Need ideas for drying multiple cheeses

[Lannie]

I am about to become inundated with milk. More milk that the chickens can consume clabbered, and FAR more milk than I could use up for personal use. I have two neighbors that would love to barter for my cheeses, but right now I can only make one cheese about every week (depending on humidity). So I need to come up with some kind of "thing" that I could put three or four 2-pound cheeses into to air dry, that's safe from dust, flies, cats, and doesn't take up any floor or counter space. This house is SOOOOOOO freaking SMALL.

I was originally thinking of using the end of an old oak dresser that sits in the living room (yes, you heard that right), right around the corner from the kitchen. Some of the stuff that won't fit in this kitchen is stored in those dresser drawers, but the top just has a lamp and a couple of knick-knack things on it. I thought maybe if Rich could build me a box with two or three shelves, and a front door with a screen on it, that might work, if he could make it the right size to sit on the end of that dresser. But there's the cost of the wood and accessories, hinges, screening, etc. and so then I was thinking of maybe a cheap (larger) tote box, but it would be solid plastic, so we'd still need to cut out a side or top and (somehow, glue maybe?) affix screening material to keep flies and hair out while still letting air circulate.

This shouldn't be a big problem, but I'm so restricted on space here, it IS a problem. So I was hoping maybe some of you could help me brainstorm and come up with something compact that could hold several cheeses at a time, and properly air dry them. Right now, my only way of air drying is a small, old roaster rack with several layers of paper towels on it (because it's not stainless), sitting on top of my plates in the cupboard. So every time I need to get a plate down or put one back, I have to carefully take the cheese out and then put it back when I'm finished. It works, and that's what I've been doing for years, but I can only do one cheese at a time that way, and depending on humidity and temperature, it might take two days to dry or five.

I KNOW I'm the kind of person that never thinks of the simple things. I ALWAYS have to make things too hard, so I'm hoping someone will come up with some simple idea that I haven't thought of yet.

Anybody have any ideas?

Thanks!

~Lannie

[lew92]

Do you have a garage or shed that is closed up against dogs/cats/chickens? Or do you have room on your porch? I know you don't want the expense of wood, etc, but what about looking for a book shelf on the cheap next time you go to town? Use an old sheet (or buy one at Goodwill) to stretch across the back and use the rest of it stretched across a frame that could be attached to the book shelf with hinges. A couple of hooks and eyes to fasten it and it should be fairly secure.

Buy a package of bamboo skewers and use 3-4 of them on the shelving to keep the cheese from sitting flat on the shelf.

When I started out making cheese, I used a shelf that I got from a Dollar Store (the one where everything is NOT a dollar) - I think it cost me about $7 - and I covered it with fabric to keep dust and bugs out. I even aged my cheeses in it and it worked really well, too, until summertime came around and it was too warm in my basement to age cheeses on the shelving unit.

[Lannie]

No. And no. We have outbuildings, but none of them are heated or cooled, which means freezing in the winter and 120 in the summer. And there literally isn't an extra spare square inch for a bookshelf. Not sure where we'd find one "on the cheap," anyway. With town being two hours away, we drive there, hit the feed and grocery stores and come back. I'm sure there must be second hand stores, but we've never been to one. Anyway, no place to put a bookshelf. The only space I have is the end of that dresser. There are no interior doors in the house, so there's no place that the cats can't go.

It sucks, and I hate this house. It's a good house for a single person or a city couple with no farm. All of the extra space (what there is of it) is taken up with food storage because we can't just run to the store every week. Argh...

The bamboo skewers are a good idea, though, for whatever I come up with. Wouldn't they leave marks in the cheese, though? The rack I set my cheese on now leaves "BBQ lines" across it on both sides, in spite of the 3 or 4 layers of quilted paper towels between. I was thinking of just getting a few of those cheese mats next time I reorder rennet and wax, thinking those might be flatter. Do you use those?

Another idea I had was to get a small plastic tote, and one of those vinyl-covered wire shelf thingies that would fit inside, then I could put a board on the bottom of the tote, set two cheeses on mats on that, then the shelf thingie, and more mats and two more cheeses, then the lid.  I figured drilling holes in the sides would provide ventilation enough, but then flies and gnats could get in, so it would still have to have screening or something in there.  My mind is just a swarm of bees right now...

~Lannie

[lew92]

Eh, the marks left by what the cheese rests on is minor in comparison to everything else that cheese goes through.

I use plastic cross-stitch mats for cheese mats. I got them at Walmart for about $3, I think, and they come in a pack of either 4 or 5 maybe. They are bigger than 8x11, I know.

If you do the plastic tote idea, why not get a sheer curtain to cover it with and use elastic (from the sewing dept) to make a band to hold it on top of the tote? That would let through plenty of air and would keep the bugs out. I think that drilling holes in the tote would not allow enough air circulation.

Rather than a board on the bottom of the tote, try to get a piece of "egg crate" - the covering for a fluorescent light fixture. It is plastic, divided in 1/2 inch squares and is about 1/2 inch deep and will keep your cheese off the bottom of the tote, and will allow any whey to drain without the cheeses sitting in it. Put the cheese on the plastic mat on top of the egg crate, though, or it will cut into the cheese, allowing mold formation. Not pretty. You'll probably have to go to a hardware store or building center to find it, though. I used my cut-off wheel on my Dremel to cut it.

[Lannie]

Karen, you're brilliant! I think all that would work! I'll tell Rich and see what he thinks. He was thinking he was going to have to build me a cabinet-type affair to sit against the wall at the end of the dresser.

~Lannie

[Jenn]

What about hanging it from the ceiling? We used onion sacks to store potatoes( air circulation, mouse resistant) from the beams in the basement. Didn't use precious real estate either.

(I have zero experience drying cheese, so have no idea of the logistics involved.)

-Jenn

[Deborah]

The hanging thing sounds like a great idea, if you have a place where you could do that! Another idea that came to me was ... I used to have a Longaberger basket that was a pie carrier, with a pie sitting on the bottom and another on a platform built to fit inside the basket. Elastic or clip a piece of fabric over the top and voila! You have a double decker cheese dryer! You could of course add a third story if needed.

[dinee]

Ok I don't know what they are called but what about one of those clothes storage hangers made of material that hang from the back of a door.

[suzorse]

I seen the neatest thing today at the store ,it was a picnic table food protector
and it was a mini tent made of bug proof material , the front has a large opening
that closes with magnets, I thought of you when I seen it this is it
www.amazon.com/Dura-Tent-FT-100-Outdoor-Table-Screen/dp/B002NQIT3Y/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1428118717&sr=8-1&keywords=Picnic+Table+Tents
Suzanne

[lew92]

Lannie, another idea for a counter-top cheese dryer. This link is for a mini greenhouse, but you could use window screen or a sheer curtain to cover the sides and top rather than plastic sheeting. I'd also make the top flat rather than peaked.

www.instructables.com/id/Countertop-Greenhouse/

Of course, this is a moot point if you already made one from a tote. How's the cheesemaking going?

[funnymamma]

Hang it! This is kind of spendy, but you could improvise something similar.

www.amazon.com/Tray-Hanging-Drying-Food-Dehydrator/dp/B00MEV77O0

[rosalind]

Food dryer? Mine has 10 adjustable racks, so you could take out however many you needed to fit the cheese in and it'd be fairly secure. Could even turn it on for a few minutes each day to help dry out the cheese. LOL

[Lannie]

You guys must all have WAAAAAY bigger houses than I do. One day, I'll have a bigger house... yes, one day... but in THIS house there is nowhere to hang a thing like that, even if I had one.  I don't have a dehydrator, and the only flat space available is one end (about a foot or so) of a dresser, sitting up against a wall.  That's it.  Everyplace else is filled. 

(Rich got me some shoe inserts when he went shopping last time, and got a 3-pack, so I'd have some extras, and I stood here, almost in tears, trying to figure out where I could put them.  I finally jammed them into my underwear drawer.  But that's how full the house is.  I NEED to take the time, which I don't have, to completely go through this whole house and reorganize everything.)

Anyway, Rich is going to work on a little wall cabinet thingie with a screen door on the front tomorrow. Meanwhile, I need to clean off a shelf in my kitchen pantry cupboard (the only thing around here with doors on it besides the cupboards, which are all stuffed full). I don't know what I'm going to do with whatever I clean off one of the shelves, but I guess I'll have to find a place or just throw it away or feed it to chickens or dogs.  I'm stressing to the max, trying to keep the milk down to under 10 gallons. I only have 11 jars! Every day I manage to do something with 3 or 4 gallons, then the next day I'm full to capacity again. Cricket is a MILK FACTORY this year! And it's not because Ellie's not nursing enough. She's fat as a tick when she finishes her one quarter in the morning, and then she gets another couple of gallons throughout the day, leaving me a gallon to milk out every night... Holy cow. And Ellie's got loose poops from all the milk, and now she's discovered the joys of spring grass...  I should stop milking Helen, for sure, but she's giving me such wonderful cream right now, I keep milking her for the butter.  I get a decent amount from Cricket, but she saves what she can back for Ellie, so I don't get all of it.  To hell with it, if I have to BUY butter to preserve my peace of mind, so be it!  I'm going to dry Helen off.  She can have a long vacation this summer.

Anyway, I'm taking a break from making people cheese today, and I'm going to turn three gallons of milk into chicken cheese, put one gallon out for Kiara (she LOVES milk!), and as soon as I can go dump yesterday's batch of clabber to the chickens, I need to make another batch. Luckily, the chickens can eat clabber as fast as I can make it. I need a bigger bowl for them. They have a 3-gallon Rubbermaid thing that I fill with clabber for them, and it's gone in less than 24 hours. I need another clabber pot, so I can have a batch going at all times, I guess. Need to find a clean-ish bucket...

One of our neighbors has an orphan calf and he's been buying milk for him, but they've been out of town this last week and got a bag of milk replacer for their helper to use, so they didn't have to keep coming over here for milk.  If they'd start coming for milk again, it wouldn't be so bad.

GEEEEEZ, what a WHINE-FEST this turned into!    I need to go get busy on that chicken cheese!

~Lannie

[simplynaturalfarm]

You have a good problem this year, but it's still a problem so go buy some butter if you can and give yourself a mental break! I understand where you are at so hopefully the chickens will eat more and you'll be set. I don't know what I would do without our piggies to take care of excess. My chickens don't do like yours and eat that kind of milk. A gallon is about tops for 30+

I find it so frustrating when milk sharing if all I get is skim milk - gallons of it and no cream for butter. So I can understand the "should I dry up Helen and jhust have tons of milk"

[Jenn]

Could Rich make you an outdoor (north side of the house?) cheese drying/clabber making area? You mostly make cheese in the summer, right?

-Jenn
p.s. My tomatoes LOVE the rinse water from my milk jars, maybe you have a fertilizing opportunity as well?

[Lannie]

Oooh, outside? Mmmmm, no... not outside. Besides, it's all times of the year. I just had no idea Cricket was going to make so much milk this year, although with the grass coming in, I should have suspected it. I usually like fall calves, and then they're on hay, and restricted hay at that, so it's not usually so bad, even with two of them in milk. I never *really* wanted a dairy cow. My low-producing beef crosses were working just fine for me.

I'd be happy to put my jar rinse water on my tomatoes, if I had any, but I don't. AGAIN. That's for another thread, but of all the seeds I planted, only half or less actually sprouted, then they wouldn't grow, and now they're all apparently dying. I'm hoping if I can find some time in the next day or two, I can take their sad little selves out and plant them in the garden. It'll either kill them outright or they'll find whatever it is they're lacking in my potting soil and take off. They'll just die if I leave them in here, so there's nothing to lose. But whatever I do, I will once again have to buy started plants at the store, IF there are any left when we go shopping.

Heather, I never get totally skim milk. I've been getting a decent amount from Cricket every morning, even just doing first letdown. I think she's so happy to have that thing emptied, she's giving most of it to me. And it comes out SO FAST!  It only takes 2 minutes to milk out the backs, and 2-1/2 minutes for the front one I milk.  That's better than a gallon a minute!  (As a comparison, Helen gives me one gallon, and it takes 4-1/2 to 5 minutes to milk her out.) On the mornings I do decide to go after additional cream, it's there, but lately the bucket's so heavy, I can't seem to hoist it back onto the surcingle after Ellie nurses, so I've been letting her have the rest. She gets one full quarter and then the rest of the cream from the three I already milked. In the evenings, contrary to everything that has happened here previously, Cricket is letting down for me to milk her out. Ellie gets a chance to nurse if she wants, then she goes to bed and I put Cricket in the stanchion with a flake of hay and she lets down, even if Ellie hasn't nursed. It's the strangest thing. Evening milk always has her full cream amount on it. So I could PROBABLY keep us in butter, especially if I went after the cream in the mornings, but I'm not getting any younger and that bucket just keeps getting heavier! LOL!

Well, I managed to put three gallons in the stock pot to heat up for chicken cheese, I gave a gallon to the Pyrs, and had Rich take out the clabber early so I could start another batch, and put two more gallons in the bucket for that. So I got rid of six gallons today. Rich didn't want to pour a gallon of Liquid Gold into the dogs' stock pot outside, but I told him it was better that THEY get it than I ask him to go pour it out on the ground. I've actually started to *think* about that, but I haven't been able to make myself actually do it yet. I just can't waste such a good thing. I wish we had someplace to keep a piggie.

~Lannie

[Lannie]

Here's what Rich finally came up with for my cheeses. It still needs a finish coat, once the stain is completely dry.  It's been too cold the last couple of days to put anything on it, and it would be too messy in the house, so I'm still waiting...

With the shelves removed:



Shelves inserted:



With the drying mats on the shelves:



And with the screen door closed:



This should work a LOT better than one cheese at a time sitting on layers of paper towels on a small roasting rack balanced on the stack of plates in the kitchen cupboard. The spot it will be mounted is in the living room, near the kitchen, and it will catch the warm air from the woodstove in the winter, and the fan-blown air in the summer, so it should dry the cheeses well. I hope!

I can't wait to use it now!

~Lannie

[suzorse]

that is 1 nice space saver cheese cabinet
Suzanne

[zephyrhillsusan]

Go Rich! That's so cool!

[simplynaturalfarm]

what lovely work he does!