Storing Cheese

Hey everyone,

How do you store good, aged cheeses? I find that they spoil very quickly (ironic, considering they've been around for months and months). If I keep them in plastic in the fridge, it seems they get very moist and they start rotting (the bad kind) very quickly. If I keep them out of plastic and wrapped in just paper, it seems they dry out. Please advise!

Try wrapping them tightly in parchment paper. Or wrap them in paper towel and put inside a tupperware.

Nothing ironic about it. As soon as you break the rind of a real cheese you've doomed it.

What type are you trying to store? It matters. Hard cheese will last longer than soft/paste cheeses.

Paraphrased from a number of sources and experience:

Bloomy rind cheeses: just cover the cut/exposed part with plastic... let the rind breath.
Washed rind cheese: cheese paper or wax paper. Anything greaseproof.
Blue cheese: tightly in foil.
Soft cheeses (ripe brie etc): cheese paper or wax paper. Again, anything greaseproof. Sealed containers also work in this specific case.

In general, any cheese that you can wrap in paper is best off in cheese paper; wax paper also works in a pinch. Keep it in what it came in, unless that was plastic. If it came in plastic, after you have opened it, wrap it in waxpaper/cheese paper. You need to let cheese breath.

Technically, the cheese should be checked re-wrapped daily but most people aren't going to go that far.

Keep the cheese in the bottom of the fridge where temps are most stable. If your refridgerator is aggressive in terms of being frost free or keeps the atmosphere inside quite dry, think about keeping it in the crisper intended for a little higher humidity. In general, the vegetable crisper is a great option. Don't freeze it.

Mold is going to grow and that's normal, it is a living food. If it is the same as is on the rind or in the blue, it's fine. You can cut, scrape or wipe it off. Anything more than 1/4", toss it. Slimy? Toss it.

Air is the enemy a lot of times (depends on the cheese). When you wrap you don't really want air bubbles in there. Cheese shops can cut cheeses, wrap them good and them last a long time even in plastic shrink wrap type stuff. Don't remember, a bit of mold (green or whitish) isn't a big deal. Just trim and eat the rest. Red/black/yellow mold is bad news though. For example

brie/soft ripened cheeses- 10-17days
parmesean- 1-2months
aged gouda or other aged hard cheeses 30-45days
semi-soft- 14-30days
medium to semi-hard- 17-35days


A lot of cheese shops will give you some cheese paper for free. Also, they're usually helpful in terms of telling you the best way to store that specific cheese. There is a reason some cheese shops like whole foods wrap their cheeses super tight though.

I have said many times... my foodsaver is one of the best purchases I've ever made. I won't use it for a soft cheese, but for hard and semi-hard cheeses, it is Fan-effing-tastic

It does suffocate cheese to an extent but yes, it does extend the life. I saw some pretty la tur and robiola roccavanero in plastic containers at a store and i wanted to go poke holes in it to let them breathe

Yeah- if you need to buy a large quantity, a foodsaver/vac can be handy. Useful if you can't resist the temptation to buy an entire wheel.

Originally Posted by chronoaug

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It does suffocate cheese to an extent but yes, it does extend the life. I saw some pretty la tur and robiola roccavanero in plastic containers at a store and i wanted to go poke holes in it to let them breathe

Like I said... a soft cheese I would never do it... plus, La Tur is small enough that you should finish it in a day or two anyway

From Cook's Illustrated:

Storing cheese presents a conundrum: As it sits, it releases moisture. If this moisture evaporates too quickly, the cheese dries out. But if the moisture is trapped on the cheese's surface, it encourages mold. Specialty cheese paper avoids this problem with a two-ply construction that lets cheese breathe without drying out, but usually requires mail-ordering. To find a more accessible method, we single- and double-wrapped cheddar, brie, and fresh goat cheese in various ways, refrigerated the cheeses for six weeks, and monitored them for mold and dryness. Cheeses single-wrapped in -plastic"”whether cling wrap or zipper-lock bags"”were the first to show mold. However, cheeses shrouded in waxed or parchment paper alone lost moisture and dried out. The best method: waxed or parchment paper loosely wrapped with aluminum foil. Both papers wick moisture away, while the foil cover traps just enough water to keep the cheese from drying out. Wrapped this way, even super-perishable goat cheese kept for about a week, and the brie and cheddar were almost like new more than a month later. Cheese paper extended the life of these cheeses by only a few days more.

DOUBLE WRAP IT
To keep cheese moist"”but not mold-prone"”first wrap it tightly in waxed or parchment paper and then loosely in aluminum foil.

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Yeah, been doing the foodsaver with firm cheese for ages.

IMO, the thing that will make any cheese last the longest is to never touch it with your hand (I use those disposable, thin plastic food server gloves) and a clean knife for each different cheese you're slicing. I unwrap, use a clean knife to get what I want, then rewrap, rinse repeat with each cheese.

I've wrapped all my cheeses in wax paper for years now - this method provides just the right amount of breathing for the cheese. I also make sure that whenever I open the paper and use some of the cheese, I always wrap up the leftover in a new piece of paper.