GENERAL CHEESE MAKING BOARDS (Specific Cheese Making in Boards above) > EQUIPMENT - Aging Cheese, Everything Except Caves

Vacuum sealing after drying on counter -- questions?

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WrongWhey:
Hi all.

New cheese maker here. I've made a couple cheddars, a gouda, and pepperjack recently as my first few cheeses that need to be aged. What I did was to let the cheeses air dry on a mat, underneath a food net, with a ceiling fan blowing lightly above at around 70F.

They all took about 2 or 3 days until I felt like they were dry to the touch and a sort of rind was present in its young stage on each before proceeding. Then I vacuum sealed them and placed them in my mini-fridge cheese cave, which seems to keep a temp range of 55F plus or minus a couple degrees.

I also have the cave set up with salt and water cups to create humidity of around 70-75%.

Here are my questions if you can help me please:

1.) Is the humidity actually needed if I'm putting the cheeses into vacuum sealed bags? It seems like it wouldn't be able to have any effect but I'm just beginning to learn so I wanted to ask. My hunch is the humidity is only actually important when setting in non-sealed/waxed cheeses in the cave.

2.) Am I bagging up my cheeses too soon? I've been reading older posts on this forum today, and some of them have me wondering if I was supposed to let the cheeses sit naked in the cheese cave and then vacuum seal them after some time like that. Should I take my 6 wheels of cheese out of there bags? The oldest one went into the bag an the cave on 1-19 (white cheddar), 1-25 (yellow garlic jalapeno cheddar), 2-4 (gouda with fenugreek seeds), and the most recent today pepperjack). The gouda, I should mention, I did let sit for 4 days in the cave after the initial air drying, inside of a plastic aging box with a mat beneath it.

Any tips, pointers, and corrections of errors are welcome. Thank you!

mikekchar:
1) Nope.  Just keep the temperature good and flip every day.  Flipping in important the distribute the salt properly.  After a month or so, it's not really necessary to do very often, but I think it's just easier to flip everything every day.

2) As long as it's finished draining and dry to the touch, you're done.  Last week I had an alpine style cheese get to dry in about 2 hours :-)  It depends a lot on how you drained/pressed the cheese, how dense it is, how much moisture is in the cheese.  What you don't want is to vacuum pack it and have it continue to leak whey into the bag because then you'll have to rebag it (though, it's not really the end of the world...).

WrongWhey:
Thanks for the info! I would have started to lose sleep wondering haha

WrongWhey:

--- Quote from: mikekchar on February 06, 2023, 12:39:21 AM ---1) Nope.  Just keep the temperature good and flip every day.  Flipping in important the distribute the salt properly.  After a month or so, it's not really necessary to do very often, but I think it's just easier to flip everything every day.

2) As long as it's finished draining and dry to the touch, you're done.  Last week I had an alpine style cheese get to dry in about 2 hours :-)  It depends a lot on how you drained/pressed the cheese, how dense it is, how much moisture is in the cheese.  What you don't want is to vacuum pack it and have it continue to leak whey into the bag because then you'll have to rebag it (though, it's not really the end of the world...).

--- End quote ---

I have a new, but basically the same question.

I'm making a Havarti Dill cheese today, using the NEC recipe:  https://cheesemaking.com/collections/recipes/products/havarti-cheese-making-recipe.

In the Q&A section, vacuum sealing is discouraged due to this being a higher moisture cheese.

If I were to let the cheese dry to the touch on the counter first, and then vacuum seal, would that work for this cheese, or should I stick with aging it inside of a tupperware with a cheese mat in it, inside my cheese cave?

Hopefully as I make my way further into the Caldwell book I will start to be able to think these questions through myself. Thanks for your help!

mikekchar:
Hopefully somebody else will know because I've never actually vacuum sealed a cheese.  It's kind of weird because Havarti is normally a rindless cheese, I think.  Gavin Webber vacuum packs some higher moisture cheeses and ends up with some whey in the bag.  He doesn't seem worried by it, but I don't know what the downsides are.  I suppose there is a chance of it refermenting.

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