Mold on bamboo mats and rust on metal racks!

[Knargle]

I am struggling to find the right kind of widely-spaced rack to put my cheese on for aging. I have them on plastic cheese matting, and I've been placing them, on that matting, onto bamboo sushi mats and/or metal cooling racks (the kind for cooling cakes), but have encountered two problems:

- The metal racks become rusted over time from the high humidity (about 80%)
- The bamboo sushi mats become moldy.

I'm guessing the solution here is to find some kind of plastic rack, but I was wondering if this was a common experience, or if anyone had any other suggestions of ways to prevent/counteract the mold/rust. I find it difficult to remove the mold from the mats by cleaning, and I suspect it's a bad idea to continue using moldy mats, even if the mold is apparently Penicillium Candidum - am I right to think this?

[mikekchar]

I've been using bamboo mats and not worrying about the mould -- the same mould is on the cheese :-)  Interestingly I was reading Alp's washed rind thread (on this board somewhere -- I still can't find a link :-P ) and he suggested to wash (with water) the boards under the cheese every time you wash the cheese (with brine/morge).  Since I was having trouble keeping the humidity up in my boxes I started to wash the bamboo mats.  They are squeaky clean now... :-)  I think it's probably fine, but I've only been using bamboo mats for 6 months or so.

[H-K-J]

This is what a lot of people use.