- Natural Rind is hardened barrier between cheese and atmosphere.
- Natural Rinds are difficult to maintain as they contain food that attract airborn bacteria and microbes
- Inoculating your cheese with good microflora such as Geotrichum Candidum will dominate preventing attack of other bad microbes. Wine, Beer or Brandy can be rubbed into the cheese to promote a good yeast formation that helps develop of natural rind
The goal of oiling is to cover several coatings to create a thick layer. This protects the cheese from unwanted surface microorganisms and control's the moisture content.
- Do not use on small cheeses
- Oil should be applied lightly over a number of days until a hard skin has developed. Once this has developed it can then be done every month
- Lightly pressed washed curd type cheeses such as Gouda and Edam should not be oiled because these types of cheeses have a high pH early in the aging process. Because of this there is lot of food on their surface which can cause yeast to grow.
- Salt can be added to help control surface mold
- oiling to seal the rind. Oiling too early with cheese still moist can result in yeast injections
- Dip cloth in the oil, dab it on the rind, then wipe the excess off
- Cheeses should be aged for 8 days to produce a natural rind before oiling
Dry Salting Rinds
- Humidity
Soft rind/dry salted type cheeses are aged in 95% ambient humidity after dry salting. This is to prevent excessive evaporation of moisture from the surface of the cheese which would result in a dehydrated dense and tough rind. Also their surface must enable growth of molds, yeasts, and bacteria.
Hard rinded cheeses are aged at 85% ambient humidity to encourage expelled whey to be evaporated resulting in a dehydrated surface which later becomes the rind development. Repeated dry salt applications result in a steadily increasing dehydrated layer.
- Cheese Size
- Salt Type
Standard sodium chloride table salt is used. Its best to use coarse rather than fine. This to absorbs teh whey at a steady rate compared to fine salt which can absorb so quickly it can flush out teh fat resulting in an incorrect salt content.
There are many types of salts, cheese friendly household eating salt are most common. These are minerals composed primarily of Sodium Chloride (NaCl) and essential to our well-being. Salt is produced from evaporating sea water and also mining ancient seabed deposits. These are manufactured in many ways including:
- Raw sea salt which is bitter due to magnesium
- Refined flourinated/iodized and anticaking salt. Iodine is used as a health benifait which unfortunately kills some of the good bacteria/culture in the cheese. Anicaking such assodium aluminosilicate, potassium ferrocyanide, or magnesium carbonate prevent the formation of lumps caused by moisture. Due to this its not recommended for dry salt but can be used in brine.
- Refined salt which is pure Sodium Chloride.
- Kosher/Malden/Rock salt is mainly used in cheesemaking as its does not contain Iodine
- Canning and Pickling is also non-iodized and can also be used in cheesemaking.
Final salt content within the cheese is critical. Salt content can caracterise a cheese so follow teh recipe accurately on amount of salt being applied to teh overall weight of final cheese.
- Soft Rind Cheeses - sprinkle measured amount of dry salt all over the cheese. Try not not lose any salt as this will interfear with final salt % needed
- Hard Rind Cheeses - rub dry salt onto the rind.
Covering the cheese in ash is used to reduce the acidity and mellows the flavour. Its mainly used for goat cheese
