AIBU to wash my cheese?

I have arthritis in my hands/wrists and find grating hard cheese like parmesan painful (and I really like parmesan). Until reading this thread I'd never considered using the food processor to create large quantities of grated parmesan and then freezing it. Every day is a school day!

Omg... RYFT

Why not buy a block and grate it as and when you need it? It ain’t rocket science…….cheese graters can be found on the household goods aisle at most leading supermarkets nationwide.

Why not read the OP's update before posting this unhelpful response?

RTFT

What???? Doesn’t it go all soggy?!

Get a have a food processor, you can grate loads of cheese then bag it into portions and freeze it. Way cheaper than buying pregrated cheese.

Why are you buying pre-grated cheese then? Surely, if you are so put off by whatever it is you think is in grated cheese, you'd just buy blocks of it and grate it yourself? That's not going to take you more time than your washing and drying ritual would.

Electric cheese grater?
https://amzn.eu/d/0cwiGa0k

I live alone and find pre-grated cheese useful. A block tends to go off before I've used it all, whereas an open can bag go in the freezer and can then be used whenever I am cooking something that needs it.

I am really glad that these days the starch used is potato based because I have a wheat allergy, and find it okay 'raw' if I want a basic old-fashioned mixed salad.

And cannot imagine ever washing grated cheese, though I have on occasion rinsed a block that had gone manky and needed its exterior pared off. As I said, that's partly why I now often buy pre-grated stuff. And the mixed cheddar and mozzarella makes excellent scones.

Grated cheese is great stuff!

Thank you for this. It made me smile 😁

It is absolutely a thing and I'm surprised so many haven't heard of it. They say to do it if you need to add it to a meal where it needs to melt through.
I have come across a lot of recipes that call for example a cup of grated cheese which then suggests you wash it if pregrated.

Sure grating your own you avoid this but that's not the point here. For those who do use pregrated cheese in recipes, this has always been the suggestion. People know they can grate their own but choose not to for whatever reason we have no business judging.

Keep washing your grated cheese if you like op.

If you always cook the cheese in the end, I can't see a problem. I say, go for it. If you see Gordon Ramsay approaching just tell him to do one..With a few expletives in there just so he understands you.

For info. I'll let you into a little secret. Grated cheese is often made from the "offcuts" to prevent food waste in cheese factories. So when you make cheddar, it's normally made in c. 20kg blocks. To then produce your individual 200g or 350g packs, it's cut into bars then into the smaller pieces and wrapped. Depending on how clever the cutter is, you then always have a bit left which might vary in size but is perhaps around 100g per bar. So possibly about four to six of these per block depending on what pack you were making.

For "mature" grated cheese, they will combine several of these offcuts, possibly even several different maturities (even having some extra mature or vintage in there) and grate it up, depending on who it's for it might contain cheese destined for Tesco or M&S (some retailers will demand only their own specific recipe or maturity, some will not). While maintaining hygiene and traceability of course. If there's not enough offcuts then they may grate some whole blocks but they wouldn't want to as it will make it more expensive to produce.

Basically what I'm saying is what you get in those grated packs is often a bit variable in maturity and the source of the original block. That will give far more variability in the overall quality of that product pack to pack than the potato starch presence. If you can't detect those changes, I think your concerns on the potato starch are more perception than reality (as to me having done taste panels on these things, they stick out like a sore thumb).

Strange 😂

I get it, you have a refined palate and want your cheese starch free. Entirely reasonable to wash it given your needs.

What is the cheese like once washed? If, as so many posters seem to think, it causes more textural or taste problems (though I doubt that’s the case or you would’ve mentioned it), pre-sliced cheese is usually starch free and I find it superior to grated for getting an even melt. If I require a less dense cheese distribution (rare!!), it’s very easy to chop, unlike a block. But you might find opening the resealable film takes too much hand strength.

Back in the day, supermarket cheese counters used to grate cheese to order, and for free. You might get lucky and find one that still offers this service. We’d freeze ours on an open sheet before bagging, so it wouldn’t create hard clumps. But freezing it for too long caused it to pick up flavours from other foods in the freezer - yuck!

I also find cheaper bags of grated cheese - like the giant bags of value brand mild cheddar - usually contain less starch, so that eating straight out of the bag is enjoyable.

Carry on enjoying your starch free cheese, however you achieve it!

You can get an electric cheese grater that requires just the push of a button.

washing cheese is rank but I also don’t like the coating on grated cheese so I grate a block.

This type look great (grate?) but are surprisingly hard work to use, especially if you're using mature cheese. I don't think they'd be physically any more gentle on the op than using a microplane.

Bonkers!

Wow I never knew graters like these existed! What a clever invention, and I love your name by the way.

I think everyone does something or other that is odd, so as much as people haven’t heard of someone rinsing their cheese before you can bet that some people do far stranger things that even they don’t notice.

I didn’t realise why grated cheese seemed different to regular cheese or what you’d grate yourself, so I’ve learned two new things today.

You could get a food processor? I use mine most days.

I work in the food industry, have seen the industrial starch grating processes and have used pre grated cheese but not a huge amount of times. I have never had an issue with how it melted or it being weird. I've never washed it myself but doubt you'd get rid of tall of the potato starch by washing it anyway and then you're also adding water which is much more likely to make it weird when it melts than not.

As others have suggested, due to your condition, either suck it up and use as is, or grate using something you are able to use. E.g. a food processor.

One thing I'd absolutely not do is rinse any of this cheese then store any leftover "rinsed" cheese. Then what will have happened is you'll have raised the water activity around lots of starch and protein which, if you're unfortunate and Listeria monocytogenes is present, will grow even in a fridge. Not so much of a problem if you then cook the cheese but could cross contaminate to other foods or cause severe issues if you eat it without fully cooking.

One of the things food safety professionals have to do is consider "consumer use" and "reasonably expected consumer misuse" for products as part of the HACCP plan. I can tell you now that it's never come up in any food factory I've worked in that a consumer might decide to rinse off the potato starch from grated cheese. 😬

It's normally potato starch used on cheese not cornflour.

I have this one, as getting the food processor out for a bit of cheese is such a faff.
amzn.eu/d/0eqxssLH

I do understand why you would buy ready grated cheese. My mother does it too because she has arthritis in her hands so can't grate her own. Her carers also do not have much time when they come to prepare food for her so need the convenience of it.

Washing it though? Sorry, but that's just odd and unnecessary.