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GENERAL CHEESE MAKING BOARDS (Specific Cheese Making in Boards above) => EQUIPMENT - Aging Cheese, Caves => Topic started by: Cartierusm on February 04, 2009, 12:35:35 AM
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Since I got my freezer from craigslist around new years I've been on the hunt for another to age regular cheeses as i really don't want to use my wine cellar for that. Weird thing is there were a ton around new years and for the past month very few. I got lucky today as a guy was giving away an old upright freezer on craiglist and I got it. I'll post pics of it later and the conversion. I was clean on the inside a few rust spots on the outside. But the outside as filty. An hour and some Easy Off and it looks great.
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Pics.
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That is the kind of freezer i got. Let me know of you have trouble with too much moisture.
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Carter & Wayne
As you can see from my Blue Cheese #3 aging in garage on top of table, I have no good Cheese Cave. I tried a small chest freezer (http://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,197.0.html) but got 100% humidity and eventually puddles of water as no drain hole. Appreciate your advice, any way to correct or should I buy an upright freezer and if so will I not have the same problem?
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Very weird having too much moisture. Cold is humidities enemy. I mean where could the moisture be coming from? What's your normal outdoor humidity? Ours here is 48-50%?
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i think it has more to do with where the coils are in relation to the box. In this design, the coils are in the box and exposed to the same air as the cheese, and the humidity condenses on the coils and drips, so water collects on the coils, grates and bottom of freezers. That does dehumidify the air a bit. But then that condensed water, re-contributes to the humidity, just as if you put a wet towel in there.
And when you open the door, you let out the drier air, and re-load the freezer with a fresh load of humid air again.
So, I get a very wet 95-100 percent humidify in mine.
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Here's the freezer after the conversion. I'm using one of the new temp/humidistats I found. It controls the temp as well as humidity so I'll be able to use a ultrasonic humidifier on the always on setting.
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After a week or so since I got this and scrubed it with soap it still has a freezer burn smell. Today I sprayed it down with bleach and let it dry. I then hosed it down and closed it up and I'll go smell it soon. Here are pics of the humidifier I bought, isn't it cute. It's ultrasonic, but the warnings on the bottom of the box are very specific.
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Here's my cute little guy breathing smoke. So far I really like this humidifier. Its super quiet and you can see the vapor come out right away so you can tell it's working.
Oh, it stays on all the time and the knob just varies how much vapor is coming out. This is good as I'm going to be using the humidistat I installed in the freezer.
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Very cute, the humidifier and the Photoshop'd box bottom, had to laugh! Thanks, I need more of those ;D.
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Not photoshop, I just used my label maker, it was quicker.
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Although very cute you can't use the ultrasonic as I originally thought. The ultrasonic disperses mist into the air thereby humidifing the air once evaporated. I thought it would work better but what it does is just get everything wet. Sorry to those that took my advice on that. You need the standard cool mist that blows air onto the water. As long as the mist is invisible it'll work. I'll post pics of the new setup soon.
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This cheese cave is a bust! Due to the some of the same problems Wayne and John faced I am now facing them. I got this for free although I spent considerable time cleaning it multiple times and sterilizing it. It's not a total waste. It will work for waxed cheese, So I'll keep them in there. Now I have a blue cave, waxed cheese cave, natural rind cave and camembert cave..dam this is going to far ;).
FOR EVERYONE LOOKING FOR CAVES you can't use the freezers that use coils on the shelves, I'm not sure about the box top loading ones like John uses (he has high humidity trouble too), but I suspect you really need a freezer that is forced air (some sort of fan inside hidden that circulated the air). What happens is all the humidity you introduce into the air condenses on the coil on the shelves and then drips on your cheese, not good. Plus my humidistat reads 73% and keeps the humidity on when my separate hygrometer says 98% and I trust that one. I'll leave it as a waxed cave.
The reason I didn't want my natural cheeses in my wine cellar originally are they would take up too much room, the humidifier in it is ugly and there isn't enough room to hold all the cheese I make. So I decided to get a wire rack unit with wheels and that will be 14" deep x 36" long and 74" high. That way I can store a ton of cheese and the humidifier and it will make everything a little more tidy and pleasing to the eye, plus I can pull the rack out, because it's on wheels, and turn the cheeses or fill the humidifier.
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Carter, sorry to hear about the excess humidity problem with this style upright freezer, condensed water dripping on to cheeses is not good! I was really hoping you'd found a good solution as I'm still stuck to find one. FYI, an old member here DaggerDoggie also had excess humidity problems with same style chest freezer that I bought.
What is strange is that Bundy reports (http://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,433.0.html) that even in his Queensland very high humidity environment, her gets good reasonable humidity with his old style fridge. From his pictures it looks like an older style radiant freezer plate style fridge with plastic freezer container removed for more room, or maybe it never had a freezer? I don't know why he has a extrenal thermostat.
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I have resolved to selling my upright freezer. I will be either buying a used fridge or making a custom one in the basement.
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This cheese cave is a bust! Due to the some of the same problems Wayne and John faced I am now facing them. I got this for free although I spent considerable time cleaning it multiple times and sterilizing it. It's not a total waste. It will work for waxed cheese, So I'll keep them in there. Now I have a blue cave, waxed cheese cave, natural rind cave and camembert cave..dam this is going to far ;).
FOR EVERYONE LOOKING FOR CAVES you can't use the freezers that use coils on the shelves, I'm not sure about the box top loading ones like John uses (he has high humidity trouble too), but I suspect you really need a freezer that is forced air (some sort of fan inside hidden that circulated the air). What happens is all the humidity you introduce into the air condenses on the coil on the shelves and then drips on your cheese, not good. Plus my humidistat reads 73% and keeps the humidity on when my separate hygrometer says 98% and I trust that one. I'll leave it as a waxed cave.
The reason I didn't want my natural cheeses in my wine cellar originally are they would take up too much room, the humidifier in it is ugly and there isn't enough room to hold all the cheese I make. So I decided to get a wire rack unit with wheels and that will be 14" deep x 36" long and 74" high. That way I can store a ton of cheese and the humidifier and it will make everything a little more tidy and pleasing to the eye, plus I can pull the rack out, because it's on wheels, and turn the cheeses or fill the humidifier.
Carter, can't you just put wooden shelves on top of the metal ones, and also protect the cheese from the drip with something?
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Wayne why not keep it and do like I did and use it just for waxed cheeses?
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Here's the new cart with wheels where I'll keep all the cheese, then I just have to wheel it out to fill the humidifier and flip the cheese. The far Parmesan is the new one I took out of the brine today. The one in front is real old and is white on top from the water dripping on it in the other cave.
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That is a great picture to get a sense of size. Fantastic.
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Well. at least I'm glad I read this before drilling any holes in my freezer, which also has coils on the shelves. I thought about putting hard plastic sheets under each shelf, but realized that would only compartmentalize the cave and restrict moisture and even temperatures.
I have sent back two hygrometer/thermometers because they did not test out well. But I have just ordered a Sunpentown ultrasonic humidifier from--of all places--Sausagemaker.com. They say they have tested it out for making fermented sausages (which I am NOT ready to attempt) so it should work well for a cheese cave.
Now I've got more invested in the controls, etc., than in the freezer itself, but it's going to mean a delay until I can find a suitable and suitably priced freezer to use.
Sorry about your bust, Carter. I was going to go for Emmenthal this weekend, but I think I'll try something I can wax.
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Tom it's not the dripping water but many things that the coil shelves do that make it not work, there is no way around it.
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I realize that. It was a passing thought but I rejected it for those and other reasons.
Another thought struck me, however. When we consider getting a fridge/freezer with a fan, we need to be very careful about how that works because there would appear to be a risk of having mold grow in inaccessible places, such as if there is some passage for air behind an inner surface that cannot be gotten at to scrub and disinfect.
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Usually forced air refrigerators have some small hose for drain water and that allows some air exchange. My forced air freezer for blue style cheeses have never develop mold anywhere else. It has good air exchange, plus we are trying to keep moisture in the air, regular friges condense water and puddles and wet walls = mold.
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Usually forced air refrigerators have some small hose for drain water and that allows some air exchange. My forced air freezer for blue style cheeses have never develop mold anywhere else. It has good air exchange, plus we are trying to keep moisture in the air, regular friges condense water and puddles and wet walls = mold.
we haven't even used this freezer yet, and there's mold in it already. We are going to have to get rid of it on craig's list.
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Yeah as i mentioned the nonforced air freezer don't have any air exchange. Did you sanitize it? and with what?
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Yeah as i mentioned the nonforced air freezer don't have any air exchange. Did you sanitize it? and with what?
It's not even turned on yet. No, it's just outside on the deck.
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Here's an updated pic of my Parm Cave/Wine Cellar. I added some San Jamar Bar Mat to the shelves. The holes are big which will allow air to get around, but still is sanitary as I have no idea what they used to paint the shelving. All my caves now have this shelf liner as it's sanitary and allows a ton of air movement to pass through.
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Although very cute you can't use the ultrasonic as I originally thought. The ultrasonic disperses mist into the air thereby humidifing the air once evaporated. I thought it would work better but what it does is just get everything wet. Sorry to those that took my advice on that. You need the standard cool mist that blows air onto the water. As long as the mist is invisible it'll work. I'll post pics of the new setup soon.
Sorry to resurrect this, but afraid the meaning might be lost as this was said so well. I've always used "cool mist ultrasonic humidifiers which put out prodigious amounts of fog (see below). But seeing fog and knowing one is humidifying one's cave are two different things, it seems? On the other hand, if you look at the later pics below (I think is Paccard in France), clearly, they're blowing fog over their cheeses and as they're considered one of the planet's best affineurs, you'd be right if you were thinking I want to "steal their mind" as they say in Japanese training. I think I discarded the use of the evaporative wick, "cool mist" varieties, because I thought I read somewhere, or many places, they're terribly inefficient. Not very powerful? But again, bit lost and would simply like to capture what is working for commercial, fine affineurs.
So, anyone with thoughts on this? US v. Evaporative wick cool mist for high (95-98% RH) caves?
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Paul, glad you found this thread - looks like there may be some concerns with using a freezer that I did not remember. :(
As for the wick type humidifiers - my concern with those has always been the possibility of building up unwanted bacteria / mold in the wick. Perhaps not a problem if one changes it regularly?
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Sorry for the belated reply, Andy. For some reason I'm not getting notified on new replies. Just have to comb better!
That's a good question. The only drag for me in using US, whether the cool mist or fogger type, was the amount of DI I had to buy. Francois's idea of a mister, like the kind you find at grocery stores, seems beautiful - but pretty hard to do in a wine cooler, lol!
So I don't know. But I think you're right. That might be a nightmare. Thanks.