Greetings from London, England

[berrys66]

I have been attempting cheese making for a few months now with varying degrees of success. Thanks to the wealth of information on these forums I now feel a lot more confident about what I am supposed to be doing! My big problem though is that we live in a small flat in central London and the opportunities for storage and aging of cheese is strictly limited, and obtaining the correct humidity and temperature is nigh-on impossible. What sort of results can I expect from waxing and then aging my cheese in our kitchen fridge?

[Cheese Head]

Welcome!

From your comments on waxing it sounds like you like to make pressed hard aged cheeses. One negative to them over soft cheeses is the 2-5 times longer ripening/aging time and thus larger storage needs.

Waxing hard pressed cheeses is popular with some on this board, but more oil their rinds or vacuum bag as easier.

I think ideally a small fridge with an external thermostat would be best for you but if no room and using the kitchen fridge set to cold 2-5C then Rich here says Swiss's like that colder ripening temp and some reading I've done says that washed curd type cheeses also prefer the colder temp after waxing (see Ripening & Waxing sections).

[ArnaudForestier]

Just wanted to say Hi, Berry, love your city.  Spent one of the best evenings ever at the White Horse pub, a multi-course beer pairing dinner with the late Michael Jackson (no, not the late "King of Pop," but writer on all things fermented malt).  So many others - evening at Blackfriar's, my wife and I struck up a conversation with two gents retired from the newspaper industry - worked in printing, apparently their paper used to be just across the street, during the Blitz - and gave us a wealth of what it was like to live in those times, in that place.  Loved everything about London - and hope to come back. 

I'm very new here, and have learned so much in such a short time.  Best wishes on your learning journey.

Paul

[zenith1]

welcome berrys- that issue that you have raised is a common one here on the forum. The main issue for you is not going to humidity control because you have already stated that you plan to wax. The initial phase of aging before waxing or vacuum bagging will be your concern there. The refrigerator as a cheese cave does not work out to well because most modern refrigerators are too cold for proper aging. Most hard cheeses require around 50 degrees F. You can go down to the low forties and still get proper aging, but the aging time will be prolonged. A modern refrigerator will probably be down in the mid to high 30's range which is too cold. it is a common problem for all of us cheese makers to over come and you will find a lot of ingenious solutions here on the forum. You can control humidity to some extent by using large tupperware or the like boxes with a small vessel of water in them, maybe cracking the lid as needed to hit the humidity point that you need.

[berrys66]

Thanks for the advice and suggestions. What I am really after is a cheese that melts - none of my experiments so far have yielded such a cheese. I am also limited in the size of cheese that I can make by my equipment and potential storage facilities. This sets a practical limit of a single cheese weighing in at 1kg, or 1-2 lbs.

I have measured the temperature at the warmest part of our fridge, and it is around 6-8C/42-46F, rising as high as 11C/52F in the top door-side shelf (the fridge is set to 2 on a scale of 1-5 for coldness, 5 being the coldest) . Presumably this means I can still mature a hard, pressed cheese such as a Cheddar, except that the time it will take is going to be considerably longer than would normally be expected? Would be we looking at, say, 3-6 months to achieve the same level of maturity that would normally be achieved in 1 month?

[zenith1]

46-50 degrees will work just fine for the aging of cheddar. I would age for a minimum time of 3-6 months for cheddar. As you probably know cheddar can be aged a couple of years to reach it's full flavor potential. 1 month is not going to give you the flavor that you will be satisfied with. The problem is going to be the temptation to eat now. You can age a couple of months then divide it up, vacuum bag some for further aging and some for eating at that time. That way you will get a better idea of how the cheese ages over time.

[berrys66]

Thanks for the advice on cheddar aging temperatures. I have decided to bite the bullet and make my first attempt at a Cheddar this weekend. I'll post some details of my progress in the appropriate board. No doubt I shall be seeking further advice!

Yes, the big problem will be resisting the temptation to eat the cheese. I have one big problem here ... I like strong, mature cheese, but my SO likes mild cheese, so I might come home from work one day to find she has taken a big chunk out of one of my cheeses :-))

[berrys66]

Rich here says Swiss's like that colder ripening temp and some reading I've done says that washed curd type cheeses also prefer the colder temp after waxing (see Ripening & Waxing sections).

Yes, thanks for that. It certainly seems to be the case from what I have read hear and elsewhere that my particular circumstances might lend themselves to Swiss-style cheeses. I have ordered some Shermanii which hopefully will arive next week, and am thinking about an experimental Emmenthal-style cheese to start next weekend.

[berrys66]

I've decided to invest in a small wine cooler which should work better than the fridge as a cheese cave. Also ordered a temp/humidity meter