Hi folks - I'm a beginner who's dabbling in the hard cheese world. I've made a cheddar with black pepper, and I'm trying to age it in my cellar, in a sealed plastic box. The temperature down there is a constant 13 degrees Celsius.
My cheddar seems to be aging rapidly, but it's also constantly sweating. It smells like bad feet - am I doing something wrong?
Probably too warm and too humid. What rind treatment does it have?
It doesn't really have any, it's just sitting in the plastic box on a cheese mat...
To age a Cheddar, especially the smaller home made ones, requires a rind coating. Cloth banding, wax maybe rubbed with edible oils. And it needs at least 9 months to develop. The feet smell is not good, might be B.linens or any range of microbial guests which may have come from the black pepper. Check my Cheddar makes on the forum to see how I do a Cheddar. The constant sweating... I'd only be guessing but I'd agree that the ageing temperature is too high. Fast aging Cheddars tend to not age well and there is not enough time for the bitter peptides to be altered by the cultures.
Is it possible that the curds were not dry enough and were not drained enough so there is excess moisture in the cheese itself?
Unable to tell, I'm flying blind here as I don't know how the cheese was made. Sounds like a combination of things including cooking time, cheddaring (texturing the curds), not enough pressing weight or time. If there were some notes that could be posted here I could have a go at diagnosing the issues.
Thanks for your advice everyone. I did attempt to follow the whole cheddaring process, and tried to press it for the right length of time (with the right weight). I thought the right temperature for aging was 10 to 15 degrees Celsius? Is 13 degrees too warm?
I haven't put anything on the rind - maybe I could try olive oil? What do you suggest?
It does seem to have settled down a bit and doesn't smell as strong as it did.
13degC is a little warm as I tend to have mine 10-12 DegC but maybe there is nothing to quibble about a single degree. If the smell has decreased somewhat then maybe the rind just needs a cleaning off. Seeing as something happened I would clean the outside with Vinegar and air dry it for a day or so and then use a nice Olive oil to rub into the rind. This is only because you will probably want to keep an eye on whether or not it is still weeping.
Or if you feel confident that the smell has been eliminated you could again clean the outside with vinegar, air dry and if not weeping, use a non coloured wax as a covering. And from then on it's a waiting game. Give it 6-9 months, unfortunately there is no guarantee that any of these measures will change the outcome.
Thanks a lot for the expert advice - I've cleaned it up a bit and rubbed vinegar on it. It's been drying for a day already but looks like it will need another day. We shall see how it goes...
Attached is a picture from yesterday morning - it has dried out a fair bit since then.
Yeah, that does look pretty damp. When I have had cheeses that have been too wet, in addition to letting them air dry for a spell, I also will blot off excess moisture with a paper towel. That really seems to helps.
Thanks - we're onto day 3 of air drying! It's drying out nicely around the sides, but it's still a little sticky on the top and bottom - on the whole though it's improving, and it smells a lot less. I'm relieved that this one seems salvageable at least - I've been getting all my hard cheese recipes from a single book, the author of which claimed that there was absolutely no need to air dry cheese. Definitely re-thinking that! I've also tried to make gouda twice following the recipe and both times it has tasted disgusting and collapsed on itself.
Maybe I will stick to Gavin's videos from now on...
If you don't mind could you private mail me the book title. I have quite an assortment and I'd like to see why they don't say to dry the cheese externally before aging.
Cheers - I've sent you a message with the book in question
I think I'll try to follow some youtube videos instead for the moment - I will have another crack at some hard cheeses soon
I have recently bought a copy and overall it is an excellent book. I've been trying to read the context of that box about air dry and I read that she is worried about people airdry their cheese in a too warm environment. "A comfortably warm room" I would read a warmed room (colder months of the year) or a room that is naturally warm (not insulated).
"The cheese surface can be adequately dried in a cool room with the humidity low enough to allow surface drying but not dehydration of the cheese itself."
Excerpt from
Mastering Basic Cheesemaking: The Fun and Fundamentals of Making Cheese at Home
Gianaclis Caldwell
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In this context warm and cool are very subjective. The temperatures given over the page in the natural rind treatment is pretty spot on.
For my cheddars and Caerphilly I air dry them for about 48 hours in my kitchen it stabilise the moisture. And, seeing as my wife is a cake decorator we have our house at a constant 22degC all year and the house is totally insulated (sort of have to in Australia).
The issue I have with the putting hard cheeses in boxes in a 4 DegC fridge for the initial stages is that is almost totally shuts down the culture activity.
From experience if you are using a wine fridge it still has the issue of dehumidifing the air inside hence drying the cheese unless you incorporate a humidifier that turns on when a certain low level is reached. I have measured the humidity in my wine fridges and when the compressor kicks in to maintain the temp it also lowers the humidity to under 60% in summer when the fridge kicks in more often it can even fall lower than that. Bowls of water and wet towels sort of help but you have to constantly dampen and refresh the water.