# Cheese and the Food saver



## carson627

My sweetie got me a food saver for my birthday.  I got a chance to use it for the first time today and I have a question.

I've seen lots of posts here where folks are using the food saver with softer cheeses.  How's that working for you?  The instructions explicitly say not to use it with soft cheese.

Or ... are cheddar and mozerella not considered soft cheeses?

Thanks!


----------



## Bearcarver

Carson627 said:


> My sweetie got me a food saver for my birthday.  I got a chance to use it for the first time today and I have a question.
> 
> I've seen lots of posts here where folks are using the food saver with softer cheeses.  How's that working for you?  The instructions explicitly say not to use it with soft cheese.
> 
> Or ... are cheddar and mozerella not considered soft cheeses?
> 
> Thanks!


I'm assuming you're talking about bagging it for freezing?

If it's a problem (too soft), you can partially freeze it first. Then put it back in the freezer after vacuum packing it.

Bearcarver


----------



## DanMcG

Carson627 said:


> The instructions explicitly say not to use it with soft cheese.


Does it say why to not do soft cheese? For the life of me I don't know why not. But like bear mentioned above if it's soft, partially freeze it to firm it up, them Vac Pack it. This also works with other soft stuff like berries and fruits.


----------



## mballi3011

I think that they are talking about cheeses like cheeses wiss or something that could be sucked up into the machine and clog it up. I think.


----------



## carson627

Bear -  yes.

Dan - no.

Mark - after thinking about it, you may be right.

I just don't want anything to happen to the lovely cheese that in the smoker right now when I seal it.


----------



## meateater

Cheddar and Mozz are OK, I've sealed a few and no problem. I let the cheese sit overnight in a tupperware container first to get cold again. If any worries just put the cheese in a ziplock first and then seal. but shouldnt be necessary. By the way it should last a long time in the fridge. I still have some from Feb. 2010 and it's still perfect.


----------



## beer-b-q

Here is an article I found on Freezing Cheese...


> *Freezing Cheese*
> By Ellen Brown
> 
> Selecting High-Quality Cheese: When selecting cheeses for freezing, avoid those with dry or cracked edges, mold that doesn't belong or cheeses that appear greasy on the surface. Check the date of prepackaged cheese to make sure it hasn't expired. Cheese keeps best in the refrigerator and freezing it will sacrifice some of its quality. Hard or semi-hard cheese can be frozen, but it may become develop a crumbly or mealy texture during freezing. However, it will retain its flavor and work just fine for cooking. freezing guide
> 
> Best Cheeses to Freeze: Camembert, Cheddar, Edam, Mozzarella, Muenster, Parmesan, Port du Salut, Provolone, Romano, and Swiss. Blue Cheese will retain its flavor, but become crumbly. Soft cheeses should be frozen when they reached the desired ripeness.
> 
> Worst Cheeses to Freeze: Container cream cheese, cottage cheese and ricotta cheese do not freeze well. Blocks of cream cheese can be frozen for later use as an ingredient in recipes.
> 
> Preparing for Freezing: Hard and semi-hard cheeses can be grated, sliced or cut into blocks for freezing.
> 
> Suitable Packaging: Wrap wheels, blocks or slices of cheese tightly in plastic or heavy-duty aluminum foil. Separate slices of cheese with wax paper before freezing. Grated cheese stores well in airtight containers.
> 
> Maximum Storage Time: Freeze soft cheese and cheese spreads and dips for 1 month, and hard and semi-hard cheese for 3 to 6 months.
> 
> Thawing: Thaw the amount of cheese needed for consumption in the refrigerator, then serve it at room temperature. Cheese used for cooking should also be thawed in the refrigerator.
> 
> Tips & Shortcuts: Hard cheese grates well when it's frozen.
> 
> Refrigerating Cheese: All natural cheese continues to age and change when stored. As a general rule, the softer the cheese, the more quickly it will spoil. If a small amount of mold appears on cheese, remove it and save the rest. Refrigerate soft cheese for 3 to 4 days, hard to semi-hard cheese for 2 to 3 weeks and cheese spreads and dips for 1 to 2 weeks.
> 
> http://www.thriftyfun.com/tf21851078.tip.html


----------



## carson627

Thanks ya'll.  I put the cheese in the bags last night.  I'll let them sit for a couple of weeks and then sample them.  I'll freeze the remainder, if any.


----------



## pokey

Yeah, frome reading Bear-B-Q's article, I think the idea is to not freeze the cheese. But I've heard that vacuum sealed cheese can last quite a long time in the fridge. There are probably steps to take to make it last longer, too, but I don't know what they are. Probably removing any mold beforehand and maybe rubbing with oil or something.

Fresh mozz has a lot of moisture in it. I found that smoking it dried it out somewhat, but the sealer still sucked some water out of it. I had to stop the vacuum process a little early on the mozz and not at all on cheddar.

IRMV


----------



## scarbelly

I personally never freeze cheese. Once they are vac sealed they rarely even develop mold. If they do we unseal it and remove the mold and reseal. This has worked well for us for many years


----------



## dale5351

I've vacumn packed a variety of cheeses including mozzeralla, cheddar, colby jack, pepper jack with no problem. 

If food looks like it has some moisture that might get sucked up, what my wife does is to put a folded piece of paper towel strip into the top of the bag -- above where it would get sealed.  That seems to do a good job of catching juices from going into the vacumn chamber.  She then removes the paper towel strip before giving the bag a second seal.  Some web pages said to put the paper towel inside the bag -- but she did not like that idea and came up with this, which we both agree works quite well.

Only problem we have had with vacumning cheese is when we put some shredded cheese into a bag.  The vacumn process squeezed the shredded cheese enough that it became a cheese lump.  Now if she wants to vacumn shredded cheese, she does it in a bell jar -- using an attachment for vacumning jars.


----------



## sqwib

Cheese doesn't last long enough in my house to go bad.

If I do seal,  its whole cheese, I wont seal shredded cheeses and I wont freeze cheese.


----------



## distre

I was going to get a foodsaver for Christmas, but I went to Academy and they had Foodsaver Gamesaver Pro for $ 88.00, so there was no waiting for Christmas. So far I've sealed Cheddar, Parmesan, Gouda, Pepper, Monterrey, and Mozzarella with no problems. The soft cheese they talk about must be cream cheese maybe?


----------



## carson627

Distre,

I think that's it.  I've got another week to go.  I can't wait!


----------



## tjohnson

I vac sealed some of my cheese when it was warm, and it got pretty distorted in the vac bag.  Next time I'll throw it in the freezer for 30 minutes first.

1 week and waiting?

You should do another batch, so you always have a good supply on hand.  Trust me, you'll go thru the cheese quickly, especially when you start sharing with your friends and family!!

Todd


----------



## carson627

Hi Todd,

First off, thanks for such a wonderful product.  It is truly "amazing".

Second, you're right.  I just gav e away the last of my parmesan and asiago so I need to do more.

Thanks again,

Carson


----------



## butchdon

I just ordered a vacuum sealer. Should be here in 3-5 days.

I have been smoking cream cheese a few times now 50/50 cherry hickory. Today I'm going all apple, although someone on the forum says Traeger pellets are not 100% of the wood labeled on the bag. I have just been wrapping it in plastic wrap and putting it in the fridge. Has not lasted more than a couple of weeks. Do I need to pre-wrap in plastic, before vacuuming up.

I smoked some salmon yesterday and plan on mixing up some salmon spread. 

My question. Can I make up the spread and then vacuum seal it?

Any good recipes WITHOUT dill. My wife and I like it in pickles, but not so much otherwise.

Thanks


----------



## bill ace 350

I don't pre-wrap, I just vacuum seal it and refrigerate.  Have some that I smoked and sealed in March 2015. Seems to get better the longer it stays in the fridge!


----------



## valleypoboy

I smoked then vacuum packed a few pounds of cheese before Christmas.  I cracked open and shared 1 package at Christmas with mild cheddar, monterey jack and pepper jack. The smoke was very mild, but impossible to miss. A week later we opened a second batch and the smoke is much stronger, but not in a bad way.
on to the point, since I was vacuum sealing different cheeses in each pack I wrapped each block of cheese in parchment paper to keep them from touching each other.  I did not pre freeze or refrigerate them. They went straight from the smoker to kitchen and into vacuum bags. They did squish down a little, but not much.


----------



## butchdon

I just got my vacuum sealer yesterday. The instructions say NOT to seal soft cheeses, for fear of anaerobic bacteria issues. Could not find anything saying cream cheese is considered a soft cheese.

So I have my cream cheese (butter sized) sticks smoked and sealed. Now I'm worried, and wonder do we need to quickly eat this stuff rather than letting it mature?


----------



## valleypoboy

Butchdon,
There is lots of info on cheese, proper storage, proper aging, etc. You should read the warnings, consider the process as our ancestors have done it for thousands (?) of years and decide yourself. Personally I don't think there is any real risk in the process as I'm doing it. Once you seal the cheese if there is something terrible sealed in with it you'll know pretty fast because your "sealed" cheese will bubble out the bag. This is just my opinion and if you do get the plague or some other terrible zombie infection from smoking your own cheese I take no responsibility.


----------

