Inspiration For Aging Well
The Biegel Family
The Biegels live in Canada where they raise goats and make an enormous amount of cheese. I’ve watched all their cheese videos, and I’ve learned so much from observing their methods. For example, they freeze their Bries for long-term storage, and they pack the cheeses that are aging in ordinary towels — two things I’ve yet to do but am considering.
Closet Cave
This guy uses an air conditioner that he outsmarted with a coolbot. He says it cost $300 to create this outfit (the video was filmed back in 2010). I like his smiley-face embossed cheese.
Cambridge, Massachusetts
This is a tiny cave with an enormous array of cheeses with all sorts of rinds. The men appear hunched, like the cave has a low ceiling, which makes me thing that the affinage work would be quite back-breaking.
Water Cistern Cave
This couple constructed their own in-ground cave (the video is Part 4 of a series), which is actually the sort of cave that I think makes the most sense for where we are, a point which I make sure to bring it up to my husband every couple weeks or so.
Mountain Cave: Fort de la Tine
This whole video is wildly entertaining but it’s at the 8:08 minute mark that I get light-headed. I WANT THAT CAVE. (Okay, okay, not really, but you know what I mean.)
Divle, Turkey
HOLY HECK. Sheep’s milk cheese packed into sheep’s skin bags and then aged for five months 35 meters underground. (The cave part starts at minute marker 3:23.)
More Reading
This article from New England Cheesemaking Supply Company gives lots of useful details on starting your own cheese cave. Included:
- How to modify a fridge to become a cheese cave
- How to use plastic boxes to control humidity
- Ideal temps
- Correct type of wood to use for shelving
- The author’s own cheese cave set up
I could ogle cheese caves like this one all day long. The colors! The variety! The flavors!
