Hygrometer Placement and Box Size in Maintaining Humidity

[soniaR]

My previous (and first) camembert make had me constantly checking and adjusting lid placement, wet cloth in, wet cloth out, etc. I would see it go up to 99%, or down to 85% or lower. I want to keep making white mold cheeses, but the humidity maintenance problem is deterring me (and driving me nuts!). That first make did not get the white mold coverage that it should have.

For my current camemberts, I'm aiming for a range of 92-95%. I'm determined to make this easier! I'm now wondering where the hygrometer should be placed, and what size box is optimal for two cheeses.

Hygrometer Placement:
- Drying phase, in house, cheeses not in box: right next to the cheeses? 1.5 ft from the cheeses? The latter was 3-4 % points lower.

- Aging in ripening box in mini-fridge cave, lid ajar: in the box ? on the shelf outside the box? elsewhere in the fridge?

In other words, do I want the level of the environment (i.e., general fridge humidity) or the level in the box, hygrometer less than an inch away from the cheese? The ripening box I have is small - just enough room for the cheeses and the battery-operated hygrometer. If I use a bigger box with hygrometer inside the box, will my chances be better for less variation in levels? I'm wondering if box size is the problem.

I would love to hear from people who make a lot of white mold cheeses. Any and all tips welcome!

[mikekchar]

I've only made 2 Camembert so far and have yet to taste them (first one tonight!)  However, I've aged many, many cheeses with geotrichum at this point.  Penicillium candidum is an absolute beast.  I can't believe how aggressive it is.  You absolutely do not need to have the situation perfect (compared to, say, geotrichum).  I think the main tricky point is making sure that your cheese has drained enough so that it is dry (I'm still having problems with my make in that regard).  If the cheese is wet for too long, the PC won't grow well and you may get some b. linens showing up (which happened on one face of my second cheese).  But that's really all in the make.  Commercial producers are aiming for 13% yield on standardised milk, which is *really* low.  I'm not entirely sure how the recipes I've seen can achieve that low level of moisture, so if you are struggling with *that*, then I'm with you ;-)

IMHO, for small scale cheese aging ripening boxes are absolutely the way to go.  I put bamboo sushi mats cut to size in and then put the cheese on that.  I prefer bamboo because it holds some moisture.  It also grows mould.  You would think you'd want the opposite, but I've found that since I tend not to use DVI ripening cultures, I get a real head start with the bamboo mats.  I don't even wash them any more (!!) (except in one circumstance, which I will explain).  As an experiment, I even took a mat covered in blue mould and aged a cheese on it, while setting up my environment for geo.  Got tons of geo right away and all the blue on the mat dissappeared.   I *really* like these things.  I also usually put half a sheet of paper towel under the mat.  I'll explain that in a minute too.

The main thing about ripening boxes is to get one that is the right size.  The advice I got here said that 1/3 of the box should be full of cheese and 2/3 full of air.  I actually use slightly smaller boxes.  For a 500g cheese, I use a 1.3 liter sized box.  so the ratio is about 5:13 cheese to air.   (I didn't choose this -- it just happens to be the size of the boxes I could find and they work really well) Note that virtually all of the water in the box comes from the cheese.  The air doesn't actually hold that much.  So the smaller the box, the more humidity you will ultimately have.

With that in mind, I *always* close my containers completely.  Some people think that opening the container will promote air exchange, but it almost certainly won't.  The gasses produced by the cheese are heavier than normal air, so the gasses will sit in the box.  With this system, you *must* open your boxes at least once every 2 days when the cheese is young.  Once a day is much, much better.   Normally, I take the cheese out, flip it, wipe off any condensation on the box, tip the box upside down to get the gasses out and then put the cheese back in.  It takes about 30 seconds.

This is a bit like a terrarium, though.  If you take condensation out of the box, you are removing water.  Yes, some moisture comes back in from the new air.  However, most of the water is coming from the cheese.  Every time you wipe out the box, then you are effectively drying the cheese.  If you don't want to do that, then what you can do is wipe out the box with a paper towel and put the paper towel under the mat.  This way you keep the moisture in the box.  As the cheese slowly dries, you will accumulate more and more moisture in the paper towel.  This is my main method of controlling humidity in the box.

I think it's also important to realise that when you first put a cheese in a ripening box, the cheese is quite wet.  Fine grain control of the humidity is meaningless in the first couple of days that the cheese is in the box, because *around the cheese* the humidity will be almost 100%.  As the cheese dries, then humidity control becomes more important, but this is also where you have more control because the mat and the paper towel are holding moisture.

If I'm doing a washed rind, I want to get a bit more humidity in my box.  To do that, after I wash my cheese, I quickly rinse off the bamboo mat.  This keeps it clean, but also adds moisture to the box.  You can get it to very, very high levels of moisture.

I have never used a hygrometer.  Instead I prefer to look at my cheeses and see how things are growing.  If it's getting a bit too wet, then the best thing to do is to take the cheese out and let it sit in the open for a couple of hours -- again, this is where all the water is.  You can also swap out your mat for a dry one as well.  You can wipe out the box with a cloth, rather than a paper towel.  Also, don't put a paper towel in the box.  This way moisture will pool rather than being soaked into something that will easily let it go back into the air.

It may sound complicated, but it's really no more difficult than watering house plants.  Of course it would be insane to do this on a commercial scale.  But for a few cheeses, it's really quite fun.  I hugely look forward to flipping and smelling and watching and caring for my cheeses every morning.

[soniaR]

Thank you for your fantastic reply! So much information. I appreciate your taking the time to write it all. I hope your first Camembert was all you hoped for.

[First, an update on my Camembert, exactly one week after the make. They look ok, I think. The wormy texture has formed on the sides. There is white mold here and there, one having one side with quite a bit, the rest sort of spotty. Last time, my camemberts never got fully covered with white mold, so I hope this time they will. I still have them in a (relatively) small ripening box, 55F, hygrometer says 99%, lid off (I'm afraid lid on will be too moist). I'm patting them once a day and wiping the box but there is practically no moisture in the box. In other words, so far I haven't made any changes.]

Here are the take-aways for me:

- I have a lot to learn re: geo and P. candidum! And I don't know what b. linens would look like if it happens. (I will look this up.) After the make, the cheeses dried in about 36 hrs in 61F house and a fan. Then off to cave in ripening box.

- Novice that I am...if you don't use direct set cultures for Camembert, what do you use? I thought reusing a culture was for yogurt-type makes.

- Your use of bamboo mats is good input and I'm thinking of switching over from what I have them on now (a plastic rack). I've been reluctant to use them because they seem to get grungy looking, but I understand you to say that it's helpful grunginess.

- I have a larger box so might switch to that given what you said about the cheese to air ratio.

- I will take the hygrometer out and start looking at the cheese instead. To look at the box that has practically no moisture, it sounds like it needs more moisture yet the hygrometer says 99%. Seems something is wrong with that. In fact, I wonder if the spotty white mold I'm getting is because it's too dry with lid off and seeing no moisture.

My new method for cheesemaking (as for sourdough bread baking) is to keep making the same cheese over and over, for Camembert every two weeks, so that I can benefit from the previous experience and have it fresh in my mind. This way, I will learn what to watch for, what to tweak.

Thanks again for your input.

[mikekchar]

As it happens, we opened the first Camembert the day before yesterday.  It was pretty good.  I over salted it, though :-(  And I think the second one that is in the fridge is even more over salted, so... we'll see.  I didn't actually wait long enough (I'll post some pics when I get some time), and I also had too high a moisture content, so it was quite runny on the sides, while being firm in the center.  The flavour was very interesting, though.  I used MA4001 and it resulted in a really complex flavour.  I would have to say that it took me a while to get used to -- less buttery, but more interesting.  We ate about 1/4 of it and then yesterday my wife encased it in mash potatoes and bacon and stuck it under the grill.  It was very, very delicious :-)  Not used to eating about 300 grams of cheese at once, though!

Anyway, for ripening cultures, I rely on what is in the "cave".  Actually, not a lot of things will grow on cheese, so that's mainly blue mould and geotrichum candidum (which is a mold like yeast that either grows in a white powdery form or in a brainy white form -- mine is the powdery variety).  Brevibacterium linens is a bacteria that is present on skin.  It's what makes "washed rind" cheeses with a red or orange surface.  The cheeses tend to be "stinky" (smell of a gym locker room), but produce really wonderful flavours in the cheese.  It needs very high humidity, some salt and a fairly high rind pH to grow.  If your Camemberts are too wet, it will almost certainly show up, I think.  Because I didn't have any PC (penicillium candidum) naturally in my "cave", I scraped some off of a commercial Camembert and added it to the milk.  It took off like gangbusters.  On my first Cam, I had full PC coverage in 3 days!  The second one was too wet and so it took about 2 weeks (which I think is more normal BTW -- my first one was crazy).

Anyway, I think your plan of making lots and lots of cheeses is a good one.  That's the way I've approached it.  I think I've made 40-50 cheeses this year -- all relatively small and all relatively short aged.  The more you do it, the more you learn!  Have fun :-)

[Jim-FLA]

Sonia:
Do you have any other cheeses in the cave now?  Are you trying to maintain separate environments?

I have one CAERPHILLY in my wine cooler cheese cave now in a plastic box, on bamboo, with a saturated napkin in the box holding water.   SInce I have nothing else in the cheese cave now, I, this morning, added a dish of WARM water at the bottom of the wine cooler/cave and soaked a long piece of towel in the dish and suspended it in the rack above it to afford ample chance for extra moisture wicking to hold the moisture level at a higher level.

[Mornduk]

With that in mind, I *always* close my containers completely.  Some people think that opening the container will promote air exchange, but it almost certainly won't.  The gasses produced by the cheese are heavier than normal air, so the gasses will sit in the box.  With this system, you *must* open your boxes at least once every 2 days when the cheese is young.  Once a day is much, much better.   Normally, I take the cheese out, flip it, wipe off any condensation on the box, tip the box upside down to get the gasses out and then put the cheese back in.  It takes about 30 seconds.

Fantastic explanation as usual. In case it's worth, I use my ripening containers upside down so it's easier to uncover the cheese without touching it, and if you leave the lid slightly ajar the heavier gas will flow out. I keep them closed though as I haven't noticed any difference, for things that need to breathe I just leave them uncovered for a few hours every few days.

[Marco]

With that in mind, I *always* close my containers completely.  Some people think that opening the container will promote air exchange, but it almost certainly won't.  The gasses produced by the cheese are heavier than normal air, so the gasses will sit in the box.  With this system, you *must* open your boxes at least once every 2 days when the cheese is young.  Once a day is much, much better.   Normally, I take the cheese out, flip it, wipe off any condensation on the box, tip the box upside down to get the gasses out and then put the cheese back in.  It takes about 30 seconds.

Excellent idea about using the ripening containers upside down!

Fantastic explanation as usual. In case it's worth, I use my ripening containers upside down so it's easier to uncover the cheese without touching it, and if you leave the lid slightly ajar the heavier gas will flow out. I keep them closed though as I haven't noticed any difference, for things that need to breathe I just leave them uncovered for a few hours every few days.

[mikekchar]

Yes.  AC4U Mornduck for the upside down maturation box idea.  Definitely going to be doing that from now on.