My Cheese Cave By Bob Albers* Cheese caves are wonderful things. Especially when you consider the wonderful things they contain and the wonderful things we get out of them. If you live in the mountains and are fortunate enough to have a real cave on your property, you are ahead of the rest of us. I live in perfectly flat country. There are only two
Controlling Moisture in the “Cave”
The issue is humidity. You can measure it with hygrometers but controlling it is another matter. There are many ways to do it and we have posted several articles about regulating the humidity of your cheeses as they mature.* In this article, Pedro Collins of Stoke Lyne, Oxfordshire, UK shares his method. Pedro is a home cheese maker with a great Facebook page- The Little
How to Add Humidity to Your Room Sized “Cave”
Yes, we do sell hygrometers for measuring humidity, but adding humidity is another story. For years, many of us have been placing wet paper towels in our refrigerators, but maintaining a constant amount of humidity is difficult. Two years ago we posted a fascinating article about using salt to retain humidity in a refrigerator cave. Steve Murtaugh perfected that technique and shared all the details
Controlling Humidity in Your Cheese “Cave”
Steve (Bear) Murtaugh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania A couple of months ago, I mentioned in an e-mail to Steve Murtaugh that I think controlling humidity is the biggest challenge for home cheese makers. Steve has been retired from managing government labs since 2010, so he decided to tackle that problem. He had just read an article about how salt retains humidity and he thought that might be
Using Hygrometers to Measure Humidity
When it comes to aging your cheese, one of the most useful devices to have is a hygrometer (to measure humidity) or a thermo-hygrometer (to measure both humidity and temperature). These devices are sold at hardware stores, discount stores, hobby stores, Amazon and other online retailers, as well as eBay. They range from $1 on eBay to hundreds of dollars at the labware websites. However,