Coating cheese with wax

When you make cheese, do you coat it with wax for aging? I’ve done it both ways and am usually not real successful with the wax. No matter how many layers I put on it still cracks and gets even worse mold than if I just keep an eye on it without wax.

Margie Buchwalter
Jamestown, Ohio

I don’t use wax for aging but do use it if I’m going to store it in a cool place for extended periods. It seldom cracks if you use good cheese wax. Cheese wax is much more flexible than paraffin and you can also re-use it if you carefully peel it off. — Jackie

Open-pollinated plants

We have decided to plant only Open Pollinated/ Heirlooms from now on. Do you know if any legislation is being put in place to stop the seed conglomerates from manufacturing products that would attack and destroy any Heirloom/Open Pollinated varieties?

Sandie Knight
South Berwick, Maine

No, but unless many of us save our own open pollinated varieties, we’ll lose thousands each year because nobody plants them and big companies quit carrying them. That’s a scary thought. Good for you. Once you start, you’ll absolutely love it and wonder why you didn’t start sooner. — Jackie

Canning cheese

I have been canning cheese in 8 oz. jars which works great. Very few failures. This week I tried to can a very rich cheese in 4 oz. jars. Multiple failures. Attempted to recan 5 jars, plus a few more since I did not wash enough jars the first time and still had cheese left over. Water ended up in 3 jars prior to canning so did not can. They are in the refrigerator. I removed all of the jars, rewashed the canner and refilled. Let it simmer 75 min. to ensure even heating. The first batch got 60 min. in a roaster over 2 burners. Both had adequate water. The second batch had a LOT of grease on the water and multiple did not seal again. What are we doing wrong? Is it the size of the jar? Also, I noticed the last batch of monterey jack is more rubbery than the first batch I canned. I believe I used Tillamook the first time, Kirkland the second (a couple of years apart).

Julia Crow
Gardnerville, Nevada

I think it’s the grease in the “very rich” cheese. Grease is the enemy of canners and the more you have in a recipe, the more failures you’ll have. I’d skip that cheese variety and move on to others you’ve had good luck with. — Jackie

Prepper shows

It would be so totally awesome if you could do canning shows on the Food Network or Cooking Channel. I am surprised there hasn’t been something like that on there already with all the Doomsday Prepper shows. Keep up the good work and I am telling everyone to refer you to those channels..Hope it’s ok…

Jackie Schillinger
Concord, New Hampshire

Sure. We’ve been offered a spot on the Doomsday Prepper shows but declined as they often make preppers seem like weirdos and we’d have no control over the editing of the tapes. I would happily do a canning segment for a network, if asked. — Jackie

8 COMMENTS

  1. Billie,

    I’m glad you like my Pantry Cookbook. I wrote it for just plain folks like myself; no strange ingredients, easy to fix and tasty, too. Most are multi-generational family recipes too, some dating back to the 1800’s.

  2. Diana,

    Ah ha. Waxing store bought cheese just doesn’t work. All cheese I wax is homemade and it does make a difference. Way back when Will lived in Washington, he experimented in waxing store cheese and he had the same failure you did. Mystery solved?

  3. Yes, I used cheese wax. I waxed 2 or 3 batches at different times and almost all of them went bad. The cheese was so horribly oily. I thought I maybe should have let it dry out longer before waxing — or maybe use a different brand. This was all store brand cheese.

  4. Wendy Hause,

    Maybe that’s why we don’t watch T.V much at all? Everything is so fake. And immoral, and stupid and…… I’m tickled that your tomatoes you got from us are dong so well! We love to hear that. Dirt??? Oh my how I’m itching to get out and dig. Right now I can’t even see the ground but I know it’s coming.

  5. Diana,

    Did you use cheese wax? I’ve had plenty of failures using regular paraffin and few using cheese wax. It isn’t your elevation; I made plenty of cheese and coated it when we lived in Montana at 6,900 feet.

  6. The porch is looking great guys! Love the new flower boxes. Sure don’t blame you for declining on the Prepper show. They do make those folks look strange. But then that’s tv these days. Happy spring! Glad your snow is disappearing. Ours is too thankfully. My J&W tomatoes are looking so great; they’re about 2″ tall already. So ready to get outside to play in the dirt!

  7. Margie and I have had the same failures when trying to wax cheese for storage. I used the directions from another website which were very clear and did just as she said. I ended up with several pounds of moldy to totally rotten cheese. The only thing I can figure is my 6200 ft. elevation has something to do with it. Any ideas?

  8. Three cheers for you Jackie on declining a spot on Doomsday Prepper show. I was very disappointed in the couple I watched. Very sensationalist and extreme typecasting.

    On another note, I want you to know how much I am enjoying your pantry cookbook. I especially like how the recipes are spread out with room left for making notes. We put a checkmark on every recipe we try. Why did I wait so long to order it?

Comments are closed.