Improper storage of cheese leads to the fact that it first loses its characteristic taste and smell, and then quickly deteriorates, becomes a haven for harmful bacteria and now instead of a healthy and tasty product we have a dried and moldy piece that has a direct path to the trash. In order to extend the life of the cheese, it is worth remembering that each species needs special storage conditions.
Pick your recipe
You will need
- Wax paper
- Polyethylene film
- Foil or foil paper
- Cheese plate with a cap
- Container
- Salt
- Water
Instruction manual
1
Hard and semi-solid grades
Such varieties include cooked pressed cheeses such as Parmesan, Gruyeres, Emmental and undigested pressed cheeses - edamer, cheddar, gouda. They can be stored for three to four weeks in the refrigerator or up to six months in the freezer. Thawed cheeses lose a little taste and become too friable, so they are consumed in hot dishes.
Wrap a piece of hard or semi-hard cheese in wax paper, pull a plastic film over the paper to prevent air from entering the cheese. Store in that compartment of the refrigerator where the temperature is maintained from +4 to + 8 degrees Celsius.
If you decide to freeze such cheese, just place it in a bag for freezing, close the valve, write the date of freezing and put it in the freezer.
2
Pickled Cheeses
Cheeses such as feta, suluguni, chechel, feta cheese for long-term storage are best bought with brine. Fresh cheese can be stored briefly in a soft paper bag wrapped in polyethylene. If the paper is saturated with moisture, do not change it. To keep brine cheese fresh for up to three months, place it in a sealed container filled with brine.
If you bought cheese without brine or you are not quite happy with its taste, this can be fixed. To achieve a milder creamy taste, place the cheese for several days in milk. To give the cheese a more piquant salty taste, dilute 400 grams of salt per liter of boiled water and pour the resulting brine for a day. Check the taste and either leave for a few more days, or change the brine to a softer, diluted in the proportion of 200 grams of salt per liter of boiled water. In the same brine, it is worth storing the cheese soaked before in milk.
3
Pasty and curd cheeses
Mozzarella, ricotta, Philadelphia, mascarpone and similar cheeses are stored in the packaging in which they were sold. These cheeses have a very short shelf life after opening. Usually it is no more than a week. You can freeze already opened curd cheese for a period of up to six months, provided that in the future it will be subjected to heat treatment.
4
Soft Blue Cheese and Blue Cheese
The classic representatives of these cheeses are Roquefort, Danablou, Brie and Camembert. They are stored wrapped in foil, as these cheeses tend to exchange flavors with plastic packaging. Every two or three days it will be necessary to get such cheese from a sealed package, and leave it to “breathe” for an hour in the refrigerator.
Useful advice
If you are going to eat any kind of cheese, except pasty, pickled and curd, as food for the next two to three days, you can store them under a glass or plastic cap on a wooden cheese plate without wrapping. The cheese plate should be placed on the lowest shelf of the refrigerator, above the fruit compartment.
If you do not have a refrigerator - you are on a camping trip, in the country, it has broken down - you can store the cheeses in a dark place, wrapping them in a cloth previously moistened with salted water. But even hard cheeses do not last in such packaging for more than a week.