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long term CHEESE storage

23K views 35 replies 21 participants last post by  Mels thinkingitover 
#1 ·
Any here have any experience with storing cheese for say.....3-5 years? I'm not talking about refrigerated cheeses.
 
#5 ·
#9 ·
Commercial cheeses are not designed for unrefrigerated storage. I don't know of anything that will preserve them. Waxing won't.

For long term storage, you need to start with a cheese that was made for it. It will have lower moisture and be higher in acid and salt. Many of them will store for years in their own wax.

So it's either pay big money for artisanal cheeses or learn to make your own.

There are some pretty good canned cheeses on the market. And it *may* be possible to can your own. But it's going to take some detective work to find safe recipes for it.
 
#13 ·
Cheese is tricky. Most are packaged to require refrigeration though occasionally you see a shel stable package, such as in a gift basket. box Mac-n-cheese and velveta were reported to deteriorate by the date on the package which wasn't a very long shelf life (a year or less).

MRE cheeses spread.

some factory sealed containers of grated parmesan have 6 month expiration dates

nacho cheese sauce/dip is available in cans and jars Don't know how it holds up.

Hard cheese wheels dipped in cheese wax used to be stored without refrigeration. hard to get small wheels. Some have dipped their own. The cheeses get sharper with age and in some cases may separate. baby bell cheeses are very tiny wax dipped wheels, normally sold in the refrigerated section in the US but reportedly sold as shelf stable in europe. After 6months to a year cheese may become to sharp.

Northwoods sells a wide variety of shelf stable cheeses and sausages but doesn't have info on storage life on website.
http://www.northwoodscheese.com/

honeyville powdered cheese sauce in #10 cans is supposedly good for 3-5 years unopened in a cool dry place. Saratoga claims 10-20 years for theirs.

red feather/bega has small tuna cans of cheese sold in australia and new zealand for those without refrigeration. no expiration date.
http://www.pleasanthillgrain.com/canned_cheese_red_feather_cheddar_cheese.aspx
Provident pantry has freeze dried shredded cheeses. About $40/can. The google ad suggests 25 year shelf life (which is what the claim for ither products) but they do not seem to make that claim on the product page
http://beprepared.com/product.asp?pn=FN C115

http://preparetodaywardnewsletter.blogspot.com/2011/06/waxing-cheese-shelf-stable-eggs.html

Watch your storage temperatures,
 
#14 ·
Wax em and keep at low temp and they last pretty good. I am just about to start doing this.

Main thing I learned is that they continue to age in the wax. As in if you want an aged cheddar in 5 years, you better like it strong or wax a mild cheese to begin with.
 
#16 ·
ya but you can't take a cheese block out of the package and wax it and keep that long you really have to wax it right after its made other wise you can seal in contaminants
 
#20 ·
Waxing cheeses work for long term storage IF you start with the right cheese AND do it right.

You need to start with a wheel of hard, low moisture cheeses like Colby, cheddar, parmesan, and Romano. You want to get the mildest cheese you can get because, like others said, it will continue to age.

I cut the wheels into 8 ounce blocks for convenience when consuming.

Wash the blocks well with _white_ vinegar. Set them on clean cooling rack & leave overnight, turning once.

Choose your wax wisely. You need to use cheese wax. Not parrafin or beeswax. Parrafin is too hard & will crack. Beeswax is too soft & will sag and crack during storage. You can get natural color, but I prefer the darker waxes - red or even better black. The dark wax helps keep light out. The dark waxes also make it easy to spot holes or thin areas in the wax. If you reuse your wax (see below), the dark ones are easier to clean.

Melt your wax in a double boiler. You're going to want to have an inner pan you can dedicate to wax - you're never going to get that pan clean again. An appropriate thermometer is a necessity here. Check your particular wax for the recommended temperature. You want it melted, hot enough, but not to the smoke point. The wax I use works well at 220 - 225 F.

Wax IS FLAMMABLE! If you get it too hot, remove from heat. If it catches fire, extinguish with a grease rated fire extinguisher or cap with a tight fitting lid. Do NOT try to put it out with water - it will just splatter & spread.

When the wax is holding at the correct temperature, after cleaning & sanitizing your hands, waxing can begin.

Hold a block firmly & dip it halfway into the cheese. You want to use an in & out motion. Don't hold it in the wax. We're aiming for several thin, even layers, not one thick glob. After dipping the first half, replace the block on the cooling rack with the side you just waxed upright.

Repeat this with the rest of your blocks. When you do the other end, hold the waxed end & dip the bare end far enough into the wax that you overlap the first end by at least 1/2" and return to the cooling rack.

You're going to repeat this at least 2 more times so you end up with 3 - 4 layers of wax. A trick I use to make sure there are no holes is to rotate the block 90 degrees when I begin a new layer so that every other layer covers the seam of the previous layer.

When you've completed waxing, remove the wax from the heat & let cool. When the wax is hardened, store the pot upside down so dust doesn't get into it.

When you store your cheese, you do NOT want to just stack them one on top of the other. You need to store them on shelves with some air space between the layers. If you have made blocks larger than 8 ounces, you're going to need to rotate them every 6 months or so or you risk gravity breaking the wax when it sags.

Make sure that your store age area is cooled & dry (8 - 15% humidity).

To label the blocks, after the wax is completely hardened, you can use a contrasting color wax "pencil". Another way is to use a paper label that you affix with some wax on the back like a sticker. To make sure it stays on, you can brush a little wax around the edges of the label. If you do this, use a silicone or boar bristle brush - others pick up too much or too little wax.

Remember, the cheese will continue to age. Even if you start with the mildest available, at 5+ years it's going to be super sharp. That's OK with us since we prefer it.

We store our cheeses in a cave that maintains 45° F & 12% humidity. So far (11 or 12 years now), we've had very few blocks spoil.

If you find you can't use an entire block, you can clean it with vinegar, dry overnight, and reward the cut end.

If you want to reuse your wax, you can do so very easily. Wash the wax with warm soapy water. Make sure you get ALL the oils & bits off then just throw it into your wax pot after drying it.
 
#25 ·
Cheese & Cheese storage

I realize most don't recognize some of the old techniques for cheese storage. Cheese "safes" aren't even being offered by prepper-craftspeople, other than my husband. Safes are to keep rodents & insects out of the cheese while the cheese is stored in the root cellar or other cold storage area. COLD storage such as root cellars WAS the pre-industrial "refrigerator" and are worth having on EVERY prepper's place.

I grew up on a ranch in Colorado & my grandfather's place had an Icehouse as well as a root cellar. Ice houses were used for storing ice in summer & was the place you put the items you needed kept extremely cold or "on ice". Its another technology we rarely see being discussed in Prepper Forums.

One doesn't have to buy a whole wheel either! Buy the cheese waxes & then dip your purchased wedges of cheese, so they are resealed. Cheese can not be placed in Air tight containers, as its a living organism (ie micro-organisms). If you kill them, you destroy your cheese. Keeping them in proper cheese wax & shelved in your root cellar or alternatively cool space will allow you to have cheese for a long time.

Another concept few seem to talk about is NETWORKING with neighbors who have the cheese making skill set. Instead of going rouge & going alone -- its perhaps time people recognize that one of the reasons we are having a breakdown of our society is that people don't live by RURAL ettiquette of "it takes a village' and instead or living by the urbanized self-centered mindset. Farmers & Ranchers have long lived in a independant, but communal mindset. Barn raising, Harvest teams, etc. Its time we come to recognize this within the prepper community -- and abandon the lone wolf theology that NEVER worked -- not even for the die-hard mountain men of the west. They celebrated communal gatherings & heavily depended on their native American communities to find medicinal elders to help them in times of health crisis.

Just saying....

Now, back on subject --- CHEESE can readily be in everyone's stores, if they take the time to learn how to properly store cheeses. And begin creating the proper storage cabinets & storage rooms. Just read some OLD 17th & 18th century books on cheese making & the like & you begin to see the difference in how they stored & handled the delicacy
 
#26 ·
We keep Red Feather ordered from MRE Depot. It taste just fine and I am a cheese eating hound. We tried a can after a couple of years no change from the first try. All they show now in cans is freeze dried cheddar and powdered cheddar like Kraft mac and cheese type. We have had several orders from this company and have no complaints.

http://www.mredepot.com/servlet/the-Canned-Meats-and-Dairy/Categories
 
#30 ·
Artisanal cheese made the traditional way are safe to wax, if they are a variety that was meant to be waxed (some aren't). But the same can't be said for their commercial equivalents which do not have the proper moisture or PH level to be safely waxed and stored without refrigeration. These cheeses can be the perfect breeding ground for botulism. So be very sure before you chance it.
 
#31 ·
Wax or not to wax -- and which wax?

After reading the posts the other day, I went back to my local grocery store and double checked.

HyVee Stores carries WAXED cheeses in their cheese dept. The wheels are sitting there for sale (completely waxed) at prices ranging from about $230 and up. You can also get wedges of those waxed cheeses and take them home & dip them in the appropriate color. Luckily, the wedges have a portion of the original wax still attached. So you don't have to guess which one.

Now that is different from the KRAFT brands over in the other portion of the store, with their plastic air tight wrappings.

I'd invest in the so called "imported" cheeses showing they are being waxed.

I also found a great Google-books ebook on cheese storage. Don't know if there is a way of attaching it here or if I can post it as a PDF in my section. Will see if there is a way to upload it.http://f1.grp.yahoofs.com/v2/eFGnUuXWeemMDIa3SxL-0P20mz1YuApbCpVYonoExJsIguJZGUe_H0pDTaDDua_5Yw0Vg2pUSxAQ8F3GhSnH-bXJDLhso4pqT46tRqHg71t7WbSXVqbD5QnSbsrjMCDO4HNnDCfEUJ36taqDnAWTnBZy3Koeqcz1dwurSmsx/storage_temperatures_necessary_to_maintain_cheese_safety.pdf

Those needing a source for cheese wax, here is one suggestion http://www.cheesemaking.com/

Here you can get step-by-step instructions on waxing cheese
http://www.cheesemaking.com/RedCheeseWax.html
 
#33 ·
Just what I needed !!!!! A post about a food I can no longer eat ! Don't get me wrong here , I Love cheese , have eaten every different kind there is but I have a problem ,,,, It has become for me what a very good looking , health oriented little lady that I work with proclaimed "Cheese" to be , she said that cheese is just "an ---hole plug" . At the age of 52 I'm starting to find that out !Sorry folks , I thought I'd add a little humor into this thread ! heh heh
 
#35 ·
I watched an episode of...yes...Doomsday Preppers lol, where this woman was "re-waxing" hard cheese she said they would have a shelf life of 20+ years if kept in a cool area (not refrigerated). So I did some study online and it seems to be valid. This method was used to store "harder cheese" like cheddars, goudas, Swiss etc for years before refrigeration. So I found a company online that sells cheese wax in 5 lb blocks (cheap), then bought a few 5 lb blocks of cheddar, re-waxed them so it's a thick coating, let them dry thoroughly at room temp then put bubble wrap around them and put them in small boxes on my supply shelf with the date. So, we shall see.....I'm planning on having it when/if I can't buy more cheese down the road. :D:
 
#36 ·
I've ordered good waxed cheeses from www.wisconsincheesemart.com in the past and been really pleased with their products and service. I also ordered some cheese wax from Amazon because one of the cheeses I ordered was a 22 pound wheel. I cut it into smaller sections and waxed them. By keeping one section out to use, there was room in the wooden cheese box for it to all fit back into.

One thing my cheese study kept mentioning was real cheeses can't be stored in sealed containers because it destroys the enzymes or some technical explanation. I'm sorry I've got a bad cold right now and can't remember the details of what it does, just that I was NOT supposed to store the cheese in sealed containers including plastic.
 
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