Hi Boofer,
It's not geo, I've had that before. And I didn't add any extra salt when I waxed it, but I had washed it a few times with saturated brine to keep the mould down. Hmmm, perhaps it is salt crystals from the brine. That would make sense. The milk was just store bought, so nothing special, but it was the first hard cheese I ever made (end of Dec, 2010 when I made it). I'm planning on keeping some until over 2 years. I've got another gouda aging that I want to take out to at least a year as well, because this one was so nice. The replacement is a different aspect ratio though (this one was a disk, the new one is a barrel) so it will be interesting to see if that influences the outcome.
- Jeff