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Storing diy waxed cheese


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Anyone done it? I'm thinking about buying blocks of cheese and wax and storing some that way instead of the freezer. I have a few questions:

 

What kind of cheese can I store that way? I know cheddar....but can I do mozzarella? I'm assuming it's mostly hard cheeses?

 

How long can I store them like that (in a cool, dark place)?

 

How do I keep them safe from rodents? I'm guessing I can put them into plastic boxes (like shoe bins)?

 

Thank you! I'm hoping to get into this soon!!

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You should only wax semi hard and hard cheese.  You cannot just dip it in wax, there is a process.  It can last a quarter century or more if done correctly.

 

How to Wax Cheese for Home Storage | Homesteading Hippy (thehomesteadinghippy.com)

 

The Ultimate Guide to Cheese Waxing (tastylicious.com)

 

These 2 resources seem to explain it fairly well.   Do NOT just dip it and call it good.  Pick a process.   I prefer medium or high heat waxing as they are safest.   

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1 hour ago, euphrasyne said:

You should only wax semi hard and hard cheese.  You cannot just dip it in wax, there is a process.  It can last a quarter century or more if done correctly.

 

How to Wax Cheese for Home Storage | Homesteading Hippy (thehomesteadinghippy.com)

 

The Ultimate Guide to Cheese Waxing (tastylicious.com)

 

These 2 resources seem to explain it fairly well.   Do NOT just dip it and call it good.  Pick a process.   I prefer medium or high heat waxing as they are safest.   

Thank you!! I've been watching videos all afternoon with a sleeping toddler on my lap. Never occurred to me to do this!! 

 

More questions, if you don't mind:

 

Do you have a preferred wax, or something off of Amazon okay?

 

I'm particularly interested in mozzarella. If I get a low moisture one, would that be okay or is it still too soft? 

 

Is this how you store your cheese? I'm trying to use our freezers less, and so far this is what I've come up with for cheese. 

 

Thanks again!! :sSig_thankyou:

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38 minutes ago, Littlesister said:

I have never waxed cheese before but is something that would be good to know how to do. Even cheese is getting expensive now. I do freeze some cheese but not a lot.

I heard that we should be expecting blackouts this summer (what that means exactly, I don't know for sure), so I'm trying to find ways to store food without refrigeration. Canning, dehydrating, and now, waxing cheese!! (not that I can or dehydrate cheese now, I only freeze it)

 

Speaking of which....can cheese be dehydrated?

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Mozzarella has a very high moisture content and would not wax well.   Same for dehydrating.   You would be better off just making a batch fresh when you needed it.   

 

Frozen, waxed, or just made fresh.    Check out the youtube video below.   If you have a cow, all you need is raw milk and vinegar.  If you are using powdered milk, you will need rennet tablets, citric acid powder and butter.  You will be able to cut the butter if you have whole milk powder like land o' lakes, but you will need to add fat if you are using nonfat milk.  This guy has a video on using the rennet/powder method and just the vinegar/raw method.  

 

I have bought dehydrated cheese, but never done it myself.  I do not care for the texture, taste, or melt of it.   Someone else would be better suited to telling you how to do that.    I find that cost vs product dehydrated cheese isn't worth it.

 

Waxing is about getting all the moisture out.  That is why you use hard cheeses.   Anything high moisture is not going to work and would be much better off just learning to make it as needed from ingredients on hand.   Even low moisture mozzarella is still a high moisture cheese comparatively.  You can try it, but I would do a very small batch and expect failures.   I love powdered milk!  Also keep in mind that most storage should be in a cool, dry, dark place.   I am currently in a very wet, hot, light place so I do get more failures here than I would like on waxed cheese.  This is why I mostly do frozen atm while we live here.   My pantry has skylights  :/  We are hoping to retire somewhere colder or at least move to a house with a room without skylights.  (*yea, 1st world problems I know.)

 

Do not put them in plastic.  Cheese need air and low moisture.  If you trap them in plastic with moisture then it is going to fail.   Your best bet against pests is to treat your home for pests.  I have very few bugs, the occasional lizard, and nothing else.  But I have cats.   Their ears perk up and eyes get big if they notice anything not us in the house.  Littlecat jumped 10" straight up and caught a bird in our living room once.  Fatcat tried to get the bird, but knocked over a lamp and broke it.  Whatever pest control works for you is best, but I consider my cats organic pest control that is good with kids  :)

 

You want a good quality cheese wax to do your cheese if you are doing it for safety/ prepping reasons.  You can make your own wax from paraffin or tallow, but it leads to a lot of fails.  (I was in SCA years ago and there was one woman who was obsessed with cheesemaking for historical accuracy.)  You can get cheese wax off amazon.  Cheese wax is reusable.  Wash and dry it good before reusing.  

 

Amazon.com: Blended Waxes, Inc. Cheese Wax 1lb. Block - Fully Refined Premium Wax For Cheese Making - Wax Can Be Used For A Variety Of Different Cheese Types (2, Red): Home & Kitchen

 

 

Edited by euphrasyne
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It will not let me edit my post.    

 

* Cat jumped 10 feet in the air (18ft ceilings)

 

* You can get literally anything off amazon.  Cat food, menstrual products, garden sheds, swimming pools, small houses, goat milk.....   I haven't found live animals like goats, but they do sell about a thousand species of worms, minnows, and fish.  Not going to link the worms for possible ick factor.  They do state 'Live arrival guaranteed.'  

 

Goat milk:  (you can make paneer from this.  Imagine Indian cheese that is a cross between tofu and cottage cheese.  It holds its shape when cut and is great in heavy sauces)

https://www.amazon.com/Hoosier-Hill-Farm-Additives-Antibiotic/dp/B07SB266CC/

 

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Thank you for all of this information!! I've made mozzarella before (buying rae milk from friends at the time), but haven't in a long time. We still want a cow....I'm trying to figure out how to pay for it, with everything else looming including a wedding!! 

 

I got some wax ordered and some bags to put into my crockpot to minimize the mess. Can't wait to get it going! 

 

I'll post pictures if anyone is interested! 😊

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I’ve waxed my own home made hard cheese before and didn’t find it any more effective than storing the dry cheese in the rind it develops from the curing process.  We had a very cold basement pantry at the time and I stored it on wire racks.  
 

I agree with Euphrasyne that if you have access to raw milk or powdered milk it is easy to make fresh cheese but if you are wanting aged , hard cheese without the wait for a survival situation be sure to do a lot of reading first (as I’m sure you do).  It won’t save you anything if the cheese is unusable when you need it. You might also think about storing cheese in oil or in brine.  Try small batches in different ways to see what works best. 
 

As for the predicted Midwest blackouts,  that often means periodic electrical loss due to high demand.  That might be temporary, random, short term outages while they transfer electricity from one area to another.  Unfortunately with the predicted electrical shortages that could mean days.  Short term (1-2 days) outages, even if they are often, will not effect your freezer temps greatly if the freezers are insulated with heavy quilts or packing blankets and only opened when absolutely necessary.  Longer term for us here usually means using a generator a couple times a day to keep items frozen or a massive canning or dehydrating effort to save what’s in them.  
 

Thankfully, hard cheese when frozen can still be stored and used after thawing so not as much of an issue as soft cheese would be. 

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2 hours ago, Mother said:

I’ve waxed my own home made hard cheese before and didn’t find it any more effective than storing the dry cheese in the rind it develops from the curing process.  We had a very cold basement pantry at the time and I stored it on wire racks.  
 

I agree with Euphrasyne that if you have access to raw milk or powdered milk it is easy to make fresh cheese but if you are wanting aged , hard cheese without the wait for a survival situation be sure to do a lot of reading first (as I’m sure you do).  It won’t save you anything if the cheese is unusable when you need it. You might also think about storing cheese in oil or in brine.  Try small batches in different ways to see what works best. 
 

As for the predicted Midwest blackouts,  that often means periodic electrical loss due to high demand.  That might be temporary, random, short term outages while they transfer electricity from one area to another.  Unfortunately with the predicted electrical shortages that could mean days.  Short term (1-2 days) outages, even if they are often, will not effect your freezer temps greatly if the freezers are insulated with heavy quilts or packing blankets and only opened when absolutely necessary.  Longer term for us here usually means using a generator a couple times a day to keep items frozen or a massive canning or dehydrating effort to save what’s in them.  
 

Thankfully, hard cheese when frozen can still be stored and used after thawing so not as much of an issue as soft cheese would be. 

We really need a milking cow. 😂 

 

We have a few solar panels that I'm hoping are enough to run the freezers in the garage....they need to be set up though.  We're concerned about an EMP knocking them out, though....🙁

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Joyfilled, I loved our Guernsey/ jersey cross milk cow. She was so tame we could go out to the pasture and milk her.  She gave gallons of rich creamy milk daily and would milk over two years without being bred. :happy0203:
 

We have three small 45 watt solar panels that give us plenty of 12 volt power but we’d have to run an inverter to even consider running our freezers, even our smallest one, as inverters use too much electricity to convert to 110.  One of our solar panels is brand new in the box and we are hoping if our hooked up ones are affected the boxed one wouldn’t be.  Not sure about batteries but we always keep one or two charged but not connected to anything.  I’m not sure there is any definitive answer to that. :shrug: 

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13 hours ago, Mother said:

Joyfilled, I loved our Guernsey/ jersey cross milk cow. She was so tame we could go out to the pasture and milk her.  She gave gallons of rich creamy milk daily and would milk over two years without being bred. :happy0203:
 

We have three small 45 watt solar panels that give us plenty of 12 volt power but we’d have to run an inverter to even consider running our freezers, even our smallest one, as inverters use too much electricity to convert to 110.  One of our solar panels is brand new in the box and we are hoping if our hooked up ones are affected the boxed one wouldn’t be.  Not sure about batteries but we always keep one or two charged but not connected to anything.  I’m not sure there is any definitive answer to that. :shrug: 

 

I think I'm just hoping we don't have to find out. 

 

It just occurred to me (duh! 🤦🏼‍♀️), rolling blackouts would affect gas stations, stores and the like, too, I would suspect. I'm sure hospitals have generators, and possibly grocery stores, too. But those generators take gas....and gas is already expensive. And so is food. What will that do to the cost of cheese (since that's what this thread is about after all, heh...)??? 

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13 hours ago, Mother said:

Joyfilled, I loved our Guernsey/ jersey cross milk cow. She was so tame we could go out to the pasture and milk her.  She gave gallons of rich creamy milk daily and would milk over two years without being bred. :happy0203:
 

We have three small 45 watt solar panels that give us plenty of 12 volt power but we’d have to run an inverter to even consider running our freezers, even our smallest one, as inverters use too much electricity to convert to 110.  One of our solar panels is brand new in the box and we are hoping if our hooked up ones are affected the boxed one wouldn’t be.  Not sure about batteries but we always keep one or two charged but not connected to anything.  I’m not sure there is any definitive answer to that. :shrug: 

And....your cow 🐮 story sounds lovely. I most likely wouldn't milk it, but would process the milk....but seeing her in the pasture would be amazing!! 😊

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Joyfilled, if you get a cow, please learn to milk her for several reasons.  One, there might come a time when you are faced with milking her yourself or resign her to the pain, misery, and possible mastitis if she is not milked.  Two, you could be missing the chance to have a hands-on connection to your food which is vital to living a self-reliant lifestyle. And three you could be missing the experience of being loved and accepted as one of that cow’s family.  The interdependent dynamics between a family milk animal and it’s human family is unique, to say the least. :happy0203:

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