When I first started mingling with fellow NYC cheesemakers, one name repeatedly came up in conversation. "Have you heard of Jos?" they would ask, then recount the legend of a man making exceptional cheeses and aging them somewhere under the sidewalk in Brooklyn.

Read the whole story here:
http://modernfarmer.com/2013/07/meet-new-yorks-urban-cheesemakers/

Coolbot

Summer is starting to sneak up on us in New York City and the temperature in the cheese cave is starting to rise. In the previous years I would move all the cheeses upstate to a cooler place now. But this year I would like to keep them in the city as I expect to spend more time here. I would like to tend to the cheeses more regularly.

Last year most of the cheeses grew very wild rinds and were badly infested with cheese mites due to very high humidity. Having the cheese here allows me to monitor the conditions in the cave and keep the rind development and cheese mites under control.

Having said all this, climate control in the cave is of the essence. A while ago I read about a device called Coolbot in an article about cheese caves. I had always thought climate control would be very elaborate and expensive. The systems I have seen are large and pricey. Granted the caves are usually larger but a conventional system for my cave would still be complicated and expensive. This little device seemed to be the answer. As said on the website; the Coolbot turns any off the shelf air conditioner into a turbo charged cooling machine.

I ordered the Coolbot several weeks ago and installed it using a small frigidaire air conditioner I had lying around. This was during the first heat wave in New York. It ran for several days. To my dismay nothing happened, no drop in temperature, nothing. Initially I thought the ac unit wasn't compatible with the Coolbot. According to the Coolbot manual, most fridigaire air conditioners have metal frost sensors which don't work well with the Coolbot. After closer inspection I realized that the air conditioner was broken. I felt relieved. I had almost lost my trust in the Coolbot.

I read the manual again (I have read it several times during my trials) and went on a search for a small LG, Samsung or Haier air conditioner. These are the recommended brands. I needed a unit which was physically small as well as small in BTU's. As the whole cave is formed by at least a foot thick concrete, the only space for the unit is the entrance. Any unit too wide would block the entrance. After some research I found a small Haier, about 18 inches wide, perfect for my application.

After I installed the unit I waited with great anticipation. The temperature in the cave dropped a little but not significantly. I changed the settings on the Coolbot several times, checked the connections between the air conditioner and the Coolbot and read the manual over and over again. The Coolbot wasn't the miracle I had hoped for.

Several weeks past and the outside temperature dropped again and the temperature in the cave wasn't as pressing. But recently the weather has warmed up again and without a doubt, soon it will be sweltering hot in the city. I directed my attention again to the climate in the cave. This had to work.

After reading the manual again I realized that insulation plays an important role. I had not realized that the concrete worked as a cold sink. The concrete of the roof of the cave felt definitely warm. After insulating this with 2 inch styrofoam, the temperature in the cave dropped by 5 degrees after a day. This was a real achievement. I regained my trust in the Coolbot, maybe it could be the miracle device. With the help of the temperature outside, I could now cool the cave to 56 F. But with rising temperature in the city again, it was time for more insulation. Today I insulated most of the other walls with 2 inch styrofoam. Whether this will be is enough, time will tell. I am confident now that I can reach my desired temperature. The Coolbot might just be a small miracle.

Cave Content

In the last post I promised an update of what's in the cave. The first picture shows some soft washed rind cheeses made on February 13 after a recipe for Vacherin. Since I took this picture I have cut into one of the cheeses. Although it is very soft, it doesn't remind me of a Vacherin as I remember them. I have washed the cheeses regularly with brine to develop a rind of the coryneform bacteria. The cheese at the right is from the same batch but I didn't wash it. I let it grow "wild".
The second picture shows some simple tommes with a washed rind. This batch was from mid January. Below it a batch of reblochon made February 22. This was a 5 gallon batch resulting in 5 two pound wheels. I washed 4 wheels regularly with a brine mixture and I let one wheel go wild as shown in the 4th photograph.
Below it two alpine style cheeses, each about 10 pound, one from early January, the other from mid February.
All cheeses mentioned above were made from Jersey milk. The cheeses in the last two pictures were made from Ayrshire milk. Some blue in the first and some lactic washed rind cheese in the last.

Humidifier

Since the cold weather here in Brooklyn, the temperature in the cave dropped down to 40 degrees Fahrenheit. I already had a little heater in the cave, but it wasn't adequate. I installed another little heater. This raised the temperature to the desired level but, although I have a tray with water sitting on the heaters, the humidity was negatively affected. The dry weather outside and the heat inside made the humidity drop to 70 %. To compensate I had to install something like a humidifier.

I don't know anything about humidifiers, but I guess, there is not much to know. All they have to do is put moisture into the air. I found a simple vaporizer humidifier the first store I went in.

Seeing it produce all that steam while testing it, I didn't want to put the unit directly into the cave being afraid of creating a sauna in there. So I hooked up a hose to the humidifier and lead this into the cave. This way the steam will have cooled before entering the cave. The humidifier runs on a timer, set at about half an hour on every two hours. We'll see how it goes. No doubt, some cheeses will like it better than others.

What's in the Cave

All the cheeses have been back in Brooklyn for a month or so after spending the summer upstate due to the heat in the city. I can attend to them more regularly because I spend most of my time in the city. This also allows me to start with some washed rind cheeses as seen in the third and fourth photograph. The recipes for these cheeses are based on the procedure for Reblochon cheese. Jim Wallace, the technician from New England Cheese Supply was so kind to send me a target sheet for this cheese and when I was in France over the summer I visited a Reblochon maker in the Haute Savoie. I shall post about this visit in a few weeks. I am currently washing three wheels with Marc de Bourgogne and two wheels with lightly salted water. One wheel I have allowed to go wild. This is the green wheel in the third picture.

Cheese cave in Brooklyn

Here is a look in the cheese cave. I had to install a little heater because recently the temperature started to drop below the viable range for aging cheeses. The heater I installed was advertised as a pump house heater to keep the frost out. It is thermostatically controlled and low in amperage. I keep the room now at around 50F (10C) degrees. The humidity is always high, in the upper nineties.

Back in the Brooklyn Cheese Cave

The temperature in my cheese aging cave in Brooklyn has slowly gone down over the last few weeks. Recently it reached 55 F (12 C). Cool enough to move my cheese back in from upstate. It has become too cold and too dry there anyway.
So here they are. In the next few days, time allowing, I will post some more updates of which some are long overdue.

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 %.