Waxin' the cheese

No, that ain't a euphemism. Tonight I'm waxing the first hard cheese I've made. It's supposed to be a Monterey Jack cheese according to Ricki Carroll of cheesemaking.com. I may have missed some of the temperatures and messed up the pressures it was pressed at. We'll see how it is in about a month or so. Or less. Considering my history with letting homebrew age as long as it should I might not make it. I start by setting an old pot full of cheese wax in a pan of boiling water. This ensures the wax can't get above 212 degrees F (the boiling point of water), which is enough to sterilize the wax and kill any microbes it touches on the surface of the cheese, but not enough to ignite the wax or cause any smoke. Since I'm using a small pot, the 1 lb of wax I have is deep enough to wax half of the 1 lb cheese wheel at once. You can see what I'm doing here:

And here's the waxed cheese after a couple coats:

Looks cool, huh?

To help keep track of what was made when, I used a spoon to drop a little wax on top and stick on a label:

Now, if I can just hold on until Christmas this should be something great.