Salt slurries for humidity control

[max1]

Hi everyone,

I thought I would put this out here since it could prove useful for aging in smaller cheese caves.

http://www.omega.com/temperature/Z/pdf/z103.pdf

The most interesting slurries for cheese making seem to be either KCl which should maintain humidity at around 85%, depending on temp, or KNO3 (salt peter) which maintains humidiyi at around 95% (good for washed rind cheeses!)

[Andrew Marshallsay]

Thanks Max. that is interesting.
I'm not sure about the safety of using the Potassium Nitrate though.

[max1]

Yeah I thought of that. Nitrates are actually fairly harmless. It's only when they're transformed into nitrites by bacteria or enzymes in the body that they become dangerous. They are safe up to a certain concentration and are present in foods such as spinach (nearly 200mg/kg) and are of course used for curing meats.

For humidity control though, significantly larger amounts would be used so that if might not be the best idea because of the risk of spillage =/

[awakephd]

Andrew, just mix it with some sulphur and charcoal to stabilize it. Oh, wait ...

[Andrew Marshallsay]

just mix it with some sulphur and charcoal to stabilize it.

Now there's an idea! I think I'll give that one a go just as soon as I finish constructing my reinforced concrete cheese-bunker.

[Martin]

So I put a salt slurry in my cave and it maintains my humidity at the stated %?

[Andrew Marshallsay]

So I put a salt slurry in my cave and it maintains my humidity at the stated %?

Sounds nice in theory but I suspect that, in practice, you would need a large surface area of the slurry open to the air in order to have the desired effect. You would also need air movement across the slurry. All this would probably take up a fair bit of cave room.
I believe that some home cheese-makers do use just that method in small aging boxes.