Cheese Making Equipment, Mats
Most cheese making requires mats for draining or air drying cheeses after pressing. Thus they need to able to be kept hygienically clean, have room for air to circulate underneath, and to allow whey or moisture to drain/evaporate or be absorbed. This last one is a problem as materials that will absorb moisture are also hard to keep hygienic. Note, softer cheeses will pickup the imprint of the mat, which may or may not be very visually pleasing depending on the mat.
More information and discussion on cheese making mats is available normally in the forum's Cheese Making - Equipment Board or by searching the forum.
Examples are listed below:
Sushi Mat, Standard
- Description: Standard bamboo mat made of thin round strips of bamboo joined by sewn thread every 5 cm/2 inches. Common size is 23-24 cm/9-9.5 in square.
- Availability: Most large grocery stores for ~USD1.50 each.
- Pros: Can roll in one direction to get size needed to fit. Cheap and can be used for making sushi!
- Cons: Leaves an imprint of the thread line on the cheese's bottom even young/soft. Tough to highly clean of bacteria/mold as made of woven thread and porous wood. Only roles in one direct, stuck with length often longer than cheese unless cut it.
Sushi Mat, Half Moon
- Description: Bamboo mat made of larger strips of bamboo, flat on one side and half round on other and joined by sewn thread every 5 cm/2 inches. Common size is 23-24 cm/9-9.5 in square.
- Availability: Most large grocery stores for ~USD2.50 each.
- Pros: Gives choice of two different imprints to leave on bottom of softer cheeses Can roll in one direction to get size needed to fit. Cheap and can be used for making sushi!
- Cons: Leaves an imprint of the thread line on the cheese's bottom even young/soft. Tough to highly clean of bacteria/mold as made of woven thread and porous wood. Only roles in one direct, stuck with length often longer than cheese unless cut it.
Plastic Mat
- Flexible plastic mat with holes.
- Availability: The one in the picture is a 28 cm x 32 cm / 11 in x 12.5 sink mat that was found in the household area of local Wal-Mart convenience store, for USD3.50. It has small bumps at +'s on one side for increased stand off and draining of liquids.
- Pros: Cheap and good stand off allowing better drying of cheese. Excellent as cleaning of bacteria/mold as (relatively) non-porous.
- Cons: Slightly move expensive and cannot cut to fit size required.
Foam Gripy Mat
- Description: Foamed soft plastic gridded mat available in squares or rolls.
- Availability: Many convenience stores, often in household draw liner departments or in automotive departments as this mat is used on dashboards as flexible/floppy in shape for holding items in place on dashboard etc.
- Pros: Cheap and can be cut to size required.
- Cons: Porous albeit plastic based material is hard to clean of all bacteria/mold.
