Homemade Cheddar Cheese, with pics

Cheddar cheese. I posted this elsewhere on the forum, but der I forgot about the cheese area here.

I added annatto powder to this cheddar, which added a lot of color and red specs to it. I should have just extracted the color from the spice and added that, but I was lazy.

Tastes great. Perfect texture. Waxed and aging.

Curds, right after cutting and heating. Tons of whey on top.


Curds in the press, post cheddaring.


Press. That cookie sheet under it will soon be full of whey. Pressed for about 18 hours.



On drying rack. After a quick brine rinse to suppress surface mold, the cheese is allowed to develop a hard skin under cheesecloth.


Quality control testing


Cut into wedges. Waxed. Aging to get that sharp cheddar flavor.

Looks great, something I'd like to try. I'd imagine that long cold aging would be one of the keys. I've been to Cheddar gorge which is near the village of Cheddar in Somerset, which gave the world cheddar. The gorge is full of caves where the cheese was aged, its quite a wet area and i'd guess the caves would keep the temps fairly constant cool and moist. Although how related modern cheddar is to the original I would doubt.

DavidJP said:

Looks great, something I'd like to try. I'd imagine that long cold aging would be one of the keys. I've been to Cheddar gorge which is near the village of Cheddar in Somerset, which gave the world cheddar. The gorge is full of caves where the cheese was aged, its quite a wet area and i'd guess the caves would keep the temps fairly constant cool and moist. Although how related modern cheddar is to the original I would doubt.

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That's funny, I just read about that place.

How/where are you storing it for aging?

is the granite on your kitchen counter tops.
Is it crema bordeaux granite? It looks a lot like mine and I love it.
Nice Brazilian stone....sorry so off topic. Just wondering if that is what you have....

Looks awesome. Aged cheddar is so good. Tried an 18 year aged cheddar once and so nice and sharp and delicious.

seadad9903 said:

How/where are you storing it for aging?

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My fermentation fridge. The temp moves around, but that's better than room temp, which is always pretty warm here in FL.

WNCBrewman said:

is the granite on your kitchen counter tops.
Is it crema bordeaux granite? It looks a lot like mine and I love it.
Nice Brazilian stone....sorry so off topic. Just wondering if that is what you have....

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I can't remember. I thought it had the word dragon in it. It's pretty natural looking, exactly what I wanted (I did and exhaustive search for it). I have 4 full slabs in my kitchen; here's the island, it's a big solid piece, you can get a good look at the pattern there:

myndflyte said:

Looks awesome. Aged cheddar is so good. Tried an 18 year aged cheddar once and so nice and sharp and delicious.

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Thanks. 18 years is a long time. If I had a house up north with a cold basement, I'd be trying to make that happen. But down here in FL, cold storage means and electrical appliance of some kind, and long term storage seems unlikely. Plus, I'd just eat it.

passedpawn said:

Thanks. 18 years is a long time. If I had a house up north with a cold basement, I'd be trying to make that happen. But down here in FL, cold storage means and electrical appliance of some kind, and long term storage seems unlikely. Plus, I'd just eat it.

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Oh yeah, if I made cheddar, there is no way it would last that long.

@OP

How much annatto did you put in and how big is that batch?

You cut it up before waxing. What are your thoughts on aging it in smaller pieces like that vs as an entire wheel? Just done for convenience?

eatmorefrogs said:

@OP

How much annatto did you put in and how big is that batch?

You cut it up before waxing. What are your thoughts on aging it in smaller pieces like that vs as an entire wheel? Just done for convenience?

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I tossed about a teaspoon of annatto. Maybe two. My plan was to add until I got the color I wanted, but I realized right away that the powder wasn't dissolving, so I stopped. There is a noticeable flavor from the annatto (it says it's flavorless, but the powder certainly is NOT). And, you can see some specks in there. It's a very attractive cheese, though.

Annatto, BTW, smells and tastes a little like tomatoes. I attempted to extract the dye from the powder by putting some in a coffee filter and passing water through it. The filter clogged immediately - nothing went through. I had better luck using a French press to push the water through the powder. It did indeed create a dark blood red dye. It still smells like a tomato though. I'm going to buy some of the annatto dye that is available from Amazon and see if it has the smell as well. I really want this to just add color and not flavor/aroma.

I think aging in larger blocks is a better idea. This one I aged for a week then tasted to see what effect the annato had. Then I waxed it. Then my dog stood up and ate one of the wedges (wax and all). The rest are in the fermentation fridge now.

I'm aging a wheel about twice that size right now in a vaccuum bag. I'll probably cut into that one, then wax half and vac the other half for a A/B comparison.

Thanks for the questions. I'm certainly no expert, so please weigh my responses accordingly. But I do like discussing it.

I'll be making cheese with my son this weekend. Probably just go with straight white cheddar. I have a local place that sells goat milk, so if I can get some of that Saturday morning I might make something exotic!

I have nothing to add except to say this is cool and I want to make cheddar cheese. I like aged, sharp cheddar.

Subscribed!

Did you DIY the cheese press?

boydster said:

I have nothing to add except to say this is cool and I want to make cheddar cheese. I like aged, sharp cheddar.

Subscribed!

Did you DIY the cheese press?

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Nope, bought it. There was a time when I would have, but more and more I think about how finite my time is here, and I forego DIY things to get to the fun part.

Here.

Sharp requires aging. It's that simple.

passedpawn said:

Thanks for the questions. I'm certainly no expert, so please weigh my responses accordingly. But I do like discussing it.

I'll be making cheese with my son this weekend. Probably just go with straight white cheddar. I have a local place that sells goat milk, so if I can get some of that Saturday morning I might make something exotic!

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Thanks for the feedback, I appreciate it. I'm fairly new myself and my cheese has never been that yellow. Maybe I'll try adding more dye. That's a beautiful wheel you've got there!

Good luck with the cheese! I'm not going back to goat milk until I've got my technique down better, made that expensive mistake once.

I really need to take an afternoon and make a wheel or two with the kid. I made one a couple of years ago and a few months in it was not so good. Next year it was great.

I didn't have annato at the time so it ended up being a white cheddar. I'm willing to make a few and age them out.

That is pretty cool - thanks for sharing!

I'm trying to figure out how that cheese press works. Could you take a picture of it in an exploded view? Most specifically the bottom- I don't understand how the whey drains as it's pressed.

n0nsequit0rish said:

I'm trying to figure out how that cheese press works. Could you take a picture of it in an exploded view? Most specifically the bottom- I don't understand how the whey drains as it's pressed.

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It's nothing too complex. Just a thick (PVC?) cylinder on a solid block. There are no perforations or channels in the PVC.

You need to fold a piece of cheesecloth a couple of times, then put it under the cylinder . The whey has no problem at all seeping out. I bought it on Amazon about 6 months ago. There might be many more pics there, or on the manuf site: The Ultimate Cheese Press

I've got 3 presses. If you want this one, I'll be selling for $50 + ship. I just haven't gotten around to putting the listing up here.

BTW, I ate some of this cheese a few nites ago. It tastes SO much better than when I first made it. I'm on the last wedge.