My Cave ?

[Neil H]

Being from SA, unfortunately most of the resources mentioned here on CFO are not available to me .....  so I have had to take the information here and apply it to SA conditions ..

I have bought a small Bar fridge .... measuring some 90cm tall, 60cm wide and 60cm deep

the thermostats warmest setting was 5 deg C .... too cold

i have bought a commercial thermostat which has a range from -35 to +35 degrees.... I will be putting this in and setting the temp to about 13 degrees.

For moisture i intend having some sort of open water source and a cloth hanging in the water to aid in evaporation ...

I have a digital thermometer which will give me constant information on the temp of the cave ....

is there anything i may have missed with the cave design???

[Gürkan Yeniçeri]

Hi Neil,

I think you've covered all basis.

The water for the humidity should have some salt in it though I lost the exact ratio.

[Neil H]

Thanks Gürkan,

why should the water have salt in it?

is this to stop bacteria in the water ?

[Gürkan Yeniçeri]

OK with a bit of search, I found the entry

http://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,2684.msg25515.html#msg25515

Basically, 2tbsp of salt in pure water (ironing water) will keep the humidity at 75%. I have done this and works.

IWantTheGold explains it here:
http://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,2684.msg25521.html#msg25521

[Trey Magnus]

Sodium Chloride (table salt) yields in the 75% range but if you can find some Potassium Chloride (sometimes used in water softeners) it will give you closer to the 86% range at cave temperatures.  These need to be overly saturated (slushy mixture) solutions to work properly.

There are other compounds that yield different humidity levels.  see link below

http://www.omega.com/temperature/z/pdf/z103.pdf

[Neil H]

OK so some pics of the cheese cave, all cheese is now in  the cave and ageing nicely i hope ....

Any comments MOST welcome

[GlennK]

Those are some great looking cheeses in there.  What are they?