Cheese Coating with Natural Bees Wax

100% food grade beeswax to cover your cheese wheel.  1 wax bar can cover 2-3 cheese wheels, depending on the size.

Don’t dip, PAINT!

You’ve seen people dip their cheese in how wax.  Painting the wax on is SO much easier.

WARNING! Do NOT put the wax pot directly on the stove.  Put about 3cm of water in a bigger pot, then put the wax pot in the water pot.  Heat the water up on low heat.  It’ll melt quickly enough.

When done painting your cheese, Cover the pot and put away until needed again.

So can you use beeswax to wax your cheeses?

Yes you can.  In fact beeswax has been used for centuries to wax cheeses, although ‘modern’ waxes have become more popular these days.

Beeswax, like most waxes, can become brittle when set and stored in cold conditions and may crack and pull away from the cheese. Parrafin based waxes have an extra ingredient added to avoid this issue. Some cheese makers and beeswax fans have suggested adding vegetable shortening, coconut oil or a small amount of mineral oil to the beeswax to assist with the pliability. Others believe it doesn’t need it and prefer to keep the beeswax pure and untainted by other ingredients.  Suggested amount of oil to use is 0.5 teaspoon per bar.

Beeswax needs to be applied with care.

Your cheese should be dry, and cold before you attempt to apply the wax.

You don’t use a large amount of wax to wax your cheeses and beeswax can be reused as long as you reheat it and strain it to remove any debris that may mold over time so you won’t need to buy kilos and kilos of the stuff.  50 grams will cover about 2-3 cheeses if you use the brush-on method.

Safety Note:

Wax when heated will reach a point where vapors accumulate and may ignite with life threatening results.

A wax fire is extremely dangerous and cannot be put out with water.
Never let your wax exceed 120C and never leave the wax unattended on the stove.

To limit the potential danger here, use a heavy pot with a candy thermometer, heat slowly and control the wax temps carefully. It may seem to take a long time to get the wax to go from solid to liquid, but once it has liquefied, the temperature will rise sharply. Make it a habit to constantly monitor the temperature of your wax. If that wax reaches the flash point, then the vapors produced are extremely flammable. The flash point of wax is typically above 150C.