Aging washed rind cheeses in a moldy cave--help, please!

[Curdbird]

Hello, curd nerds.

I'm currently trying to age quite a few types of cheese in two walk in coolers beneath the cheese shop I'm working at. One of the caves is designated for bloomy rinds, which I'm keeping at 75% RH and 50F.  The other is for moldy rinds, which I'm keeping at 65% RH and 55-60F. My question is thus; I also want to start aging washed rind cheeses in one of these caves so that I can keep them moist and pungent through washing. I want to do this without cross contamination (B. Linens on the hard cheeses or other molds on the washed rinds). What would be the best way to go about doing this? Should I keep the washed rind cheeses in plastic containers, or will it be okay to simply keep them on a separate rack?

[Tomer1]

I'l go with containers,
Btw both ranges sound a bit low to me, your losing alot of moisture.
Bloomy usually like 90-95%.

Moldy=blue ?  or cloth cheddar which gets all sorts of stuff on it?

[Curdbird]

Containers sound like a good idea, but I used to work in a facility which washed and aged washed rinds on racks in the same cave as cheeses such as ossau-iraty, cheddars, and gruyeres. If I can avoid having to separate washed rinds from the rest, I'd like to. I'm working with a much smaller cave, though, so I'm not sure if it would work out.

As for what I have open in the cave currently; I have some moldier cheeses such as pecornio, abrigo, and paski sir, as well as some harder cheeses such as manchego, zamorano, and unwaxed gouda. I don't have any blues or cheddars in it currently, but I might move some cheddar in there in the future.

Any further advice on humidity would be great. I'm running two small foggers right now, trying to keep them around 80% for bloomy rinds and 70% for moldy/dry rinds. Let me know how to best adjust my system, any advice is appreciated!

[Tomer1]

Well the lower the RH the faster they will lose moister (which might be ok with grana style cheeses which are brittle and dry but not so much with other cheeses which need to keep a creamy paste) and the more prone to cracking they are.
I recall bloomy and blues are usually 90-95% at the bloomy stage and then the RH is lowered to 80-85% for the mold to dry out and slow down.  same with washed rinds.

80-85% is common for natural rind.

[iratherfly]

You can always create loose separation with containers but B.Linen is a good containment to have:
- On bloomy cheeses it shows up slowly anyway (not on all but many, especially normandie and savoie type cheeses). The bloomy cheeses will never catch it in the same rate that the actively washed cheeses do.  I don't think this would be an issue.
- In the hard cheeses it is also often a good add on (Many harder alpine French/Swiss/Italian cheeses are washed) but again, while I wouldn't want a Tomme Crayeuse getting it, they will never catch it at the same rate as actively washed cheese.  Moreover so if they already have a complex rind, it is very rare to have a cheese in aging stages allowing ambient airborne B.Linen to out-compete existing well-established rind with its deeply rooted flora.

I am more concerned about your low RH% though. I suggest to use aging containers because those washed babies love moisture, they do however need some air circulation.