How to Sanitize Your Cheese Making Equipment

Sanitize Your Cheese Making Equipment

Cleanliness and sanitization go hand in hand before you start your cheese making session.  But how do you ensure that you sanitize your cheese making equipment without using harmful chemicals?  In this post, I am going to show you a greener way to sanitize your cheese making equipment.

Make sure that you clean every item in hot soapy water first, then rinse off with clean tap water.  Even a run through the dishwasher is sufficient.  Just make sure there isn’t any oil or cheese stone on the surfaces of your equipment.  Cheese stone is dried, hard to remove curd which can accumulate bad bacteria and yeast that can contaminate your new cheese.

Once all your cheese making equipment is clean, then it is on to the sanitizing stage.  For that, all you need is boiling water and white vinegar!  Check out the YouTube video for full details.


Pretty simple and all without the use of bleach or iodophor.  For all your plastic moulds and baskets, just spray with white vinegar and allow to dry.  That will take care of most bacteria or yeasts.

All it takes is a bit of common sense.  If, or when, you are unsure whether a piece of equipment is not clean enough, then go through the process again to make sure it’s okay to use.

I’ve been using this method for years, with no issues, or contaminated cheese.  I have also not had any cross contamination when using different starter cultures and moulds between cheese making sessions.

Sanitzing your cheese making equipment

There’s just one caveat.  If you intend on selling your cheese, then to ensure compliance with any regulations, you will need to take your cleaning and sanitization to the next level.  There are different rules and regulations in each country or state, so make sure you contact the relevant regulatory body for more information if you want to take the next step towards the commercialisation of your cheese making operations.

However, for the home cheese maker, my simple process to sanitize your cheese making equipment is fine for home consumption.

For more tips about cleanliness and sanitization check out this post on my cheese making blog, Little Green Cheese, titled .

6 thoughts on “How to Sanitize Your Cheese Making Equipment

  1. Kim says:

    There is a need to be careful using heat to steralise some cheese molds. I was boiling mine and when I opened the pot they had collapsed from the heat. I squeezed them back to a semblance of their original shape but they are still pretty wobbly. 🙁

  2. Kim says:

    I live in the bush and though I can sometimes get the milks you recommend, they are often less than fresh. But I do have access to sheeps milk…..fresh, from the sheep. Does it make good camembert? What cheeses would you recomend? Hehe, whenever I but the farmers gold from the local IGA, my students at the till think I have a potty calf at home!

  3. Joe Donnelly says:

    Hi Gavin
    Would you ever use a surface cleaner such as Dettol?.
    Also, I noticed one of those little portable stoves in the photo. Do you use it to warm your milk?

    • Gavin says:

      Hi Joe, I’ve never used Dettol as I think it leaves behind residue that will contaminate the milk. I do use a portable stove for when I shoot videos outside on my deck when it is a bit warmer. We also use them for outdoor cheese making workshops. We use about 1 can of gas per class.

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