Determining humidity in aging box

[Littlest Goat]

I have a newly made tomme and have it on a rack and mat in a plastic box for aging. I open the box each day for air exchange and turn over the cheese. So far with lid snapped shut I am getting no condensation on inside of box. Cheese usually has some moisture on bottom but that is lessening. I will likely be adding something to add a little humidity , wet cloth or dish of saturated salt. I think my question is how are people monitoring humidity in the box environment. Hygrometer? (Kind of large size for box)Some sort of signs on cheese or in box? Is anyone using humidor hygrometers  in aging boxes? I live in super duper dry environment ,for example yesterday's RH was 10%. So will be needing to get skilled with boxes.  I am ok on temps for now. Have been keeping almost right at 54f.
 Have recently dived back into reading a ton of info on the forum and the articles too. Thank you for all the great info. Next tomme make on Wed, just need one more quart of milk.

[mikekchar]

I just monitor the amount of condensation that builds up in a day.  I actually use a bamboo sushi mat as a rack as it absorbs water.  If it is moist on one side, it might end up picking up b. linens once the pH rises (assuming you get good geo coverage).  I wipe up the condensation with half a paper towel and store it under the bamboo mat.  This keeps the humidity where I normally want it to be.  In terms of adjusting it, I mostly base it on how the mould is growing on the rind.  In the first month, I've found that you can keep it quite humid and the geo will grow really well.  However, I'm still finding I'm pickup up blue before I get succession with other moulds.  Recently I got the advice to lower the humidity, so I'm going with that and I'm finally getting a nice succession, but there is a lot of blue on my current Caerphilly :-)  When I want to lower the humidity, I just take the cheese out of the box and let it sit on the counter at room temperature for a while (only 10 minutes or so).  All of the water in the box comes from the cheese, so by doing this, I slowly remove water from the container.

The shape and size of the container matter as well.  I'm using rectangular 1.3 liter boxes for ~500 gram cheeses.  That's a *bit* small according to what I've heard (1.5 liter is better).  I have a 1.7 liter square box and tried it out on a 600g cheese, but actually found that the rind dried out more than I liked, so experimenting with a variety of boxes can be useful.  My wife is mad at me because I've bought about 20 boxes of various sizes from the dollar store :-)

I wish I could say more, but this is the limit of my experience.  I've seen very little from people doing natural rinds in maturation boxes (successfully) and it takes quite a long time to experiment as you can imagine :-)  But as long as you can keep the rind free of problems for the first month, nothing else that grows on it will have much affect on the paste as far as I can tell.  If you concentrate on growing geo for that first month, you should be good.

[Littlest Goat]

Oh rats, I had a reply all set and the internet hiccuped and it got lost.
 So, thank you for the reply. I like the idea of the damp towel under the rack/bamboo mat. I moved my one from the corner of box to center under rack under cheese. Am still getting no condensation on the inside of box. But cheese does not seem to be drying out. At day 10 I am starting to get various molds showing up.
 A question about the ever present blue mold. How do deal with them when they are spots here and there? I don't want to do an overall wash and wipe out the other molds. These do not seem big or deep enough to have to go after with a knife. So am curious how to deal . Well one questions leads to another and as i progress through I have tons. But will post in proper threads. Thank you again.

[mikekchar]

I'm afraid I can only show you a little way further (or possibly down a blind alley :-) ).  I've discovered a couple of things so far.

First, if you can get geotrichum candidum going at the start, *and* you can keep the rind smooth, then the cheese will be magically free of anything except geo for the first month or so.  Blue especially loves cracks and crevices.  It also likes sharp edges like the little stipple patterns from cloth marks or holes in the mould.  I've been practicing pressing with the cloth on and then doing alight press at the end to erase any marks.  It's fairly easy for high moisture cheeses, but much more difficult for hard cheeses, I've found.

To get the geo going, it's important that you don't over salt the rind.  Geo doesn't like salt concentrations higher than 3%.  After you are finished salting/brining the cheese, if you need to wash it, use a 3% brine solution.  More than that actually encourages blue because blue can withstand up to 8% salt.  Both the blue and the geo compete for the same food, so your goal is to allow the geo to win.

Geo is actually a mould-like yeast.  It needs oxygen to grow properly.  It's important to open the boxes and flip the cheeses every day.  It also likes a higher temperature 16 C is fine for it, whereas blue likes colder temps.  It's common to have a higher temperature period before putting it in the cave -- some dairies have a "yeast room" for this purpose.  I have found, though, that you need humidity.  Because of that, I've found that drying out the rind (as is often suggested) seems counter-productive for geo.  Instead just wipe off any standing liquid and put the cheese directly in the box.  If you get black spots on your cheese that stain the rind (mildew), I have found that this is due to not enough gas exchange.  Make sure to air out your boxes every day (I open then, take out the cheese, and turn the box upside down to pour out the CO2 -- it's heavier than oxygen).  Gavin Webber's vent idea will not work at all because the CO2 just sits in the bottom of the box (one of the reasons he has so many problems with natural rinds, I think.  Of course he looks after his bloomy rinds perfectly which is why they are so nice :-) ).

Geo actually sends shoots down into the rind.  Once you get a good bloom of white, it seems to be beneficial to wash the whole cheese and let it regrow.  I found this advice somewhere (maybe buried in Caldwell's book?)  Apparently this was the secret of some famous affineur.  Every time I've done it, the geo grows back more vigorously and well spread than before.  So before the food runs out, I *would* do that as long as you have decent geo coverage already (day 11 or 12 is a fine time to do it, I think -- I try to get it done by day 7, as long as I have white blooming).

Once the blue gets on the cheese late stage, I have not found a way to combat it.  I have a Caerphilly in the cave that is at least 50% covered now, having spent the first 6 weeks or so snow white.  I've been trying to get my cheeses to get a good succession into the next stage of moulds.  Unfortunately with this cheese, I let it get a bit too humid and now it's got b.linens going along with the blue :-)  I'm going to let it go until it doesn't look scare any more :-)  Theoretically, when the rind dries out, all mould will die and turn brown.  You get this kind of crunchy crust on the outside.  I'm going to let it go to see if it gets to that stage.

However, I have not gotten *any* cheese to go to a succession without blue yet.  I'm sure it's just some subtle thing I'm missing.  Or it may be that my cave lacks the appropriate moulds.  I'm also thinking that I just need 4 or 5 sacrifice cheeses to build up the succession moulds in the cave.

BTW, there is one other thing that I've started doing with surprising success.  I no longer sterilise my maturation boxes or bamboo mats.  In fact, I had one bamboo mat that was covered in blue and I thought, "If this cheeses is going to beat the blue, then it needs to do so because the environment is right -- not because there is no blue."  I have no way to *really* get rid of the blue.  So I did my geo favouring thing and all the blue disappeared from the mats.  So now, I'm treating my mats as special magic that holds the moulds that I want to keep.  By keeping them in the right environment, they will help the next cheeses seed the fungus I want.  It was a leap of faith, but it seems to have paid off.

Now if only I can go longer than 2 months without the blue :-)  Keep going and make sure to report your successes and failures so we can all learn!

[awakephd]

There are three ways to avoid blue:

Outcompete it - as in Mike's use of geo
Get a very dry rind - this works with parmesan type cheeses, but not so much with moister cheeses
Seal it - with hot wax or in a vacuum bag

With regard out-competing it, I have found that the most effective competitor is b. linens - if you get a good schmear of b. linens going, then you will have no other competitors on the rind. Interestingly, you can let the b. linens dry off and it still seems to protect the rind - this lets you have the protection without developing as much of the flavor. I happen to like the flavor imparted by b. linens more than the flavor imparted by geo, but of course that is personal preference ...

[mikekchar]

I've had trouble drying off b. linens with higher moisture cheeses.  For example, I made some butterkase and just barely got a schmear going before trying to dry it off.  It *still* went to town -- ended up with a very nice washed rind, something like a Tilsit.  Is it possible to stop it in these kinds of cheeses?  I kind of dream of that kind of cheese, with a lovely orange rind, but with minimal b. linens influenced flavours.

[awakephd]

If your cave is dry enough, sure. Of course, then you may get cracks ....

My "cave" stays on the dry side - usually about 65-75% RH. Low enough that I can dry off a cheese, but high enough that, with care and depending on the type of cheese, I don't often get cracks. If/when I do, I go ahead and seal it in a vac bag.

[Littlest Goat]

So just to report back in. Tomme #1 is 19 days in the aging box. I actually had a remote sensor for a hygrometer and so put it in the box. Getting to 89 %  when the lid is closed. And at that time most of the molds really get going.Have moved the boxes to a warmer spot. High 50s / low 60s. And when needed am washing with 3% salt solution. That seems to shut down the blue growth alot. And am seeing white molds now. I have cracked the lids to dry things out for an overnight period and that really slows down the growth.
 So a couple questions. When one sees the blue color of blue mold is that the actual bloom of spores?
 As far as building a natural rind how long do you keep things growing for?
 An observation : it seems like the moisture goes up once the molds get going. Before they started the cheeses were fairly dry on the surface.

[mikekchar]

I'll try my best to answer the questions, but in reality I mostly don't know :-)  I'm still struggling with all of this myself.

When one sees the blue color of blue mold is that the actual bloom of spores?

I believe so.  The blooming (fruiting?) needs oxygen, so in the interior of the cheese you can have blue running through it, but it won't look blue (I've had that before in some cheeses).

As far as building a natural rind how long do you keep things growing for?

It depends on what you are doing.  "Natural rind" means many different things.  Here's a list of all the ones I can think of:

• Bloomy white rind (Camembert, Brie)
• Washed rind (Stinky red/orange rind like Meunster/Epoisse)
• Cloth bandaged rind (Cheddar)
• Alpine washed rind (Compte, Raclette)
• Brushed mold rind (old style dutch cheeses like Boerenkaas)
• Matted mold rind (Tomme de Savoie, Some producers of Saint Nectaire)
• Oiled rind (Paremesan/Grana, Manchego)

I actually started to write a blog post about this, but found that I didn't know enough to finish it :-)  However, for a traditional tomme, you should choose one of the last 4.

In an alpine washed rind, you wash the rind like you would for a normal washed rind.  Then you aggressively dry it off.  There is an amazing thread on this forum that talks all about it: https://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,10633.0.html

For a brushed mold rind, you generally start with geotrichum (white mold) (potentially with some b. linens/red bacteria).  After a few weeks other molds will start to grow.  You keep brushing them off with a soft brush (soft enough that it doesn't mark the rind).  This will *not* keep the rind clean, but will keep the mould from growing big and bushy.  The end result is a thin brown rind (eventually the rind dries out and the mold dies, turning brown and a bit crispy).

For a matted mold rind, you start with geotrichum and after a few weeks other molds will start to grow.  You let them grow and only pat them down as they get very thick.  The end result is a mottled rind that is quite thick (and sometimes a bit bitter).  It can often be quite pretty with mottled grey and white specks.  Usually you want fur-like moulds like mucador or mucor (I have neither of these in my cave).

For an oiled rind, you start with geotrichum.  After a few weeks you wash it off and rub oil (usually low quality olive oil) on the outside.  Mold will grow again, but you wash it off, dry the cheese and apply more olive oil.  Eventually the oil build up on the outside and creates a barrier.  Mold doesn't really like to grow on it, so it is really easy to keep clean (and often you can just brush it off).

For an oiled rind, there was recently an amazing video on youtube about Manchego production.  In the video they say that they let the Manchego grow mold for 2 months, then clean it and oil it.  They let the mold grow very thick.  Here is the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41k7TO53m4Q

An observation : it seems like the moisture goes up once the molds get going. Before they started the cheeses were fairly dry on the surface.

Both blue mold and the geotrichum (white mold/yeast) break down protein in the cheese and produce ammonia (which increases the pH of the rind).  However, the protein breakdown also produces water.  Also, at the beginning the cheese is still draining some whey, so it can get surprisingly wet when the molds/yeasts start inhabiting the rind.  Over time (as you wipe out the maturation box), it dries out.