I Cut The Cheese ... Literally

I've been a cheesemaker for a few years, but have always had problems aging hard cheeses.  Soft cheeses - those requiring 6 weeks or less to age - are no problemo.  I've always been able to successfully ripen them using a small undercounter refrigerator with an external thermostat to keep the temperature at the right level - usually 50 to 55 degrees.  The problem with the small refrigerator, though, is that it doesn't regulate the humidity.  Cheeses like high humidity and refrigerators don't have a means of stabilizing this.

I've had some success controlling the humidity with jars of water and wicking material - but it's time consuming and very inconsistent.  I can manage to make this approach limp along for a few weeks - which is great for my bries and camemberts.  But I've never had success aging anything longer than 2 months.

And then I discovered the Eurocave - from France - that uses cold wall technology.  This machine has been designed to generate high levels of humidity.  It's really meant to be used to age wine, but coincidentally wine and cheese like the same humidity and temperature ranges - so why not cheese, I ask?

It was a birthday present to myself - and it wasn't cheap - the big question was - would it work?

Well ... today I had the pleasure of cutting open my first ever Monterey Jack cheese including green jalapenos grown in my garden.  Actually Tom did the cutting while I did the photo essay.  It had beautiful color and was very, very delicious.  Next time I think I'll put in more jalapenos.  The only negative was there were cracks in the center.  Don't know what caused that - perhaps not turning it enough early in the aging process?  I'll have to do some research.  It didn't hurt the taste, just the look.

Overall, I'm so over the top with the outcome - especially knowing I can know work on mastering hard cheeses.  Let the curdling begin ...