Bleach is about the only thing the health department recommends.  Residual bleach gases off quickly.

We are having very warm weather hear, so my basement temperature is rising to about 68 degrees, it’s 90 outside, so I’m going to have to look into this.  My cooler is getting full.

Nice cheeses

Yes, they do look great.

I started with the cooler and iceblocks for my first few batches. Worked ok, but was a hassle changing the blocks every day.

I’ve got a wine cooler/fridge now which is great. It holds 24 bottles on 6 shelves. It has a thermoelectric motor which uses less energy than a regular fridge compressor and is really quiet. Has a thermostat that can control from around 5C to 18C. It was only $110 too.

Downsides are that it could be a bit small, but I’m only doing about one batch a month so hasn’t become an issue yet!

To get humidity when needed I’ve been using plastic lunchboxs. Put water in the bottom, a rack over the water and the cheese on the rack.

I have one similar.  I put a bowl of water on the bottom rack for the humidity.  I have to refresh the water ever so often so I know that it is evaporating.

I went through the same progression.  I started with the ice chest, which worked well in early Spring, but as warmer weather moved on I was using as much as 20 lbs of ice to maintain temp.  I located a (free) used refrigerator and got a thermostat for it.  So now I’m good for a while.  There’s a bucket of water in the bottom with a towel in it as a wick for humidity.  BTW what’s the recommendation for a reliable yet reasonable method of testing humidity?

I bought the temperature/humidity sensor, in the above picture, for less than $7 at Wal Mart.

I bought this for humidity control
http://www.reptilesupply.com/product.php?products_id=655

and this to produce the humidity
http://www.artisticdelights.com/ulfog.html

I use a Tupperware box and run the humidifier for less than a minute. If the box stays closed, humidity stays pretty high for a long time.
I want to get a 2nd fridge so I can have one with humidity and one without.

SAL

In regards to the “mini - or full size refrigerator”,my mini “wine cooler”,(52* F inside) is about half full.And this morning when I peeked in to see how things were,the fact that my electricity had been out for about 14 hrs had me worried….as the temp in the cooler went higher,I thought I was going
to lose it all.If the power hadn’t come back on when it did,what would I do with all the cheese?It has in it only 20 lbs of cheese,I can’t imagine having to deal with 50lbs…
Something to ponder….

As others, I have become tired of replacing ice daily.  Also, the humidity was over 95% and even with an open lid, I could not get it down.

I went with suggestions here, ordered the controller and put them in a chest freezer.

My next step is to build some shelves so I can keep a lot of cheese in there.

The problem I have with chest freezers is that things get buried in them.  With the addition of shelves, you tend to lose sight of that which is underneath.  For that reason I have gotten rid of my chest freezer for an upright.  However, if a chest is what you already have, it makes sense to use it.

You are right that things do tend to get buried in them and it is somewhat difficult to keep them organized.  There is one advantage and that is you don’t dump the cold air every time you open it.  You can open it up and virtually maintain your temperature and humidity.  While keeping a chest freezer at 55 degrees does not consume a whole lot of energy, the way things are now, I happy to conserve every bit I can.

Can always make a map with dates on the fridge door so u can keep track.

Map made

Spent over an hour tonight flipping, rubbing salt, brine washing, and maintaining cheese.  Twelve cheeses made and months for aging.  I’m having fun making them, but it would certainly be nice to have some ready to eat.

Right now I have:

1) waxed stirred curd cheddar, my first

1) Parmesan (kind of ugly looking, but seems to be aging well)

1) Romano

2) Gruyere - one is several weeks old, one I just made.  Each slightly different techniques and aging methods.

1) Tomme au Marc - I have no idea what that is doing since I don’t want to disturb it, but it looks like it’s doing something.  At least it has not turned disgusting.

1) Cabra al Vino - left over from part of my failed English Cheddar.

2) English Cheddar’s - one I cheddard and one I stirred since it did not set up well enough.

1) Manchego - part of which turn into…

1) ??? - Smoked waxed hard cheese

1) Danish Blue

Trying to keep track of all this…turning many cheeses daily, washing, and keeping any mold in check is a fair amount of work.

LOL, great job. Bloomed cheese are the way to go for less aging or the goughda