter box for a 1 kg cheese, 3 quart box for a 1 lb cheese -- scale appropriately.  You need a mat on the bottom of the box so that whey has somewhere to drain to and it keeps the cheese off the bottom of the box.  I use bamboo sushi mats cut to size, but there are a lot of different options.  Just make sure to sanitize them before use (at least the first time).

For a "cheese cave", you can just get a picnic cooler and put frozen water bottles in it to control the temperature.  Depending on the temperature outside the box, you may have to replace the bottles anywhere from once a week to twice a day, but it's easy to do.

[Aris]

Mike is right about the picnic cooler. That is how I age my cheeses and I replace the frozen water bottles twice a day. The temperature is 48-55 f inside the cooler and my ambient temperature is 80-90 f. I don't recommend you grow mold spores on bread because the wrong type of mold will likely grow and make your cheese taste disgusting if you use it. You can use the mold from a store bought brie to inoculate the milk and make a bloomy rind cheese. Scrape the mold off of a tiny piece of a Brie/Camembert rind, add that mold scrapings into 1/4 cup sterile unchlorinated water and add that mold solution into the milk. Below is a picture of my three cheeses aging inside a Coleman cooler.

[jawnn]

I finally decided the mold growing so much is simply perfect temp and humidity in my wine fridge full of food.  I put lids on my boxes then discovered they don't fit with lids, on the shelfs. But I will find a way, I gave up on hard cheese, shifting to soft mold ripened cheese. May need to tape lids on.  They don't really Need to be air tight??

[B e n]

No need to be air tight, none of mine are and they still get high enough for anything I need. You can raise or lower the humidity by increasing the cheese to volume ratio. A larger cheese, and smaller box will have higher humidity. Once you find the box size that works for your make size it is really easy to get the cheese to do what you want, very repeatably.