The hâloir is a store for drying soft cheeses after salting and forming. In fact - a maturing cellar. The cheeses are first dried out, propped up at an angle on racks to eliminate surface water. Then its temperature is set according to the evolution of the cheese.
Auguste Lepetit from Normandy was the first to introduce refrigeration into his cellars to control the maturing process. These days, hâloirs are temperature controlled: increasing or lowering both its temperature and hygrometry as required while the cheeses develop. It is the cheese makers who manage the temperature, hygrometry, air circulation and gas level.
The cheeses are dried by rubbing. Not with a bath towel- even if they come out of a tub of brine! The picture this gives amuses youngsters a great deal when I tell them about it, but at least, they remember what I've said...
It is the controlled temperature "dryers" which led to the description "refrigerators" in the first cheese factory set up in the Auvergne. In Riom ès Montagne, to be precise... shortly before the First World War (1910).
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