Cheese help

[elia]

I had all my wheels of cheese from this season aging in an old refrigerator, and I had adjusted it to as low as possible, to try to get the temperature up to about 45 degrees. I went to put the last couple of wheels in last night for aging, and found that the refrigerator had cycled off, had defrosted and was about 65 degrees, water on the floor of the frig from the freezer compartment thawing, and mold on my cheeses.

They were bound in cloth and coconut oil in the traditional wrapping. I have taken all the wrappings off now. Most of the mold was on the cloths, and a little on some of the cheeses. I scraped them all down to get off every speck of mold I could find, and spritzed them with vinegar and rubbed with salt. Now they are all over the dining room table, drying out. I will rub salt on them again and flip them again tonight.

I was thinking to sanitize the frig, and redo all the wrappings. I don't think I have enough wax to wax them all, though I could let them dry for a few days and order some.

There is still the smell of mold on some of them, and I am worried that they will be ruined, even though I can't see any mold on them now. That smell gets everywhere. I hope that all is not lost, but am not sure what else I should do to refresh them before re-sealing.

Any advice would be most welcome. These are all five-pound wheels of regular low-tech farmhouse cheese. There are fifteen of them. I would really hate to lose these.

[Debbie Lincoln]

Kelsey. I would would save them....

[cdmoi]

Bumping

[Kelsey]

Don't worry, I've committed far worse abuses against cheese and the cheese has survived!
Bandaged cheeses should be mold covered. Not sure how old yours were, but likely the fridge was too cold or dry to permit mold growth. Should be low-mid 50's and 80-85% humidity. If it's too dry the cheese will dry out too quickly, though a thick coat of oil should slow that. Aging too cold will slow the process and result in a slightly different flavor.

I would just proceed as they are. When the mold becomes profuse, turn the cheeses and rub or pat the rinds down to keep the mold from getting too thick. You will likely do this 1-2 times weekly for the first couple months, and then growth will stabilize and you only need to flip and pat every two weeks.
When ready to open a wheel, peel off the bandaging and the mold will come away. You will likely have a few little fisures with mold on the actual cheese - that's normal.

[Meadow Creek Mama]

^^^^^^^^^ I agree with above advice. I've had to turn waxed cheeses into natural rind ones because of events and it worked out fine. You end up having rind to cut off, but there is still a lot of good cheese left.

65 degree isn't horrible for cheese for a couple of months if the humidity is good, the lack of air flow would be worse on them.

[elia]

Thank you! That is some comfort. Should I re-bandage them then, or leave them un-bandaged at this point?

[Meadow Creek Mama]

You could do either I'd think. I'm lazy with my cheeses so I'd go natural rind. I've found the flavor to be the same either way when they come out of my cave. But my cave is also a refrigerator which seems to make most cheeses taste pretty similar as opposed to a cave with more air volume (like a room). But if you can't control moisture in the cave easily enough, you might be better off bandaging them since you have so many and it will take a while for you to use them up.