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I see several mentions to vac-pak instead of waxing posted here and there, but apparently not all cheese types are suitable. Can anyone give me a general idea of which ones will be successful, and which will not?

TIA;
darius

You can probably do any hard cheese in this fashion. It often boils down to tradition, some cheeses are waxed, some have natural rinds etc. The important thing to consider is letting the cheese age for a period of time before vacuum packing it to help in the flavor dept.

Thanks.

So, when a recipe says to wax, then it should also be okay to vac-pak?

the short answer-yes!

Thanks. I'll give it a whirl, since I have no wax!

Much safer also, as you are probably aware the fumes from paraffin are very explosive and the temperature that you need to bring the wax to to insure that all molds will be killed is pretty darned scary.

I have learned that the recipe often says to wax long before the cheese is dry enough to vac.
I have a few cheeses that i vacuumed at the stage I would normally wax and they have whey in the bag. I now wait a bit longer till the rind is really dry.

Thanks for all of that info. I am also trying to figure out the waxing versus vacuum sealing thing. I think I will try air drying, and then move it to the cheese cave for a couple of weeks and then vacuum seal it. Of course I will keep a watch on humidity and cracking and mold and such.

Quote from: steffb503 on February 27, 2011, 11:52:58 AM
I have learned that the recipe often says to wax long before the cheese is dry enough to vac.
I have a few cheeses that i vacuumed at the stage I would normally wax and they have whey in the bag. I now wait a bit longer till the rind is really dry.

If you have whey collected in the bag after vacuum-sealing, the rind won't dry out. I have a couple cheeses that weren't quite dry enough when they were bagged and I have had to remove them from the bag, dry them, and reseal them. Some have been done 2 or 3 times over the months.

The cheese stands a good chance of being more acidic if the whey is left in the bag.

-Boofer-

Just wondering if at the moment the recipe tells you to wax it, and you vac seal it,  i mean with waxing the cheese is still breathing, when you seal it their is no oxy anymore, will this not have a negative effect on the aging process, eg will it stop aging if you vac it ?

thanks
Irma

Hi Irma-The cheese will continue to age even after it is vacuum packed.

The biggest issue with vac sealing cheese is that it needs to be dry enough to not expel whey once it is under vacuum.  That's usually much later than the waxing point.  I've tried vac sealing cheeses that are only about a month old and usually end up having to take them out and give them more drying time.

I've gone back to coating my cheese in lard or olive oil for a few months before vac packaging them for longer ageing.

I was curious about this too i vacuumed a bunch of cheeses this weekend but I think maybe I should not have done the blue. It's over 1.5 months old but a lot of liquid came out of it under pressure. (I've been washing it with Vouvray) I'm wondering if having it sitting in this environment will suffocate the blue mold. Tasted ok before it went in the bag so I'm not too concerned about continued aging but I don't want it to go bad either.

Vac bagging cuts off oxygen for blue mold, so you should wait 60 days before bagging.