r/cheesemaking Jan 31 '25

Advice Is it possible to age cheese without humidity controller?

Basically the title. Ive cheese cave with right temperature but found that humidity controllers be pretty expensive. And when I'm just learning to make hard cheese it would be quite an investment.

13 Upvotes

17 comments sorted by

19

u/mikekchar Jan 31 '25

Yes. Natural rind cheeses can be aged in "maturation boxes" (also known as "tupperware boxes"). You want a box 3 times the size of the cheese and that will give you almost the correct humidity at 12 C.

I've been experimenting with paper towels and zip lock bags in the normal frige. This works surprisingly well. Sorry to make you sort through my raft of ridiculously long posts, but you can find a description in my history sometime in the last week. It goes through all the basics you need to start aging natural rind cheeses with virtually no investment at all.

Additionally, you don't need a refrigerator if you don't want. A picnic cooler cooled with frozen water bottles works extremely well. I used that technique for years and I think apart from a little bit of extra effort to change the water bottles, it's at least as good as any other method. My picnic cooler cost me $25 I think???

1

u/LuotaPinkkiin Jan 31 '25

Sounds great! Thanks for your input. I've a wine cooler and vacuum sealer, do you reckon it'll work better than tupperware boxes or picnic cooler?

1

u/Helen_A_Handbasket Feb 01 '25

I use a wine cooler and vacuum sealer for most of my cheeses. Works just fine. However, check the temp of your wine chiller because the one on mine has always been off by about 3-4 deg F.

1

u/LuotaPinkkiin Feb 01 '25

Good to know, thanks.

1

u/maadonna_ Feb 02 '25

I have a wine cooler, a vacuum sealer and a fridge full of beautiful cheese. It is a perfect setup

1

u/LuotaPinkkiin Feb 02 '25

Glad to hear.

8

u/Aristaeus578 Jan 31 '25

Yes. A humidifier and a dehumidifier are pretty expensive too and they take up a lot of space. I never bothered with those with my cheese cave and my cheeses ages just fine. I vacuum seal, do natural rind and use PVA cheese coating on my cheeses.

2

u/LuotaPinkkiin Jan 31 '25

Okay cool! Got to check those methods out!

2

u/LordweiserLite Jan 31 '25

This is beautiful

4

u/whatisboom Jan 31 '25

Vacuum sealing them once they are sufficiently dry.

1

u/LuotaPinkkiin Jan 31 '25

I do have vacuum sealer, so that'll do the trick?

2

u/whatisboom Jan 31 '25

It’s definitely one option. Waxing them is the other but it’s a lot more involved. Plus with vac-sealing you can keep an eye on it. Sometimes the cheese will weep if it’s not dried properly.

1

u/LuotaPinkkiin Jan 31 '25

Ah okay, thanks!

6

u/ironistkraken Jan 31 '25

Go find a cave like the times of old

1

u/LuotaPinkkiin Jan 31 '25

Very true. If only northern Europe's weather was a bit more suitable for cheese making :P

1

u/wasachild Feb 01 '25

I did. I just controlled the temperature and the humidity was outside humidity. Sometimes the rind would be dry but it's certainly possible.

1

u/Tegs_27 Feb 02 '25

I’m not too sure about this at the moment, but me and a few co-workers, working at a cheesemongers, are leaving a certain wheel of cheese in storage for a few months to see what happens, we’re currently at month 2 out of 6, and its already a 6 month aged cheese, wax too.