# Is this cheese safe?



## V-NH (Jan 1, 2014)

Hello everyone,

My wife made a homemade cheddar and we aged it for 3 months. Today we opened it up and found a substantial amount of mold on it. What we're wondering is, can this cheese still be eaten? What do you think? Note that this is our first experience making homemade cheese, so we're entering new territory here.

Note: It smells wonderful.

The red is just spots from the wax.


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## Cookie2 (Feb 21, 2014)

It is hard to tell from the picture. Is that mold on the wax or under it?

Mold on hard cheese can be cut off at about an inch. On soft cheese, the "roots" of the mild go deeper so you have to cut off more or throw out soft cheeses like cream cheese or fresh mozzarella. The problem is, we don't know how firm the cheese was when the mold formed. Plus, if mold covers the entire surface of the cheese, it will be difficult to cut it away without contaminating the clean cheese surfaces.

Mold is actually a good problem to have. Mold tends to take hold and prevent us from eating spoiled foods that could otherwise be contaminated with food borne pathogens that are tasteless and odorless.

I'm no cheese expert, but I recommend that you toss this batch and research cheese making problems then try again. I suspect there wasn't enough salt in your cheese but that's just a guess.


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## Alice In TX/MO (May 10, 2002)

Looks too wet, too.


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## redgate (Sep 18, 2008)

We got a tip early in our experience, and when we make hard cheese, we give it a quick dip in raw Apple Cider Vinegar, before waxing. It serves as an edible and safe anti-bacterial and anti-fungal treatment, and doesn't affect the cheese at all. We've aged ours up to 90 days so far, and never had a moldy one.


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## IowaLez (Mar 6, 2006)

To prevent mold under the wax, you need to have the wax very, very hot when you apply it (I use a disposable, cheap kitchen basting brush). That kills any mold spores on the cheese surface. And you need to use real cheese wax, as it is not so stiff as regular paraffin. It flexes with the cheese as it ages. Regular paraffin will give crummy results every time. Cheese wax can also be reused when peeled off a cheese you are going to eat. Just heat it up nice and hot to sterilize it.

If you do it right, you will get very good results.

If you have mold on an uncoated cheese, use a clean. lint-free cloth. I use cheap washcloths from Kmart (Martha Stewart brand) that are thin, and I wash them until all lint is gone (have used my cloths since 2006, so they are old, clean and lint is long gone) and wet it with a salt and white distilled vinegar solution. Rub the surfaces, the entire cheese, lightly so you don't disturb the rind development.

Let dry, and then return it to it's aging box. You need to control the humidity and temperature as closely as you can, and keep different kinds of cheeses separated from each other, in their own boxes. I use Tuppeware type containers of appropriate size and shape for each cheese.

For most cheeses, if all your different kinds are aged together in one batch, an aging temperature of about 50 degrees is an ideal compromise. Hard cheeses like Swiss and Parmesan need a lower temp, about 42 degrees and blue cheese, cheddar and others like 52 degrees better.


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## V-NH (Jan 1, 2014)

If we don't really have a way to maintain the temperature around 50 is there an alternative? We're still trying with little success all this time later 

I read on a cheesemaking blog that some people just throw them in the fridge and get ok non-moldy results. Is that crazy?


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## marusempai (Sep 16, 2007)

I aged cheese in the refrigerator for years. I did get mold sometimes, but it was not the fault of the refrigerator. If you are waxing, what the other folks said - make sure you have a nice dry rind before you wax, and make sure that wax is HOT HOT. If you have a big enough pot to dip the cheese, that's a bit better for preventing mold - the hotter the wax is when it goes on, the better it is at killing mold spores. Also double check for bubbles - if you have a bubble in your wax, you need to try again, mold will grow from that air.


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