Preserving Cheese by Waxing

[hawgrider]

http://modernsurvivalblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/how-to-wax-cheese.jpg


Waxing cheese is the best way to preserve it (and age it) for long term storage, and as a side benefit cheese wax keeps out any unwanted beasts like mold.

You can also use wax to store the cheese that you buy at the store.

Cheese wax is quite easy to do (but a little messy) and is fairly inexpensive. Once the cheese is waxed, it can then be stored in a cool dark place indefinitely.

Here’s how to do it:
http://modernsurvivalblog.com/survival-kitchen/preserving-cheese-by-waxing/

[Inor]

We tried this a few years back with varied levels of success. Here is what I learned:

The process outlined in the post works well if you start with homemade cheese or with the really expensive "artisan" cheeses, provided they are mesophilic cheeses (cheddar, colby, monkey jack, swiss, etc.) Do not try to preserve any of the thermophilic cheeses; it does not work. Those would be things like mozzarella or any of the Italian or French "soft cheeses".

The other thing is the cheese HAS to have a rind before you wax it. That is, it has to be completely dry to the touch. Like I mentioned earlier, with homemade cheese or expensive handmade cheese, this is not an issue since forming a rind is part of the normal aging process. But with the cheap commercial cheese that you get at grocery store, that is not the case.

I noticed that the price of cheese at the grocery store varies widely through the course of the year. It is usually pretty cheap in the late fall and often is even on sale. In the spring and summer, it is expensive. My thought was, if we could buy a bunch of it when it is on sale, wax it and store it in the pantry, we could save $100 or $200 over the course of a year. (We eat a lot of cheese.) Yes, freezing it or storing it in the refrigerator works, but that kind of defeats the purpose of saving money since you have to pay for the refrigeration.

About 3-4 years ago, we bought 50 pounds of cheap Kraft cheese (in 1 pound blocks) when it was on sale. First we tried to dry it and get it to form a rind. After sitting out for about a week, it was still as greasy and oily as it was when we took it out of the package. From doing a little digging, we learned that Kraft puts some kind of additive into the cheese to retain some of the whey. That is why Kraft cheddar or colby does not crumble like good aged homemade cheddar does.

They also add some kind of mold culture to give it the cheddar flavor quickly. (Normal cheddar takes over a year of aging to become cheddar; before that, it is colby.) Anyway, between the moisture and the added cultures, about half of the blocks we preserved developed a nasty black mold inside the wax in just a few months. About half of them did work out okay, but even those the flavor was off when we ate them so we just ended up using them in cooking. All in all, our experiment in trying to preserve cheap Kraft cheese was an abysmal failure.

The best way to preserve cheese is to make your own, then preserve/age that. It tastes better. It is better for you. And you do not have to clean up a greasy, moldy mess 6 months later.

[Auntie]

Great timing. My cheese wax arrived yesterday.