Published January 1, 2013. From Cook's Illustrated.
Can these specialized products keep your cheese fresher longer?
Keeping cheese fresh in the refrigerator is tricky. As cheese releases moisture, tight wrappings encourage mold; loose ones let it dry out and harden. But one cheese-wrap outfitter uses a two-ply material—wax-coated paper lined with thin, porous polyethylene plastic—in both its Cheese Paper ($9 for 15 sheets with stickers) and Cheese Bags ($9 for 15 bags). This combination (often used by professional cheesemongers) has a salutary effect, allowing moisture to wick off the cheese but not escape entirely. We wrapped cheddar, Brie, and goat cheese in both the paper and the bags, put them in the refrigerator, and checked on them every other day for a month. Both products kept all cheese types pristine for two weeks longer than identical samples that we double-wrapped with parchment and aluminum foil. Slightly more convenient to use than the cheese paper, the bags didn’t need to be sealed with stickers: Just fold over the ends a few times to close.
