The Numbers
Aging is the part of cheesemaking where nothing appears to happen for months, and then either you have something wonderful or you have a cracked, ammoniated, mite-ridden disappointment. The difference is almost entirely two numbers and a breeze.
This page is the reference table. The two pages after it are what I actually built to hit these numbers — a converted refrigerator and a room in my basement.
Temperature: 45–55 °F
That’s the window. Not a suggestion — a working range, and most things live in the middle of it.
A domestic refrigerator runs 10 to 15 degrees too cold. That’s the single most important sentence on this page, because it explains why “I’ll just age it in the fridge” doesn’t work. At 35–38 °F the ripening organisms don’t stop — they slow to the point where the cheese dries out faster than it develops. You get an old cheese rather than an aged one, and those are different things.
Too warm is its own failure. Above the window, the cheese gets greasy, fats go rancid, the paste can slump, and unwanted organisms outrun the ones you want.
I run mine year-round in the low fifties, which is where the New England Cheesemaking guidance lands too — its author keeps 52–54 °F as the year-round ideal. If you’re going to hold one number and forget it, that’s the number.
Humidity: 85–95%
The other half, and the one people get wrong far more often, because a fridge is a dehumidifier by design. Its whole job is to condense moisture out of the air. Every hour it runs, it’s working against you.
- 85–95% RH is the general window.
- 95–97% for the cheeses that want it wetter — the bloomy and washed rinds especially.
- Below about 80% you’re not aging, you’re drying. The rind hardens too fast, moisture can’t migrate out of the paste evenly, and the wheel cracks — usually from the inside, where you can’t see it until you cut.
Hard wheels tolerate the lower end; anything with a living rind wants the upper end. If you can only hold one figure, hold 90% and adjust for what’s on the shelf.
Air movement: a gentle breeze, not still air
The third variable, and the one nobody mentions until something goes furry.
Still, saturated air grows mould on every surface, including surfaces you didn’t want mould on. Moving air keeps the surface of each wheel evaporating slightly and stops pockets of stagnant humidity forming behind and between cheeses.
What you want is just a gentle breeze — the guidance is explicit about that. A humidifier with a built-in fan does double duty here, which is why it’s the recommended solution: it adds the moisture and moves the air. Small computer fans do the job too.
And leave space. Between the wheels, and behind them. A cheese pushed against a back wall has a face that never dries, and that face will tell you about it.
Fresh air exchange
Cheese respires and the cave accumulates. Opening the door once or twice a day is sufficient for a small space — which is the recommendation, and it’s worth knowing because it complicates the case for automating your turning. You don’t want the door opening constantly. You do want it opening.
Shelving: the wood matters more than you’d think
This one surprised me, and it’s cheap to get right and annoying to get wrong.
- Pine and ash — good. They work well and stay clean.
- Oak and maple — problematic. They stain the cheese.
Wood over plastic or metal generally, because wood buffers moisture at the contact face instead of letting a wet spot sit there. And take the shelves out and clean them several times a year — they’re part of the ecosystem, and eventually the wrong part of it.
The failure list
Nearly everything that goes wrong in a cave is one of these:
| Symptom | Almost always |
|---|---|
| Cracked rind, dry paste | Humidity too low |
| Slimy surface, off smells | Standing water, wet surfaces, no air movement |
| Mould where you didn’t want it | Still air, or shelves overdue a clean |
| Wheel drying unevenly, one flat face | No spacing, or not turned often enough |
| Condensation dripping onto the cheese | Wipe the lid or the underside when you turn it |
| Ammonia smell on a bloomy | Too warm, too wet, too little exchange |
Standing water is the recurring villain. A pan for humidity is fine; a puddle is a habitat.
The honest summary
Low fifties. About 90%. A gentle breeze. Space between the wheels. Pine or ash shelves. Turn them, and wipe the condensation when you do.
Everything on the next two pages is machinery for holding those six things steady while I get on with something else.
Next: the converted refrigerator, and then the cave I built in the basement.
Sources
- Target ranges (45–55 °F, the author’s 52–54 °F year-round; 85–95% RH and 95–97% for wetter-rind cheeses), the fridge-runs-10–15°-too-cold point, the humidifier-as-fan approach, the “gentle breeze” guidance, door-opening for air exchange, and the pine/ash versus oak/maple shelving advice all come from New England Cheesemaking Supply Company’s “How to Make a Cheese Cave” — https://cheesemaking.com/blogs/learn/how-to-make-a-cheese-cave — which is the guide both of my builds follow, and which is Ricki Carroll’s company. She turns up on my bookshelf, in my own story, in the American revival, and now here.
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