How to Wax Cheese – Waxing Cheese at Home Made Easy

If you are looking to wax cheese, it doesn’t have to be a complicated process. For centuries before we could go buy the waxed cheese in our grocery stores, people were putting their own wax on cheese. If you are interested in knowing how to wax cheese, read below and let’s look at how to wax cheese at home the easy way.

What Cheese is Waxed?

For the most part, generally hard cheeses are waxed. Or at least cheeses that can stand up to being headed with the wax that is being put on them without melting them. Before you start to melt cheese, make sure that it can handle the heat.

What is Cheese Wax?

Cheese wax is a mixture of various waxes, polymers, and sometimes they use some pigments to give it the color that they want it to have. In the past, cheese wax was the only way to seal a cheese for aging and to make sure that no moisture was going to seep into it and cause molding or other issues that may ruin the cheese. It basically prevented air, which is not a friend of cheese, from getting into the loaf and ruining it.

How is Cheese Waxed

The first thing to know with cheese wax is that you need to be careful. Wax is flammable, so don’t heat it up too high, otherwise, you’ll have an issue. To start melting the ax, you want to use a double boiler to prevent it from getting too hot. Once you have melted the wax in the double boiler and it is in a complete liquid state, you want to pour it into something that you can work it with. Put down wax paper or parchment paper so that there is a surface to put the freshly waxed cheese on. When you are ready to wax the cheese, you want to hold one edge of it and dip the opposite half into the wax, hold it there for a little bit, and then let it sit and harden. Once that side has hardened enough, you can do it with the other side. If there are any areas that you missed, take a paint brush and just brush it in, that way it has a complete seal and no mold will grow there. For the first two weeks, you want to be sure that you are turning your cheese daily so that it ages properly.

Written by: Viktoria Carella