Having trouble with Affinage - Colby #2

[Jess]

Hi folks,

I've been attempting to age Colby and Drunken Goat cheeses in a new cheese cave, which is an old bar fridge with the freezer divider removed (the kind of fridge without any internal air fan). I have an external thermostat device that only turns the fridge on periodically, so it's staying between 11 ºC and 14 ºC inside the fridge, but the humidity is really high.

Colby #1 went so mouldy that I gave up on it (although hubby ate it after I washed it with white wine and moved it back to the main house fridge). The Drunken Goat cheese was awesome until it grew a bunch of musty-smelling fluffy grey mould (Poil de chat?) and I couldn't really save it with a schmier. The musty smell got into the cheese and I couldn't bear to eat it.

My second Colby is in the "drying off" phase after my recent make, but it's again going wrong. I was hoping to wax it once it was dry to avoid mould problems, but I think I need some help!

I made the cheese on the 18th, so it's been in the cave since the 19th (six days ago)
* This is from my own goats' milk. I went for raw milk and it is super creamy (see pics below, I hope). This make is 3L worth of milk.
* For the first three days, every four hours I turned the cheese in its box, and wiped any condensation from the fridge to keep the humidity down
* Then I backed off to once a day.
* The cheese is drier and not collecting whey on the bottom any more, but the top surface feels tacky / sticky.
* There are a variety of moulds growing (again, hopefully the pics will work!).
* It smells sickly sweet--quite unpleasantly so

I've taken it out of the cave to a less humid place (but warmer, about 19 ºC) and I think I need to wash the cheese with a brine solution to remove or inhibit the mould. What should I do after that? Pat it dry and wax it even though it doesn't yet feel "dry"? Put it back into the cave? Attempt to get a schmier going?

I'm a total beginner when it comes to ageing, and the mould (and smell) is starting to get me down. Any help would be much appreciated!

[Aris]

Do you have a vacuum sealer? If you don't have one, remove the molds, dry it at low humidity then wax it. Even when waxed, molds might still grow though. I prefer to vacuum seal because it almost always prevent molds from growing even if it becomes loose, molds still won't grow. I've had cheeses that had mold while vacuum packed but it is just a speck. I bought the cheapest vacuum sealer available (less than 12 usd) and it works just fine.

[paulabob]

Traditional treatment for colby is wax. I'd clean it, dry it, and wax or vack pack it. 

[Mike Cross]

If you have a good cheese cave, you shouldn't need wax or vacuum seal, simply let rinds form naturally.  I converted an old under-the-counter restaurant refrigerator that has a fan and it works fantastically, only issue is trying to keep the humidity up in the summer.  If you go to natural rinds, wash or wipe down your cheeses with a diluted brine solution often, even resort to scrubbing if necessary.  That should be sufficient to keep mold away.

[Jess]

Thanks all, for your thoughts!

I don't have a vacuum sealer, so I've waxed the Colby (first time I've ever done this, that took a few hours of fiddling!). I had the wax at about 85 ºC, so I'm hoping that will have impeded any tiny mould spores not killed by the washing and scrubbing I gave the cheese.

Mike, my fridge is an under counter model, too, but it's the old kind with no fan. I just can't keep the humidity down in there! Constantly beading moisture on the roof. I think I need to put some "Do Not Eats" (you know those things in shoeboxes with "do not eat" written on them) to sit next to the cheeses, or something!

I've turned it down to 11 ºC, too, and hopefully this Colby will age well.

I definitely want to get schmier-ing going on some cheeses in future, but I'll need to work up to that, I think!