I'm sure this information is on the board already, but I'm new and a bit swamped with the wealth of information here so please forgive me if this is a question that comes up often.
I am delving into the world of cheddar making. I'm using Ricki Carroll's book because it was recommended to me. For all of the cheddar type cheeses, her recipes instruct me to age them at 50-55F or around 10-13C. My dairy was designed by people with no experience of dairy-making, and it doesn't have anywhere that I can keep that temperature. I have one main room which at this time of year is about 21C, and a smaller room which is slightly cooler but never below 18C or so. I don't have any way of reducing the temperature as much as I need, and our budget isn't doing too well so I can't buy anything costly.
I have a fridge but due to health and safety law it has to be kept below 5C.
What would you do in this situation? All I can think of is training a normal fan on the cheese to keep it cool, but running a fan 24/7 for months is probably not great for the energy bills. Would it even work?
I have an additional fridge with an external temperature control that keeps it 50-55. It is a Johnson controller. Or if you only have a few a wine cooler that goes down that low would work.
Fridge for finished products must be kept between 32 and 45. As it is I am running out of space in the aging fridge. Guess I need another one.
Thank you for that. I suppose a mini-fridge with one of those controllers would also work, and wouldn't break the bank.
I just have to try and work out how much cheese I would be ageing at a time, to make sure I get a fridge with enough space. Can you stack cheeses on top of each other to age?
How much space you'll need for aging will depend largely on how long you intend to age your cheese (and how big your business is of course).
For example, at work we age our waxed Goudas for 10 months. there fore we have to have room to keep 10 months worth of Goudas on hand at any given time. (Plus space for all our other cheeses as well.)
So, even if we only made Gouda and only sold 1/month. We'd still need to have a cave/fridge that could hold at least 10 Gouda wheels at a time.
If you're making a very mild, young Cheddar and/or you don't intend to sell very many, a mini fridge might be the answer. Otherwise, it might be easier to start with fresh and fast-ripening cheeses until you can afford to get a larger fridge/cooler to age the Cheddars in. This is the approach I'm taking for my home cheese-making exploits for the moment. I'm starting with things like: Chevre, mascarpone, quark, cream cheese, etc. until I can afford the equipment to allow me to make exciting aged cheeses at home. :)
As for stacking... We put our unwaxed cheeses in ripening boxes and then stack those. Nothing fancy, just some clear, Rubbermaid-style containers with holes drilled in them for ventilation.
Hope this helps!
Regards,
- Symbol
I make a cheese (http://cocker-spanial-hair-in-my-food.blogspot.com/2012/06/3-gallon-stilton-7-6-12.html) at a time and right now what I call a cool room aint so cool, temps are 90+ outside so put in a cooler with a gollon of ice just to try and keep it below 55 deg RH gets high in this situation, it has been controllable
there are a few ways to adjust your problem, to me aint no way I can help,
Take advice from the forum utilize what you can and adjust
compromise, overcome and continue on :-X
every one here that can will help (even me if I know :))