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I know parmesan needs 2% milk. Will skimmed milk work or not? I think because it's skimmed, it should obviously have less than 2% cream?

I made a parmesan last week with skimmed milk, but the crust totally dried out ( It looks like reptile scales curling upwards) and the cheese tend to have a transparancy to the crust. Any advice?

"but the crust totally dried out"
Whats your % humidity?
Did you air dry it before going into your cave?

Gustav- the typical parm is made using skimmed milk. Not what you buy in the store as skimmed milk which is mechanically processed,but skimmed by hand after settling in the vat. If you use the store purchased variety it will have too little milk fat. Also your yield will be lower as well as the resulting cheese being a different texture from the traditional. As far as the rind I would have to second the Tomer's question concerning humidity of your aging area.

It was skimmed milk that I had left over (skimmed milk for cream for our clients)
I did air dry it & yes, the yiels was 1kg of cheese on 30 litres of milk!!!
I will post s pic today. To be honest, I'm not quite sure about the humidity though, still need to purchase a meter.

could be your biggest problem then.

This is what it looks like, a scaly cheese!   
Propably the worst looking "Parm" I ever saw!

GatorParm! As long as you think you had a good curd knit during the pressing I think it could be your aging humidity is way low.

Perhaps you could salvage it by vacuum-sealing it, at least for the short term, so that the moisture equalizes and the rind is brought back into the "family" (of curds). If that worked, then I might remove it from the bag, massage it with EVOO, and return it to a humidity-controlled cave.

Am I mistaken...or does it also appear to be swollen...puffed up a bit?

-Boofer-

Nope. Not swollen. I will vacseal it and see, nut I got lots of milk, so I'd rather just make a new one with the tight milk.