How to avoid contamination using bacteria?

[IngaF]

I am looking for an advice.
To make Morbier (or camembert and other molded cheese) you need to use penicillium, bacterium linens, i am wondering how to desinfect all equipment (plastic mats for example) and how to prevent all around contamination during ripening, if cheese is left for air dry in the beginning in warm room/kitchen.
I am scared that i will have penicillium mold and bacteria linens everywhere.
How do you deal with that?

Many thanks in advance!
P.s. Until now i have made only fresh cheese (Korychinsky type) and Gouda, which was all good.

[Aris]

You can boil the plastic mats and utensils. Make sure to put enough water or the plastic mat will melt. You can also use sushi mat or wooden board. I use cedar plank and an unknown wooden chopping board. To sterilize a pot, put water in it and boil the water for a minute or two. Get Star San if you can find it. It is an acid based non rinse sanitizer. I use it in home brewing and cheese making. Very useful if you want to sanitize an equipment that can't be boiled. With Morbier cheese, you wash it with 3-4% brine to prevent molds from growing or contaminating it. Penicillium mold and b. linens are already everywhere. B. linens is already on you. Just accept that they are there and don't be scared.

[paulabob]

Are you worried about the cultures in your kitchen affecting other foods?  They shouldn't, as long as you aren't open aging two cheeses with different rind cultures.

[IngaF]

Thank you!

[mikekchar]

I tend to steam all my equipment.  However, I have eventually realised that there are really 2 phases to cheese making.  The first is when you are dealing with milk and curds which aren't acidic. The second is when you are dealing with cheese that is relatively acidic and also salted.  You want your equipment to be sanitised in the first case, but I will argue that you *don't want to sanitise the equipment in the second case.  In fact, since I *stopped* sanitising my aging equipment, my cheeses have improved (note: I only do natural rinds.  YMMV).

The vast majority of of danger in cheese comes at the milk stage.  There are very few dangerous things than can survive on the rind of a properly made cheese.  And, in fact, I have *still* to  discover a single case of food poisoning from the intact rind of a hard cheese.  It doesn't mean it's impossible.  It just means it is very rare.  Make your own decisions and don't blame me if you die a horrible death :-)  But, at least for myself, I'm satisfied that less is more when it comes to killing off yeasts, bacteria and mold on the side of aging.

With the *make*, though, there are *lots of ways to make yourself very ill, or even kill yourself with milk (or other ingredients that you might add to cheese -- especially fruits and vegetables).  So, actually, I *never* make fruit cheeses, or add garlic or anything like that (it helps that I don't like that style of cheese, I guess... :-P ).

I steam all of my equipment.  I think I got this advice from awakephd on this forum: line your pot with your cheese cloth and other cloths.  Add an inch or two of water.  Put your plastic equipment on the cloths so that they don't touch the metal.  Bring it up to a boil, to get steam and then turn off the heat and leave for 10 minutes.  Note that *some* plastic will melt at that temperature, so be careful.  You should only use food safe plastics that are rated for heat, since some have plasticisers that will leach out at high temperatures.  This is one of the reasons that cheese molds are expensive.  But basically it will work fine.

As Aris says, Star San is magic and I would use that if I had it.  You can make up the solution as in the directions and put it in  a spray bottle.  Then spray your equipment.  Done.  Don't spray your eyes.  You will not be happy in any way :-)

But for aging, you *want* the flora of your area when doing natural rinds.  The main thing is that you need to learn how to control the environment such that the things you want to grow flourish.  That takes some practice.

[Aris]

I tend to steam all my equipment.  However, I have eventually realised that there are really 2 phases to cheese making.  The first is when you are dealing with milk and curds which aren't acidic. The second is when you are dealing with cheese that is relatively acidic and also salted.  You want your equipment to be sanitised in the first case, but I will argue that you *don't want to sanitise the equipment in the second case.  In fact, since I *stopped* sanitising my aging equipment, my cheeses have improved (note: I only do natural rinds.  YMMV).

I realized this recently because of a cheese placed on a cedar plank which grew a nice wild g. candidum and I want to preserve it. I used to sanitize my ripening boxes and boil the wooden boards every time I put a new cheese there. Now I leave them as it is and have designated ripening boxes for specific cheeses especially I use wooden boards which stores the microbes that I need. Two boxes are for blue cheeses, one for washed rind semi hard cheeses and one for smear ripened cheeses. All have wooden boards which harbors the microbes. This will make aging cheese consistent.