Is that some sort of crack?

[tfinney]

Hi!

I'm new at cheesemaking. I'm just wondering.......while aging my cheese in the fridge, large cracks have formed in the rind. Did I do something wrong? Did I do something that I should not have, like add too much rennet? I'm just wondering what I can do to gaured against this in the future.............??

[newbie001]

too dry of an environment. Need to increase the humidity. If you cannot regulate your humidity well enough, try waxing.  I am a rookie also, so perhaps those with more experience can give you actual step process that will help.

[wharris]

More than likely it dried too fast. 

Aging cheese is actually harder than making cheese in my opinion.    This is not easy.
I still struggle with aging cheese processes.


You will want to store the cheese in a temp/humidity controlled environment. There are numerous thread in this forum related to humidity and humidity control, but in short, you will want to dry the cheese or a day or two, then put in a ~80% cheese cave. 

newbie001  was correct in suggesting sealing the cheese if you cannot control humidity.  But I would suggest shrink wrapping or vacuum sealing instead of waxing.

[tfinney]

Thanks for your input guys! I really appreciate it. I can only afford a regular fridge for now, so I'm wondering if maybe a washed rind might also help.........??

[DeejayDebi]

I agree with Wayne! I don't like waxing. Vacuum sealing or cloth and lard bandages work well.

[tfinney]

Like I said, I'm pretty new at this. Could you explain "cloth and lard bandages"?

Thanks

[wharris]

This is a practice of applying a light coat of lard to the wheels of cheese, then wrapping mulsin around the wheel and smearing the outside with lard. 

This is a traditional approach to sealing a wheel of cheese and is still practiced by high end cheddar makers.

[Cheese Head]

tfinney, some good responses already, just to add, I had the same problem with my pressed cheeses when I started. Most newer fridges are forced dehumidified air that is very dry. Thus veg and cheese/meat drawers to reduce air circulation and drying of veg/cheese/meat.

In the linked picture above I believe that the drying of the external area of cheese cause shrinkage and as the drying was rapid (as small cheese and v low humidity in fridge) the middle was still very moist, this resulted in high stresses and cracking of my cheese.

If you look in the Equipment - Aging Cheese Board you can see many people still use these fridges but with many tricks to maintain high humidity, ie upside down bowls, plastic Tupperware type boxes with lid cracked, bowls of water with towels draped over side to wick moisture into air.

Good luck!

[tfinney]

Excellent! Thank you so much for your input! I'll check out that forum, then,
and see what's cooking there. Thanks again.