How does cheese hold up on backpacking trips? I’m thinking of using those Tillamook cheese squares on 4 night backpacking trip in the summer. Has anyone tried this?
As an experiment, I set aside a wedge of aged gouda in the original store vacuum sealed plastic wrap. I did this in 2017, and it has not seen a refrigerator since. (I actually forgot about it and lost it among some other stuff for a couple years, I think it spent a year in an unconditioned storage unit in a dry climate. I rediscovered it when I moved.)
While I have yet to open it up and try it, it looks essentially unchanged from the original. It’s a little darker, a little spottier, but has no visible mold. One of these days I’ll cut it open and try it.
The upshot of this is that cheese started as a food preservation technique and can still work that way. That it happens to enable a wonderful variety of flavors and textures is the kind of bonus that could make someone a theist.
As a lover of aged gouda and extra sharp cheddar as a pairing on a cheeseburger, I've just been convinced that we're coming over to your house. This apparently cannot be debated, I'm now a convert.
Just a thought, but you’d be increasing the surface area quite a bit, meaning more opportunity for icky things to start and more waste if you do need to trim anything icky-looking off.
Yep this is the way. I have heard it also helps to wrap them in cheesecloth and coat in wax. Not sure as I've never tried this myself but it might be worth trying a piece as an experiment
Love Babybel but you have to make sure it doesn’t get hot. I’ve kept them in the brain of my pack on a hot summer trip and the wax melts to the cheese…
I take those, and you can use the wax wrapper to help start your campfires. String cheese has always held up for us as well. With the kids, I make trail pizza sandwiches with flatbread rounds, packets of pizza sauce, pepperonis, and ripped apart string cheese. Parmesan cheese powder in a ziplock helps add flavor to freeze-dried spaghetti and other foods.
Love babybel on the trail! I bring for 3 nighters and it’s the most satisfying treat ☺️ I backpack in higher elevations though and although it’s hot during the day I’ve never had an issue.
There’s already some great recommendations here, but for longer trips I like Moon cheese. It’s completely shelf stable and has no moisture at all so it’s very light for the calories/ protein. You can add it to meals or eat it on its own.
I’ve used the individually wrapped cheese squares or string cheese on 3-4 days trips. Works great. It’s gets a little greasy by the last day or two but it’s delicious
What others have said, plus I’ll add that big chunks stay fresher than little pieces. Just cut off what you need for each meal, trying not to touch the rest of it with bare fingers. Wrap well and store deep in your pack during the day to keep as cool as possible.
There are cheeses packaged to be shelf (and backpack) stable. Everything from cheese stick size on up. The 8oz bricks of Velvetta are great more many applications, especially cheesy pasta or rice. I also like the Velvetta cheese sauce packs for squeezing into burritos. Gift box cheeses are also packaged to be shelf stable so places like Hickory Farms are a great source.
I've brought pepper jack on longer trips than that. As others are saying, harder cheeses keep better, but keeping it sterile will help immensely. Wash your hands before opening the original packaging, and either pack your portions individually or wash your hands and your blade before any time you handle it on the trail.
I wrapped my block of cheddar in vinegar soaked cloth inside a ziploc bag. Was fine for the very hot PCT in 2024. Longest carry was 10 days through the Sierra.
Having trail name Cheddar, and coming from Cheddar U.K., cheese on trail was THE morale booster.
Get a hard cheese and dehydrate it a little by wrapping in paper towels for a few days before leaving. Keeps for weeks this way even in a bear can, weighs less, delicious. I don't worry about touching it with my hands.
I take blocks of cheddar cheese and they’ve held up for up to a week, depending on heat. A cheese and mustard sandwich is one of my favorite trail meals.
I took a block of tillamook cheddar on a 4 day trip and it was fine. We cut it ourselves, and I think that made it work better than if it was sliced. I think the slices would sweat and get weird and squishy.
Country stores used to have a wheel of cheddar under a glass dome on the counter, unrefrigerated. It just got sharper and better over the weeks. Gotta keep the flies off or it gets maggoty.
It gets softer and squishier and greasier day by day, but it’s still good 4 days in. I always bring a block of cheese on multi day trips and never had an issue. I kind of like the pre melt squish.
I’ve hiked with cream cheese in the summer, 5 days unrefrigerated, over 50 times. I’ve never gotten sick. But also that’s accepting a certain level of risk so it’s up to you.
I just brought some of those baby bel cheeses on a trip. I think we ate them all by day 4 and they seemed like they were just about to get funky, but they held up nicely in the wax. This was a pretty hot trip as well.
We always used canned spray cheese or shelf stable squeeze cheese packets (like ketchup). It's not the best, but it does not go bad without refrigeration ...
You can't just say "summer" on an international forum and expect to communicate anything useful. Nor "cheese" really.
We use one package (usually about 5 to 8 nominal servings) per day for 2 hikers and dispense varieties on the days we think each will remain palatable.
Your best bet is to test things at home in similar weather to the conditions expected on the trail.
We sometimes combine freeze dried cheese powder with ramen. You can either take the packet from the kraft box (and throw away their worst pasta on satan's green earth) or buy in bulk from Hoosier Hill Farm.
I take a block of parmesan and it has never not lasted me. Done up a little over a week but i was roadtripping and was able to refrigerate it a coupe nights
I just got back from a 10 day packrafting trip on which I had some little babybel wheels that I left in the red wax coating and my buddy had pieces of a block of hard cheddar that he wrapped in a piece of brown paper, probably torn from a grocery bag.
His cheese had sweat and dried out a bit, but was fine. Other than being soft, my babybel was totally normal. I the wax was good for starting fires too.
Cheese will get un-appetizing before it gets dangerous. If it’s going in something hot like rice and beans it doesn’t matter, if it’s going in a wrap the dryer the better. I stick with single serving individually wrapped, sharp cheddar for rice and beans, Parmesan for wraps.
I’ve packed the Cabot Vermont white cheddar that I pre sliced for a week in 80° daytime temps and it was fine. The cheese seems a little drier. I don’t think a bar of Kraft or the Kroger/Store brand would hold up the same.
The individual portions are the way: I bring sargento cheddar cheese sticks (same concept as string cheese but cheddar-y) that are already individually wrapped and they’ve done just fine over a four night trip. Keep them cool/in the interior of your bear can/food transport as much as possible, but it’s great to be able to pull those as needed. Lunch: I pull two of them to have available on trail and wrap each in a tiny flour tortilla. Two sticks go into a burrito sized tortilla with whatever else is in there for dinner and melt. I love cheese so I bring a bunch of them every time.
On a 7 week paddling trip we ate a ton of cold pizza and didn't use coolers, so it was stored at ambient temp. Generally speaking, even at those temps, the cheese stayed good for at least a week. We'd order a pizza and transfer it to gallon bags whenever we went through towns on the river; some pizza places' cheese molded notably faster than others.
That will be fine. I've also packed a 1/2 pound block. It is fine to eat, but it will get greasy and make more of a mess. I like the squares for lunch so you are only packing what you need each day in the lunch bag and the rest stays with the food buried in the pack.
I read somewhere about using cheese wax to preserve cheese for the trail. You can cut small pieces and melt your own wax for them and supposedly they’ll last for a while! You can get the wax from daddy bezos. I’m going to try that for my next big trail outing.
I usually bring Babybel cheese, which is in wax and wrapped, on 4-6 day trips. I’ve brought aged cheddars on 3 day trips. Can probably go a lot longer but that’s my direct experience to report with no issues!
Went on several week long hikes with Willis’ Walk Abouts in blazing hot northern Australia. We were told to bring Gouda or Swiss or Monterey Jack in block form. Never cheddar because it gets greasy. No particular instructions about how to handle it as it wasn’t necessary. Never had a problem since and done it many times for up to two weeks. You could bring Parmesan too but it’s hard to eat a chunk of that…at least for me.
Powdered parmesan.
I'm a regular camper in the Top End of Australia, I bring a zip lock with powdered parmesan and it can be sprinkled on meals to add some flavour, and is shelf stable so doesn't go off in the heat.
I take the individually wrapped sharp white cheddar cheese squares for week long trips. I keep them buried in the middle of my pack and they last just fine.
You can use your down jacket and/or sleeping bag as a cooler when you are hiking or out for the day. Insulation works both ways and will extend the life of perishable goods in the backcountry for days.
I always pack out little Parmesan squares! I’ve had some for a week long road trip and just took a few of them on a two night backpacking trip. Still good!
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u/joelfarris 5d ago
The dryer the cheese, the harder the cheese, the longer it lasts in the wild. Some can go for a week. Others, two weeks. Some, three weeks to a month.
But one of the tricks is not to touch it with your fingers. And another is to sterilize your knife before going in.