FungusBrew

Recipes 

Excellent information, and awesome pictures. Can't wait to get around to it. Definitely going to get the whole family involved!

justbrewit

Recipes 

I just broke into my farmhouse cheddard I made and I have to say its the bomb!!! I pick up a slightly more complete kit than yooper used. Mine came with a tome cheese press. I have to say that making the cheese is a lot of fun and tastes great. I'll be making anoth farmhouse cheddar tonight but I'm doing it with curd from 2 batches. We'll see how it turns out

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PinkBlueRiver

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Nice photos; however, you left out the actual "cheddaring" process: you need to cut the solid curd into pieces and turn for a period of time before pressing. See: http://www.cheesemaking.com/includes/modules/jWallace/ChsPgs/1Cheddar/Index.html
Otherwise, it is not a real "cheddar".

Egghead

Recipes 

Subscribe.

Brandon O

Recipes 

It's way too hot to brew in phoenix right now and will be for the next few months. I needed something new. Thanks for the great pictorial.

I'm sold. Going by my LHBS today.

beretta

Recipes 

I use some easy-to-find substitutes when making cheese:

Mesophilic Culture = Buttermilk (dairy isle)
Rennet = "Junkit" brand dessert "stuff" ( find near pudding / jello )
Ca Chloride = driveway salt ( ok... you can find food grade stuff in the canning isle )
salt = non iodine salt ( kosher salt is OK )
Cheese cloth = tired old white poplin dress shirts

I use 1% milk and add heavy cream until it's back up to "whole milk" 3-4% milkfat. (or more!)

To simplify my process, I skip the cheese cloth / colandar draining, (more crap to clean!) and pour off the whey from the curds right from the cooking pot, and strain a bit with clean hands.

To "Cheddar" the cheese:
Plop the still wet curds onto a 1/2 cookie sheet on a slight incline. I squish the curds down to make a 1-1/2 inch "mat". I wait 15-20 minutes and cut the mat into quarters, and stack the quarters. Every 15-30 minutes I flip and restack the "mat" of curds, pour off the whey, and taste test the whey. After about 1-2 hours the whey starts tasting a bit tangy (it starts off chalky tasting ) then its time to stop cheddaring, and break the curd up into small chunks and salt it down (the salt slows the lacto to a crawl)

Don't add salt until after cheddaring, or your lacto (buttermilk) won't ripen!

I figure it costs me about $6.00 for a pound of cheddar.

Haputanlas

Recipes 

My thoughts exactly. SWMBO is already excited to try it.

She makes the dinners and cheese, I make the good beer (That she loves by the way).

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Primary: Hoppy Wheat, Porter
Kegged: Reaper's English Mild (OO), BBK Jr., Lagunitas IPA, Fireman's #4
Bottled: None
Notable Empties: Oaked Black IIPA, BBK I, Red IIPA, Burning Bush, Apophis "The Destroyer", Vanilla Porter
On-Deck: The Titan BW, Ale of Olympus

murph25

Recipes 

I made a farmhouse cheddar and was wondering if I try say half of it, can I then re-wax the other half to let it age more?

malvado78

Recipes 

'Tis a good question.

And I don't really know the answer but if I had to guess the problem would be that you're cutting off some of the rind which helps preserve it (I know your going to rewax it).

Someone here may know but if you don't get a good answer you will get an answer here:
http://cheeseforum.org/forum/

murph25

Recipes 

Yes, I didn't even think of that....Ok, thanks for posting the other link!