I started making cheeses about seven months ago, and about two months ago they started to get cheese mites. This is not atypical, and it’s not the end of the world — in fact, at least one French cheese type (mimolette) encourages their growth.
They attack the rind of the cheese.
How do you know if you have cheese mites? Your cheeses will start to look dusty, like this Parmesan:
Eventually they can make holes, like this Appenzeller:
But the best evidence is that when you lift the cheese, there’s a pile of dust, like this extreme case:
There doesn’t seem to be much information about cheese mites on the net, so I’m following the suggestions in Caldwell’s book.
She suggests as one possible remedy diatomaceous earth. I’m familiar with this because it’s part of my “standard” potting mix for my cacti and other succulents. This is what I use, sold as oil absorbent by Napa Auto Parts:
As its name implies, it’s made up of diatoms, which are wee beasties with silica (glass, sand) skeletons, like this one:
Not only does it have excellent moisture retention/release properties, but also the sharp ground-up bits of their skeletons get between insects’ exoskeleton plates, causing them to dry up and die. That means I haven’t had any problems with insect pests, notably mealy bugs (otherwise almost impossible to eradicate without noxious chemicals), for years.
Diatomaceous earth needs to be rinsed before use, just as you would with rice before cooking it. So my thought is that the rinse liquid should be loaded with tiny sharp bits of silica, and I could dunk my cheeses in it for a while.
But that’s obviously not food-safe, so I’ve followed Caldwell’s other recommendation, ozone. I bought this one:
. . . which at $27, seems like a good compromise between the cheapy (and probably useless) versions, and the higher-end “industrial” units, which start at about $80. It puts out 50 mg/hr, which seems like it should be sufficient.
If that doesn’t work (and I won’t know for a month or so . . . ) I’ll go for the diatomaceous earth.
-R