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GENERAL CHEESE MAKING BOARDS (Specific Cheese Making in Boards above) => EQUIPMENT - Aging Cheese, Caves => Topic started by: Cremaster on September 01, 2009, 04:28:08 AM
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Is this a good idea or not. It is a new mini refrigerator size. I figure if it is good enough for wine snobs it would be good for cheeses.
You thoughts please.
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They work great for small-scale production. I know of award-winning cheeses aged in wine coolers. Some great pics on this forum of members using mini fridges; Alex and DejayDebi come to mind.
You can help maintain humidity by putting in a bowl of water and letting a towel hang over the edge, or using an ultrasonic humidifier on a timer.
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In my small wine cooler I have not been able to maintain humidity with just a bowl of water, but hanging a wet cloth as Linuxboy suggests did work.
The trick is getting more surface area for the water to evaporate from.
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This is good news. I figured that a small wine unit would maintain more accurate temps and could be regulated well as to humidity.
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I hang a pice of cheese cloth near the back of the fridge and let one end dangle in the water dish with some salt in it. My humdity stays around 86 to 89%. I do sometimes get puddles near the door though.
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Cremaster, I've also looked at those and lower cost ones that I've found don't seem to have great reviews on Amazon.com in USA on reliability, at least the ones I looked at. The other concern I had was that some of them had shelves shaped for bottles. On the other hand, people do use them and the good news is the thermostat goes warm enough, so you don't get stuck with a fridge that needs an external one.
From all the posts I've read, I think that the best solution is an older radient style fridge with plastic door freezer as allows higher humidity than more modern forced & dehydrated air type.
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I recently got a new mini fridge at WaMart that has no freon. It's made by Harier called the Nucool. I forget the name of the electronic process but it has three small fans in the back at shelf level. I find if I dangle the wet cheese cloths in front of these fans it maintains humidity perfectly - even with older cheeses. Kind of like runing a humidifier. It it small 1.7 or 2.8 cf. but uses almost no electricity.
I also have an older one that is a normal freon fridge and it is much harder to maintain humidty.
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Interesting -- those fans could be very helpful.
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Also, I just noticed that member SalMac posted here (http://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,416.0.html) on the same subject. You could PM Sal asking if bought one and how did it work out . . . John.