[embedyt] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5GJ1H63UjU[/embedyt]

The reason you need to know how to wax cheese, is that the beeswax protects your cheese during storage.  Since making cheese was the best way to store milk before refrigeration, It is quite useful to know “just in case” of some manner of catastrophic disaster (plus it is a really cool skill).

Please note, RED is not the natural color of beeswax as in this video.  The added color is only aesthetic and tradition.

The aging times also killed any harmful bacteria that may have been present in the milk since pasteurization had not been discovered.  However, anyone who has left an open block of cheese in the refrigerator knows that air will dry out your beautiful cheese into an ugly yellow rock.

The process of covering the cheese in a protective coating of beeswax was created to seal in moisture and protect the cheese during aging.

While my waxed cheese may not be the prettiest, It does it’s job at protecting my farmhouse cheddar until I can eat it…

Over time and by experimentation I find there are simpler ways of waxing cheese, simply dipping the cheese into the beeswax works well.  But I tend to burn my fingers when I try it that way, so I still like using a brush as shown in the video below.