I think we all are on the same page when it comes to cleaning and sanitizing our equipment. We clean and scrub and rinse with chemicals designed to prevent contamination of the next vat of cheese-milk with some form of bacteriophage.
But lately, I wonder if *I* am the weakest link in my sanitation story. I take basic precautions like washing hands with Easy Clean or Straight A, but I do not shower in Star-san, I do not wear a hair-net, I wear shorts and a tee shirt, and my hands are quite often directly in contact with milk, and curd. I am quite sure that somewhere, some how, there is a hair or two right now, aging in a wheel of cheddar or gouda.
I have similar thoughts about my house. My central air is not sanitized, nor hepa filtered. And who really knows what microflora are alive in my wine fermenting room (doubles as cheese room). I use RC212, Bacchus and others extensively there. And again, Since we are all friends, I will further admit that I have been known to use my fingers to pick out a "floaty" or two from my milk that seem to just appear randomly.
So, I was wondered what others did to address these basic sanitation issues.
Quote from: Wayne Harris on February 12, 2009, 07:10:32 AM
I think we all are on the same page when it comes to cleaning and sanitizing our equipment. We clean and scrub and rinse with chemicals designed to prevent contamination of the next vat of cheese-milk with some form of bacteriophage.
But lately, I wonder if *I* am the weakest link in my sanitation story. I take basic precautions like washing hands with Easy Clean or Straight A, but I do not shower in Star-san, I do not wear a hair-net, I wear shorts and a tee shirt, and my hands are quite often directly in contact with milk, and curd. I am quite sure that somewhere, some how, there is a hair or two right now, aging in a wheel of cheddar or gouda.
I have similar thoughts about my house. My central air is not sanitized, nor hepa filtered. And who really knows what microflora are alive in my wine fermenting room (doubles as cheese room). I use RC212, Bacchus and others extensively there. And again, Since we are all friends, I will further admin that I have been known to use my fingers to pick out a "floaty" or two from my milk that seem to just appear randomly.
So, I was wondered what others did to address these basic sanitation issues.
Wayne, I have a dog and a cat. We raise alpacas. We raise chickens. Thom brews beer! My kitchen isn't always immaculate. (ha!) But we do sanitize all of our equipment and cooking surfaces.
And I wash my hands, wear a clean apron and pull my hair back. But if I had to be in the gear that they wear in the cheese factories in my home, I wouldn't do it. (though I'm glad they do it there!)
I guess that's part of the charm of doing it at home. And think about it really, the farmer's wives who did this before it became this "hobby" didn't even have Star-san. They probably just used very hot water.
I should wear a hair net.
I've been working on sanitation. For this last batch of Farmhouse Cheddar, I put thru the dishwasher on "sanitize" anything that could go into the dishwasher, boiled anything that was stainless but couldn't be dishwashed, and steamed my thermometers, cheesecloth, and wood follower. I pulled my hair back, and I washed my hands every time I was about to do a new step. Then as I was removing the cheese from the press to rewrap it, I realized I'd set the follower down on my counter. I'd earlier wiped the counter with lysol, but it did make me wonder just how perfectly sanitary we can be in a home kitchen. And at what point we start to get diminishing marginal returns from taking yet another step in sanitation. I could, for instance, have boiled a tray to use to unwrap/rewrap my cheese so that I'd be setting the follower on a sanitized surface.
And of course, every single cheese I've ever made, I've found an animal hair pressed into the surface when unwrapping after one of the pressings. Every single one. I pull it out and rewrap the cheese, but honestly, with two cats and a dog who spend considerable time underfoot in my kitchen, is it really likely I'll ever actually have a completely sanitary process?
I hear you on the animal hair.
For this reason, most large cheese plants seem to have adopted enclosed and covered vat process. The cheese does not see the ligh of day untill pressing.
Not sure that I would recommend lysol as a surface prep for Cheese prep. That is rather smelly.
I'm with LadyLiberty: take the basic sanitation steps of cleaning surfaces, wash your hands, pin back hair, and don't sweat it.
By the way, white vinegar is just as effective at sterilising surfaces as bleach, but you don't have to worry about the bleach taste affecting anything!
Quote from: stuartjc on February 12, 2009, 02:34:32 PM
I'm with LadyLiberty: take the basic sanitation steps of cleaning surfaces, wash your hands, pin back hair, and don't sweat it.
By the way, white vinegar is just as effective at sterilising surfaces as bleach, but you don't have to worry about the bleach taste affecting anything!
White Vinegar is excellent!
I have been contemplating the same issues in my process as well. I do sanitize everything possible and for the quick and dirty sanitizing I have a spray bottle with straight alcohol in it for the quick spray down sanitizing.
Over the past few days I have made a stilton and a couple of camemberts (I know I need to post my records) and that lends a whole new dimention to not cross contaminating these two different molding cheeses. I'm needing to flip both at least daily and the stilton more often. It is kind of a pain to keep washing your hands and then flip one, then wash, then close that container, wash again then open and flip the other, then wash again, then close the container of the other, and repeat! And at this point neither are actually visibly growing mold they just have the potential (culture) in waiting!
Other than the cross contamination with the direct contact of the cheese itself you also have the issue of proximity to the other and keeping the right mold growing on the proper cheese. Could prove to be a challange!
Quote from: LadyLiberty on February 12, 2009, 04:59:24 PM
Quote from: stuartjc on February 12, 2009, 02:34:32 PM
I'm with LadyLiberty: take the basic sanitation steps of cleaning surfaces, wash your hands, pin back hair, and don't sweat it.
By the way, white vinegar is just as effective at sterilising surfaces as bleach, but you don't have to worry about the bleach taste affecting anything!
White Vinegar is excellent!
White vinegar is also a lot more environmentally friendly than bleach :D
Hmm..
Ethyl Alcohol
White Vinegar
Lysol
I think all would probably work, but wouldn't they all require a rinse afterward? (one could make the argument that the alcohol would eventualy evaporate.)
I keep a bucket of easy-clean (http://www.vinomaker.com/easyclean.html) solution around to dip hand and stuff on cheese days. Claims to be a no rinse cleaner.
I put my pH meter in the solution one day and it was pretty harsh, around 9-10 (very base) if I remember.
So, perhaps i should not be doing that. I really don't know. (Bleach is around pH 12)
My goal is to finish building out my cheese room with tile floor/walls and hopefully someday a drain in the floor.
Not sure what to do with the ceiling though.
The though occurs to me about bleach.
I seem to remember that very bad things happen when you use clorine-based bleach around acids like vinegar. It makes chlorine gas.
Since many of us also brew or ferment as well, there exists a high likelyhood that many of us have malic/citric/tartaric acids laying around.
I think i will pass on bleach for Stuart's green reasons, and it just sounds a bit dangerous.
Wayne, the ethyl alcohol indeed does evaporate prior to contact and even if not would evaporate in short order if remained on your hands. I do agree with the chlorine gas being bad! :) Plus, I don't believe stainless likes any kind of prolonged contact with chlorine either.
Do you know what the contact time for sanitization is with the Easy-Clean product?
Good question. I don't know. I will google for it as time permits here. (At office)
OK people. Although all those things are good I'll have to chime in here and agree with Wayne. My feeling is if it's not all right to be in direct contact with food it's not good. Lyson, Bleach, Bad. It will leave a taste and some nasty chemicals. If you're using Isopropyl Alcohol or any other alcohol for that matter I believe it will only kill staff infection, but not much else. I believe in the 80's they debunked it's sterilizing power. The only product I know that is food safe and won't or shouldn't raise the PH if it's used right away (read: still wet) is Star San. Make up a bucket and as long the PH is 3 or below it's still active. I have a bucket made up a few years ago, air tight bucket mind you, and it still works. Star San works in a few minutes contact and can be used still wet it won't affect taste of beer or cheese it's just an acid base, a natural acid base. Works great and no headache.
I too totally advocate the use of Star-San. However, as Wayne said we don't take a bath in it so how can we properly sanitize our hands that will come into direct contact with the ingredients. I noticed John had a jug of hand sanitizer in the back of one of his pictures. This would probably be suitable but it is mostly alcohol as well.
Obviously this doesn't address the 'foreign' particles (hair, skin cells, pet dander, dust, etc.) that may be floating around your cheesemaking space. We can't practically have a clean room or completely sterile room so we just need to observe some best practice principles.
I guess the key is to just minimize as much as possible and then call the rest character aides! :)
I did notice that in the FXCuisine pages, one of the tasks was scooping out the black flecks of ash from the fire below the vat.
I agree chili, I wipe down everything with Star San everything that would come near the vat cell phone included, I tend to drop stuff, if I know it's sanitized I feel comfortable keeping the batch.
Quote from: Cartierusm on February 12, 2009, 07:31:11 PM
I agree chili, I wipe down everything with Star San everything that would come near the vat cell phone included, I tend to drop stuff, if I know it's sanitized I feel comfortable keeping the batch.
Can you make this in such a way that it's in a spray bottle? how do you wipe everything down, wouldn't it make a phone soapy? do you wash your hands with it too? Does it make your hands slick or do you wash it off?
Yes you can. and in fact, I typically keep a spray bottle of that laying around when sanitizing. Just need to keep the surface moist for about 1-2min.
But, on the other side of the coin, in don't wash my clothes in it, and i have caught myself wiping my hands on my cloth apron or jeans and then going back to my work.
I'm really not sure what to say, except that at some point, and I'm not sure what that point is, when does it make sense to keep a set of cheese clothes and hair nets to work in?
I personally don't see myself ever getting there. Apron, yes, but the whole shebang? i don't think so.
I don't wash my hands with it. For my hands I just use dish soap.
My new Cheese Making suit:
(http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Lab/3518/HI-IanSuit1.jpg)
At least it's the right color.
LOL Wayne, I love that. :D
Well did anyone what those video's on the cacio cheeses linked above. The men there are touching everything, then going back to making cheese. One has a note pad fall out of his pocket, so bends down, picks it up, puts it in his pocket, all the while holding the cheese in the other had, them immediately goes back to forming the cheese. :o
We can only do the best that we can do. Washing hands etc every time we come into contact with the cheese etc, is about the best we can do in the home environment, as well as sterilising everything that the cheese touches. If we get too padantic we would never make anything.
On another note, other things that you can use for cleaning apart from vinegar is tea tree, lavendar and eucalyptus oils. They are natural anti bacteral, anti fungal.
;D Even has a hook on top... you could probably hang from your cheese press with it like some kind of new neck traction therapy! I certainly would pass gas in it like this poor sap did.. no wonder his face looks kind of green! :)
QuoteWe can only do the best that we can do. Washing hands etc every time we come into contact with the cheese etc, is about the best we can do in the home environment, as well as sterilising everything that the cheese touches. If we get too padantic we would never make anything.
If I could I'd put that on the front page of the cheese board as the quote of the day.
Well this is a timely post since I just mixed up my first 5 gallon bucket of Star San this evening.
I've always used bleach as a saintizer for my cheesemaking but never really felt comfortable despite rinsing to the point of weariness.
In the past I've used Potassium Metabisulfate (K-met) as a sanitizer in winemaking but the smell of the stuff is horrible.
I'm pretty much like everyone else..
Wipe all surfaces and utensils down with bleach. I also steam the items that CAN be steamed and bleach the rest. I wash my hands, well, before even getting close to the cheese and try to keep my hands sanitary at all times.
The only problem is, like Wayne, I have found myself wiping my hands on my jeans and have also wondered if I'm defeating the purpose of washing since I use paper towels (on a rack in the kitchen) to dry my hands.
As far as I know, I've never had a cheese that has become contaminated, but who's to say for sure?
Oh well, as long as I nor any of my family or friends become ill from eating my cheese I guess I'm doing okay.
Dave
Dave I've always wondered how sanitary paper towels are.
It only takes once to become vigilant. I'm pretty vigilant but when I was transfering all my cheese to my new cave I notice one of my Parmesan's had blue mold on the bottom where it was touching the bamboo mat. Granted this bamboo mat had probably been in contact with blue mold but I do sterilize them by leaving them in a bucket of Star San for 10 minutes or more. And this was a bust batch I was jut keeping around, it's probably still good, but I stopped turning it so it has been sitting in the same spot for weeks. I washed it off with brine and wax it, I did that for a few reasons, my text books say you can wax Parmesan and it was all cracked anyway so this way it'll keep some moisture in. Oh, and when I left my little cheddar out in the small frig in the garge for weeks it naturally had made blue mold and blue mold is just natural so this mold was just in the air not from anything I did.
The whole point is I sprayed the entire kitchen down with Star San just to be safe. I won't be using bamboo mats anymore, but not just for this reason, but I'll post this as another thread.
Well this thread makes me realize that all three of my currently aging cheeses, originally from the old world of Germany, France, and Britain, namely Limburger, Camembert & Stilton, are using three very different red, white, & blue molds and as all living in the same cheese cave (picnic box) are probably going to be somewhat similar!!!
Maybe they should form a new country and make a flag!
OK, probably too late, but I've just put the Limburger in quarantine in it's own container.
If it is too late then I'm probably making a new national cheese for the USA!
You have a mini- UN of Cheese.
Speaking of, I ordered some Penicillium roqueforti today. I will be branching out to a UK cheese in the form of a stilton-style cheese
Wayne, You are going to LOVE making Stiltons!
Seeing that blue mold form for the first time is like seeing your first curd set.
It really is a fun cheese to make and the taste is out of this world.
Looking forward to hearing of your results.
Dave
Which strain Wayne PV or PJ, expensive isn't it.
PV and YES it is expensive. 25 bucks for 10 doses
http://www.dairyconnection.com/mold.htm (http://www.dairyconnection.com/mold.htm)
Not saying it's better, but in the three blue cheeses I've made, Ive just used a little ground up store bought blue cheese in milk as the inoculant and within a few days I get strong blue mold growth everytime.
For my last two I bought a package of crumbled blue cheese for salads (picture here (https://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,235.0.html)) and froze the rest so for $4 I have enough to make 10-20 batches.
It is one strong bacteria!
P. roqueforti ?
Well isn't that clever. Perhaps I will dedicate some of my future stiltons to providing a mother culture...
This may be my first, and last purchase of Penicillium roqueforti.
Oops, sorry Wayne, just read your post above and realized you already ordered some, sorry.
John I think you meant it's one strong mold, not bacteria. Making blue is not hard take a small piece of cheese like john did and put it on a wet bamboo mat and put in a cool dark place, in a few weeks you'll have more BLUE mold than the package you bought. I left my little cheddar, you know the one that has 10 different molds on it, in a frig in the garage that was off for weeks. Now this was before I even had blue mold from the store in the house. When I picked up the cheddar the entrire bamboo was covered in dry mold spores and they were definatley blue.
Carter, thanks, I'm corrected, was thinking mold and typed bacteria.
It is one strong mold!
Of course it is, what do you think the smurfs are made of and why Gargamel always wants to eat them.
I need a hairnet and got to keep the Pug hair out of things.
I also use Star San.
I wonder though......... 600 years ago, I imagine a cheese maker in rags, stirring a cauldron of curds and whey and making cheese. With goats and sheep walking about it.
How sanitary were they?
Brian
"Bring out yer dead" How sanitary? Remember the plague? Of course you don't you died. That's how sanitary.
:D
;D Pretty funny.
New here...............what is StarSan; is it purchased or do you mix it up yourself? And BTW, I have some of that Lavender/TeaTree/Eucalyptus spray cleaner and I love it!!!!!
WHOW DO not use any secented cleaners at all! You want neutral. Not only will the cheese pickup the scents of the cleaner but they will pickup the chemicals.
Star San is a food safe sanitizer that a lot of us use here as well as brewers and wine makers. It is acid based, not burn through your skin acid more like citric acid. The best part it is safe to use right away without having it dry. Spray it on wait a couple of minutes and you're good to go. Although what I said is true and the manufacturer says it's ok and wont' affect the food in any way by using it without rinsing a lot of us here from the old days are just used to rinsing anyway. So we spray or dip and wait a few minutes and then rinse with tap water and then use.
It comes in a concentrated solution so you'll have to mix it up. For 5 gallons use 1 oz. and for a spray bottle use 1/4 tsp.
Oh, and welcome.
::) Oh my gosh, c'mon, I already know better than to use it on surfaces/equipment used for food preparation...................I just mentioned it because a poster earlier had said something about a cleaner similar! It has no chemicals - just vinegar & essential oils, and makes a nice, all-around cleaner, that's all I was saying.
Do you know what's in the StarSan, or could you post a link or something? What I have been using is dairy cleaning equipment solutions from Hoegger's Goat Supply...................I have a dairy soap, a sanityzing solution, and an acid wash detergent that helps get rid of milkstone.
(http://www.thegrape.net/prodimg/SA50.JPG) (http://morewinemaking.com/view_product/16023/103305/Star_San_HB_-_High_Foam_%0D%0AAcid_Anionic_Cleaner%0D%0AFinal_Rinse_32_oz)
I used Starsan for the first time a couple of weeks ago and I have to say that I was VERY impressed.
Of course you can't TELL that it's actually sterilizing everything but I have no doubt that it works and works well.
As posted earlier I had a curd knife made and there were a lot of "darkened" areas from the welding process. I'd used a wire brush, a brass bristle scrub brush, dish detergent, hand cleaner, three trips through the dishwaster and everything else I could think of to get this dark color off of the stainless.
Well I finally gave up, since nothing was coming off on a clean white cloth and figured I'd given it a good enough scrubbing.
My last step before using it was to soak it in the Star San solution and lo and behold, all of a sudden I was seeing the typical shiny color of the stainless steel come out of the previously burnt looking areas.
Once I saw that, I continued to soak in Star San....wash with dawn dishwashing detergent and then rinse with tap water.
After about 7 times of doing this, the knife looked absolutely pristine and I was not at all afraid to use it in my cheesemaking.
I figure that if this stuff will do what a dishwasher, brass bristle brush, hand cleaner and all other methods could NOT do then it must be something special.
In short, I'm sold.
Also, what's amazing to me is that the 32 oz. bottle I bought, should last a lifetime. I used 1 oz. per five gallon mix and according to Carter it is capable of lasting for over a year as long as it's in a sealed container.
That pretty much makes this the deal of the century!
Dave
+1 for the starsan from me as well. Works great and does keep forever. Test the pH every once and a while and as long as it stays below 3 it will still be effective. I've got one bucket that has been mixed for a little over a year.
The other interesting thing with StarSan is that it will take the paint off glass bottles. i.e. Corona or other painted on labels. Soak it in the solution...sometime for a week or more and it will be gone. Very slick!
I bought some Star San after reading about it, thanks Wayne and everybody! I didn't know it would keep a year till I read this thread, cool. Makes it more economical. Glad to hear I am not the only one with pets and wondering about those issues, got two fat golden retrievers and a himalayian kitty which makes pet hair a real issue at my house. Would star san dissolve rougue fur that gets in a five gallon bucket I wonder....lol. Try my best for cleanliness but suspect some germ or foreign good knows what will eventually introduce itself to my endeavors no matter how clean I am. I will continue to clean everything and hope for the best.
Its not liquid plumber! ;) No it will not dissolve hair.
Somebody here said it here earlier, you can only do so much.
I find that the best thing to do is to simply sanitize everything, including your hands. Then cover your cheese as much as possible to keep the "floaties" from landing in your cheese.
Truth be told, i never tried keeping a batch of starsan between batches of cheese, perhaps i will this next weekend.
Thank you for the post that vinegar works as well as bleach.It removed the milk stone as well.
my hands thank you as well ;D