Cheese Aging Room

Finally ready, the cheese aging room. This cave like space, under the Brooklyn sidewalk, is connected to the basement where I do some of my wood turning. As shown on the first photograph, I never utilized it. It was just a useless space filled with junk. Being about five feet high, four feet wide and seven feet deep, it wasn't very use full. But wondering where to store my cheese, I realized that this space might be well suited for this purpose. Not many apartments in Brooklyn have a cold cellar and I did not want to store it in a refrigerator. So I cleaned it out, stuccoed the walls and tiled the floor. Hopefully, it will keep a constant temperature and humidity over the summer to keep my cheeses. Right now it is about 55 degrees Fahrenheit (12 C) with a humidity of 80 %.

Stilton style result

Well, here it is, the cheese after five days. Pretty moldy already, I think the cheese has to much air in it. The curd was probably to dry when I put it in the form. I should have pressed it a little. If the mold keeps growing at this rate than it will soon be a big green glob.

Stilton style cheese

This is an attempt to make a Stilton type cheese. The recipe I used, came from Ricki Carroll's book "Home cheese making, recipes for 75 homemade cheeses".
The milk (3 gallon) is raw cows, bought clandestine on a farm in upstate New York. I used Flora Danica, (mesophilic) as a starter, and Penicillium Roqueforti as a mold. This sat for 30 minutes in the milk at 30C (86F). I then added the (animal) rennet, determined the flocculation time to be 16 minutes, multiplied this by 4 and let it coagulate for 64 minutes. Then I scooped the curd in a colander lined with cheesecloth. The curd sat for 9o minutes in the whey after which I tied the cheesecloth into a bag and let it drain for 30 minutes or until it stopped dripping. Next the bag was placed on a board and pressed overnight with about 10 pounds of weight on top. Ambient temperature was about 68F.
The next morning I broke the curd into 1 inch pieces and salted them in a clean bowl. Finally the curd was scooped into a 6 inch open end form, sitting on a cheese board with a draining mat on top. The from was turned over every 15 minutes for the first two hours and twice a day for the next 4 days. No mold has started growing as of yet, but I will post a picture when things start to get excited.

Gallery 2

Pine, 7 x 14-3/4 inch


Black Walnut, 8-1/2 x 19-1/2 inch


Maple, 7 x 14-3/4 inch


Ash, 13-3/4 x 4-3/4 inch


Spalted Maple, 12 x 3-3/4 inch


Spalted Maple, 11-1/2 x 4 inch


Spalted Maple, 11-3/4 x 4 inch

Gallery 1

Spalted Maple, 10 x 4 inch


Sycamore, 9-3/8 x 3 inch


Sycamore, 14 x 5 inch


Black walnut, 7 x 5 inch


Cherry, 10-1/2 x 2 inch


Spalted maple, 12-1/2 x 4 inch


Black walnut, 10 x 3 1/2 inch


Maple, 10 x 3-1/2 inch