My Swiss cheese cracked when I took out of the brine. It’s not real bad, but it has two short cracks on the top. My last Swiss got a crack in it and it molded real bad, so I was trying to avoid that with this one.

I am going to oil this one while it sits out waiting for the swelling to start, to keep it from cracking. I was going to use olive oil, and oil it every few days until it forms a rind. Does anyone know if you oil it daily, or every other day?

Also I am going to start oiling it after I remove it from the cave, not now. Now I was going to let it air dry, and then set it in the cave for a week, then remove it from the cave and oil it and sit it out on the table.

Does anybody have an opinion on this? Any other suggestions?

As I said, the last one had a big crack in it and the mold in the crack got bad and I had to cut it out, which made the crack even worse. Now I am starting with 2 little cracks right out of the brine solution.

make sure its dry before u oil it so it sticks,I normally did 3 coats in 3 days. If your cheese cracked then maybe it got too much acid, is it hard or does it have a bit of a rubber feel to it?

It has a rubber feel to it. I think I may have cracked it by wiggling it around.

surface cracking caused by fast dry out , control the humidity in the room , or put it in closed box to control the humidity, i faced this before and this is the solution

About 2 weeks ago my little dog Daisy, who weighs 8lbs, got bit by a copper head snake. We took her to the emergency vet, and she was really sick, and after spending a lot of money and waiting 2 or 3 days, Daisy is just fine. Tuesday night she climbed up on the table and had her fill of my Swiss cheese. If I wasn’t so glad that she lived through the snake bite, I might be mad at her. Now I have to start all over.

Ah, the joy of keeping pets.

LOL, it passed the taste test then

I believe that Daisy thought it was delicious. I got my MM100 culture in the mail yesterday that I wanted to make gouda with. Now I am torn between Swiss and gouda for this weekend. I can’t make both.

I’m doing a Gouda.  I’ve been too long without one.

I’m making Dave’s Gouda recipe off of this site today. It’ almost time to drain the whey. My ph meter needs to be calibrated because I tried to calibrate it without reading the instructions and screwed it up. So now I need to buy some of that stuff that you dip it in to calibrate it but the man at the store had to order it so I can’t get it until next Saturday. So I’m making Dave’s Gouda without being able to check the ph levels, and it said in the recipe that the ph levels were important. Oh well, I bet it comes out good anyway. I can always make more after I get the ph meter calibrated. I looked at other recipes that don’t list the ph so I figure I might get close.

If you smoke your gouda at what point do you do it? After it’s air dried but before you wax it, or after it has aged and you are ready to eat it?

I made the same recipe yesterday.  I’ve done that very same recipe several times, and t usually takes 90 minutes to get to the proper pH level prior to cooking.  As for smoking, I should think you would want to smoke it prior to aging, so the smoke flavor has a chance to permeate the wheel.

Thanks, maybe my ph meter was working. I only waited 35 minutes, or well. Next time I’ll have the ph meter working. I’ll be smoking cheese later this week!