Question regarding Beengs, Cakes etc

[Huskysibe]

Maybe this has been posted before but I haven't seen it. What do you guys do with your beengs, bricks, tuochas etc do you break them up and store your Pu in canisters or bags or do you just break off what you will use for that brew and re-wrap them back up? I never know what to do.

Billy

 

[shah8]

People generally tend to nibble from the cake.

You break up the cake if you know that tea particularly needs a wakening period. For example, my 2002 Tai Lian cake is not nearly as good brewing straight after prying from the cake. Needs two weeks in a jar before consumption.
You break up the cake of fresh shu if you intend to drink, so as to disperse the bad smells left over from fermentation.
You break up the cake just for conveniences sake. You can clean up any messes just once and getting tea just means pouring out from your jar instead of leaves breaking off everywhere whenever you pry from the cake.

You don't try and age a broken up cake. You want to store broken up cakes in a jar without a totally tightly fitted lid, and you generally don't want to use tight plastic bags. Air keeps any fermentation predominantly aerobic and minimizes sour-erizing anaerobic fermentation. Don't need much air at all, though. Gas permeable bags are fine, for example.