Cheese aging and lagering in one vessel?

Hey all,

I have been looking at getting a chest freezer for making lagers, and my wife got me a cheese making book for Christmas. Looking at most of the recipes, they seem to call for temps in the 50's, so I was thinking why not use the same space for aging cheese while lagering beer. Any reason this wouldn't work?

It kind of seems like an obvious pairing, and did some searches here but haven't seen much discussion. How many of you have tried this? Would the fact that your lager (esp in early stages of ferment) is putting out a fair bit of C02 have any negative impacts on the aging cheese?

I dont lager at all so never really thought about it, Yooper probably has the best answer on this one, think she lagers . . .

I've always been very careful to keep my "other" fermenteds like sauerkraut, cheese, vinegar, sourdough starter, etc, FAR away from my beer.

Remember that it's cultures like lactobacillus that ferment your cheese. You want to avoid cross contamination, unless you love sour beers.

I realize that a keg is sealed, but I still wouldn't risk that. In a carboy or bucket during fermentation, I would be even more cautious.

That's a good point, Yooper. Thanks. I guess I'll have to go looking for a cheap cheese cave.