For those of you setting up a new cave, or those looking to refurbish the old one I found the perfect company. You can order custom made poly cutting boards for your selves at a very reasonable price. Check them out!!
www.CuttingBoardCompany.com (http://www.cuttingboardcompany.com)
Cool thanks for posting Al.
John
These are great John. I ordered two 22 x 17.5" 1/4" thick white poly boards with a bullnose edge and rounded corners and a juice groove for $22.50 each. They will fit my shelves perfectly. http://www.cuttingboardcompany.com/1-4-inch-white-cutting-board/ (http://www.cuttingboardcompany.com/1-4-inch-white-cutting-board/)
What do you think of using multiply wood? It is about 1/2 inch thick.
Ann I looked at both maple and oak yesterday , before ordering these shelves, and found it to be very expensive. About $4.00 a board foot for 4" wide finished planking. Twelve inch wide was a lot more. With two 22" X 17.5" shelves and one 15" X' 17.5" it would have required quite a bit and been difficult to clean with the gaps in the planking. I would love to have solid wood but not at those prices. BTW They're giving away cedar and pine up here. LOL
http://www.homedepot.com/p/Builder-s-Choice-1-in-x-4-in-x-6-ft-S4S-Maple-Board-HDSM10406X/206733787 (http://www.homedepot.com/p/Builder-s-Choice-1-in-x-4-in-x-6-ft-S4S-Maple-Board-HDSM10406X/206733787)
Ann, when you say "multiply" wood, I'm thinking that is what I would call "plywood" - generally made using 1/8 thick slices of wood (the "plies"), stacked up with the grain for each ply running perpendicular to the previous one, and glued together with a strong glue.
My main concern with using plywood would be uncertainty about the glue that is used. Some glues will out-gas unpleasant chemicals (e.g., formaldehyde) for quite a long time.
Al, buying solid hardwood from the big-box stores like Lowes and Home Depot is going to be about 3x more expensive than other sources. Oddly, their prices on hardwood plywood are generally competitive, and often even cheaper, but when it comes to solid wood, I always go with a local distributor. Sometimes takes some searching to find one ...
FWIW, I made the shelves for my "cave" out of 1" x 1/2" strips of poplar, arranged as slats - picture included below.
Very nice looking shells Andy! Mine would have to go the other way with the cross slats having 3/16" studs screwed in them to go into the fridge sides.
I will have to order a teak, mollucan or mahogany wood chopping board from a friend when I go back to my home country next week. I just can't find solid wood here (or maybe I don't know where to look).
Al, can you use pine?
Andy, nice shelves!
Personally I wouldn't use anything but hardwoods. Think of it like the woods you smoke meats with, cherry, oak, maple. Soft evergreens can retain sap and turpentine which might leach out of the wood and into the cheese.
Ann, you could certainly use pine - but "pine" covers a rather large span of species! Some are going to be much more resinous than others. I don't recall what sort of pine is available in Malaysia, but I would be looking for two things: 1) something with very little smell, and 2) fully dry. If you wanted to test it, cut a strip and put it in some hot water and let it soak overnight. Then taste the water. (Just taste, don't have to drink it!) If there is an objectionable taste, count on that migrating into your cheese. If not ... there may be some flavor that takes longer to act, but probably you are good to go.
I would do the same kind of testing with any other wood that you plan to use. I'm not familiar with mollucan at all, and have not used either of the other two in food-connected situations, so don't have any wisdom to offer. However, keep in mind a resource that you have in abundance - bamboo. My only use in food-connected situations is via some bamboo cutting boards that I picked up cheaply here. I don't know what sort of processing they may have been through, or if there are species-specific issues, but from that experience I would say that the bamboo is reasonably neutral.
**Just saw Al's post that came in while I was writing the above - the concern I express above is the same that he is expressing, the resin and/or turpentine that can be strong in various evergreens. But again, there is a vast difference between, say, a "white" pine and a "yellow" southern pine ... and there are a lot of things that get lumped into the generic "pine" label that really aren't pine, but rather fir, or spruce, or such. Some of these are far more resinous and/or turpentine-ish than others.
Al, I would be cautious about using some of the woods that you smoke meats with, particularly oak and cherry - both of these are used to smoke meats specifically because they add flavor. Likewise, whiskey and wines are aged in oak barrels specifically to pick up flavors from the woods. Oak in particular has a lot of tannin in it. The question is whether you want those flavors to migrate into the cheese. :) (As an aside, at least one beer maker proudly boasts that its beer is "beechwood aged" -- as though that imparted special flavors. But beech is used because it is pretty much the most neutral tasting hardwood you can find!)
For short-term contact, such as a cutting board, food contact is not a problem. For longer-term use, though -- like a cheese sitting on the wood for several months -- I would be concerned about the flavors. Now, let me be the first to say: I do not have first-hand experience with any such problem, because I avoided using any of these woods. So it may be that you or other cheese makers have been using oak or cherry successfully for years with no problems, and if so, I am ready to stand corrected! :)
Above all, whatever else you do or don't use, do NOT use walnut or olive wood. Both are beautiful ... but both taste terrible! Even relatively short contact with food results in quite strong, bitter flavors. This I do know from personal experience. :)
I agree totally Andy. I used those as examples because I know they are not harmful to food stuff. Never thought about them imparting flavors to cheese. I always assumed that the flavors were released with heat so I guess I figured they would work great in a cave.
Thank you so much for detailed explaination Andy. I really appreciate it.
I already ordered the chopping board last night, teak wood. Teak is hard wood and once dried properly is basically odorless. Some of the old teak wood (I have old teak wood furniture) is so hard even the termites won't eat it. I learnt this personally, my house was attacked by termites after I planted some yellow bamboo trees in the garden (termites love bamboo). We use teak to ferment rice and add to our cooking in Indonesia so I thought maybe it will be ok for cheese.
Another option is acasia but my friend told me it is 25% heavier.
Teak is interesting stuff. As I recall, it contains a large amount of silicates (? something like that), which makes it hard on saw blades and router bits. And somewhere I read or heard that it is so dense that it sinks rather than floats.
I agree that, to the extent I've used it, it seems like it might not have much in the way of odor or taste. The fact that you used it in a fermentation process is certainly promising.
Received my poly shelving boards this evening. Look great! I really like these. It's the two lower ones. I already had the top one.
Looks nice, Al... Very pro! Thumbs up...
Thanks Danbo! I'm tempting to order one for the top shelf so they all match. LOL
I know the feeling... But you have paid for shipping once - and it looks really nice already. :)
You won't notice it when the cave is full... ;)
I have ordered from them in the past. The only problem with poly is that it attracts condensation and solid ones restrict air flow. I drilled many holes and then used a round over bit in my router to help the circulation.
I'm actually trying to cut down circulation in the hopes of keeping the blues and whites from spreading. A)
John, that is a beautiful job on your shelf - and I know from experience how much time it took to make it (unless, that is, you had access to a CNC router - ?)
In any case, deserving of a cheese!
Quote from: Al Lewis on December 13, 2016, 11:19:04 PM
I'm actually trying to cut down circulation in the hopes of keeping the blues and whites from spreading. A)
I am not sure that will work since every time the door is opened there is pressure change. You may find that temps and humidity may not be constant from level to level. But then again, you just never know until you try. I keep my little wine fridge just for blues now. I think that is the only safe way to prevent cross contamination. Good luck!
Quote from: awakephd on December 14, 2016, 12:43:31 AM
John, that is a beautiful job on your shelf - and I know from experience how much time it took to make it (unless, that is, you had access to a CNC router - ?)
In any case, deserving of a cheese!
No CNC. This was a 6 pack job laying out, drilling and routing, hole-by-hole. Thanks for the cheese!
Stacking up 6 at a time - did you screw them together, or how did you keep them from slipping out of place? That certainly was the way to do it as far as drilling the holes ... but that is still a LOT of holes, and a LOT of routing. My back is hurting just thinking about it ... partly because is it making me feel guilty for a project in the garage that needs time and attention to move to completion! :)
Quote from: awakephd on December 14, 2016, 02:11:40 PM
Stacking up 6 at a time -
LOL. No, I drank a six pack while drilling and routing.
Oops! Totally misinterpreted that one. I guess the 6-pack helped to stave off back pain ... but now that I look at the picture more closely, do the holes get less and less consistently placed the further down the 6-pack back they go? :)