Daily Details, Part 2: Aging

Previously on Cheesy Street: We last left off talking about prepping for market and packaging wholesale orders. On today's episode, we'll have a closer look at life in the aging room, followed later by an installment on the cheese room. 

3) The Aging Room--Where cheese becomes a grown up:

Call it an aging room, aging cave, or aging cellar, they all accomplish the same thing. It's a place where newly formed cheese develops its own unique flavor, rind, and, yes, personality. When cheese is made on the first day, the curd tastes like sweet, milky nothing. The only thing that has occurred is the dispelling of the liquid components of milk and the consolidation of the solid components. So unless the curd itself has been salted, which happens with certain blue cheeses and cheddars, it tastes just like the milk. The starter cultures that acidify (drop the pH of) the milk will do much of their work in creating flavor as the cheese ages.

Before the cheese goes on the aging shelves, it must be left in the salt brine for anywhere between 6 hours to almost three days, depending on the cheese.  The salt brine is just salt and water that's kept in a big trough-like basin in the far side of the aging room. If the wheels have to be taken out early, say because another newly made batch needs to fit in the brine, then they get dry salted by hand-rubbing salt all around the wheels to compensate for the shortened time in the brine bath.  Blue cheeses get routinely dry salted multiple times regardless of brining because, as you might taste, blues have a higher salt content. Salt acts to both add flavor to cheeses, as well as assist in drying out the rind and controlling moisture levels in cheese.

The cheese takes its designated spot on the aging room shelves and is left to mature and learn about the facts of life. By the time the cheese wheel reaches its midlife crisis, a unique cheesy taste has developed...and that's where things start getting nasty for me or any other person working in an aging cellar. I've previously mentioned the unappetizing things that happen in all aging rooms, but let's talk about it again for fun. Cover your ears if you're squeamish.

When you create a room to house food in the open air with cold, somewhat damp conditions, it's inevitable that creatures and organisms will live there. Fruit flies come to live and die in a sea of cheese. What a way to go. I've also heard about cheese mites before from cellar workers in my VIAC classes. I imagined bugs the size of flies, but both fortunately and unfortunately, they are much tinier and more innocuous than that. They are clusters of small whitish silver dots, which are only noticeably alive because the cluster moves and sways. It's not as gross as it sounds and it's a natural part of cheese. If you're grossed out, go cry about it to the tiny mites that live on your eyelashes and bedsheets.

The cheese mites are easily removed and eradicated in the grooming and transporting process. But the amount of dust they create is incredible. On shelves with some of the older cheeses that have aged for 6 months or longer, a layer of cheese mite dust covers the entire shelf. When the dust gets on my arm, it can get a little itchy, but it's easily wiped off. But when a shelf is emptied and needs to be used again for a new cheese, I need to really get after it with a metal scraper to fully remove all the caked on dust and rind that's left behind.

I've also mentioned hosing and cleaning the floors before. Just know that it's still gross. But it needs to be done regularly because all the dust, water, and bugs that have died a wondrous death, create a film that can get slippery and smelly. The natural odor of any cheese room should be the crisp, tickling smell of ammonia from the cheese aging, breaking down protein and developing flavor.

Each type of cheese requires it's own type of maintenance. All cheese require regular flipping, so all sides age, take shape, and dry out evenly. Blue cheeses have holes poked in them to allow oxygen inside the cheese so that the blue molds can do their job (see top-right). I've never poked blues, but I've seen others do it while down in the aging room. Some cheese simply get dusted and flipped. Washed rind cheeses need to be washed and rubbed, which gives the outside their signature smooth texture and allows the B. linens bacteria to survive and give the rind an orange look (see bottom-right).  I've previously mentioned the washing technique for the Hooligan, which is simply washed with the same salt brine in which it was originally bathed as a baby in the trough. The soft, small wheels take a dip in a finger-numbing cold brine bath and sometimes receive a light scrubbing with a brush to remove some build-up. Some of the Hooligans are washed with either a beer, wine, or a pear mash to create variations in the flavor profile of the regular Hooligan.

Finally, there is the Dairyere, an aged Gruyere-like cheese that has a B.linens-orange, firm, but slightly sticky rind. Dairyeres don't get washed. Instead, I flip the wheels (which are often the big 25-pounders), rub the outside of the rind to remove dust and ensure the slight moisture is spread evenly. Also try saying "I rub Dairyeres" and "Dairyeres aren't washed" out loud without laughing like a ten-year-old. Because, I sure can't. Last week I groomed a few Dairyeres from the batch I made on my first day (the tough 112 degree cheese make). I felt a sense of pride in grooming the cheese I helped make and seeing it mature, like it was my very own cheese baby.