Making cheese, yet another new hobby

Cheese making has now joined brewing, mead making, sausage making, bread making, dehydrating, and canning and preserving in my repertoire of food-related craft pursuits. I'm excited about it.

I made some queso blanco last week, and some mozzarella today. I was fairly pleased with the results in both cases considering that it was my first attempts. But I clearly have a lot of room for improvement.

The queso blanco came out a little harder than it should, but it went very well on salads and with scrambled eggs and with greens (turnip, kale, etc). I think I used too much vinegar. I'll use less next time to see if I can keep it a bit softer. The mozzarella I made today seemed bland, but the consistency and texture were pretty good.

I've been researching milk. Getting good milk is going to prove to be a challenge. It seems like most grocery store milk these days, especially the organic milks, are ultra-pasteurized. You can't make cheese from UP milk. It won't set into proper curds.

One problem is that some grocery store milk that is ultra-pasteurized isn't labeled as such. I tried regular whole milk from Costco, and even though it wasn't labeled UP, I am sure that it was. The curds wouldn't form at all. Basically, UP milk is a dead white fluid that resembles real milk in some regards, except that it doesn't taste good and isn't good for you.

Today I used Shepp's milk, which is from a local dairy. It worked fine for a conventionally pasteurized and homogenized cow's milk.

What I really want for my cheese making is raw unpasteurized goat's milk and cow's milk. Licensed raw milk farmers in Texas can sell it to consumers, but the purchase and pickup must be made at the farm where the milk is produced. It can't be sold in stores or anywhere off the farm. Around here raw goat's milk tends to go for about $14 a gallon. I don't know about raw cow's milk, as I'm still looking for a source. The main problem with sourcing it is that all of the producers near here are 50 to 70 miles away, and the ones I called aren't accepting any more customers right now. I'm on a waiting list for March at one of the farms.

If I can solve my milk supply problem, I'll be looking for a wine cooler to convert into a cheese aging fridge.

there was a forum for cheese making

editkay when did the cheese making forum dissappear?

I thought there was too, but if you search for "cheese" in titles only you'll find that all the cheese making threads are in this Cooking & Pairing forum. I guess cheese making is sort of like cooking.

It's been down for months, there was a lack of interest I believe, never seemed like there was a lot of activity in the cheese forum.

I've been making my own cheese for a few years now. Mostly just mozz and ricotta, and an occasional queso blanco. Would like to try doing other cheese, but there's more equipment to aquire and that would start to compete with my brewing equip. space...

I bought a cheese press from Hoegger Goat Supply. It's required for making hard cheese. I haven't used it yet.

I paid $12/gallon for raw cow's milk. My mozzarella turned out not significantly different between using the $12/gallon raw milk and $4/gallon rehydrated dry milk with fat added.

I found that the "bland" comes from not using enough salt. Each time I make it, I add more and more salt and there never seems to be enough. I think I just need to bite the bullet and add "way too much" and see how it turns out.

Thanks for the salt tip, Laurel. My normal inclination is to use less salt that most recipes call for, but in this case you may well be right. I formed my cheese into two balls before I heated it and stretched it, and I salted one more than the other as I was pulling and stretching. I just tasted them both side by side to compare the flavor, and the one I salted more definitely tastes better.

Have you used Lipase in your mozzarella? One of the recipes I have calls for it. It wasn't included in the kit I got from the New England Cheese Making Supply Company, but the longer recipe in Ricki Carroll's Home Cheese Making book calls for it.

Beer, Cheese and salted meats........life cannot get any better.

I've definitely wanted to do this for a long time, thanks for the link to the starter kit.

What cheeses are most people making?

I want to get started with doing cheeses, but SWMBO isn't on board with the whole "home made" everything that I'm going for, with our own wine, beer, and cheeses. I'll get her on board within a few months, so I'm not worried. Keep us informed, I want to know as much as possible before I start!

billtzk said:

Have you used Lipase in your mozzarella? One of the recipes I have calls for it. It wasn't included in the kit I got from the New England Cheese Making Supply Company, but the longer recipe in Ricki Carroll's Home Cheese Making book calls for it.

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I use the lipase. It was with the initial ingredients that I got from Grape & Granary. I haven't tried it without it, so I can't really give a description of what the difference is.

I agree that you need to add more salt than you think you need. It does, however, give you an idea of how much salt is in a commercial product.
I still don't add as much as what it would take to match commercial mozz, but it suits my taste, and that's what it's all about.

I'll buy some lipase and give it a try.

Once I'm comfortable with the process of making some of the simpler cheeses, I plan to embark on hard cheeses like cheddar and leicester, and then blue cheeses and surface-ripened cheeses. It's the blue cheeses in particular, and the soft cheeses with surface molds like Camembert and Brie that I most want to be able to make.

I just finished off some Bleu d'Auvergne and some Humboldt Fog that I bought recently at Whole Foods. I also just polished off a Stilton that I got at Costco. If I can learn to make a cheese as good as those, I'll be mighty pleased.

I haven't used Lipase yet, I'm not sure what it adds to the final product, I'll do some reading on it today.

I also started adding salt before the first time I microwave the curds. I find that this helps to get them incorporated into the final product a lot easier.

Buying starter kits is a waste of money IMO. Most starter kits come with a book of recipes (which you can get online), citric acid, rennet, and butter muslin which are all available at the local homebrew store, or at austinhomebrew for a fraction of the price of getting the kit.

Lipase adds some flavor to mozzerella.

I've made chevre, mozzerella, ricotta, etc. I bought everything I need for hard cheeses, too, except for a cheese press.

I paid $6/gallon for whole fresh goat's milk, and I thought it seemed like way too much! I don't have a source for cow's milk, though.

In WA, you can find raw milks at coops and health food stores usually. I'd be willing to buy direct from a farmer if I could find any dairy farmers locally, but so far I've come up short. I'll look into adding lipase to my mozzarella.

Doesn't cheese while it is aging smell like like dirty socks? Unlike rhino farts I don't think this would go away after few days.

Becuase this is the myth SWMBO is not on board.

If I could choose another hobby and justify the expense of getting started, I would probably choose cheese. I LOVE CHEESE, and it goes great with BEER.

I've had great success making mozzarella. I haven't tried anything else yet. The milk makes all the difference. I'm lucky I guess. I get fresh raw milk from an Amish farm, nearby, for $2.50 a gallon.

$2.50 a gallon for fresh raw milk is indeed a bargain. That's cheaper than ultra-pasteurized homogenized horrible tasting dead white milk-like fluid you can find at the grocery store.

If I lived further out of town on a few acres, I think I'd get a jersey or a guernsey and a few goats and produce my own.

I just made my first batch of mozzarella about 10 minutes ago. I rolled the dice- and found that Swiss Premium brand milk (PA brewers will recognize this one) makes a very suitable curd. I'm looking around for sources of raw milk, which shouldn't be too difficult as there are a number of farms within a few miles of my home.

I'm of the opinion that cheesemaking, baking and brewing are all valuable life skills.

You'll be pretty much stuck with most fresh cheeses until you can properly control humidity and temperature. I mean, you can make stuff and do a fair job but it will probably nag at you because you know it can be better. It's akin to proper ferment temperature control in brewing.

A humidity chamber is on my to-do list for both cheese and dry cure salami/sausage.

I've been doing some research on and off during the day, and found techniques for making mesophilic and thermophilic cultures. Seems quite simple- I may have to try it over the weekend.

A listing of recipes: GourmetSleuth - How To Make Cheese - Cheese Making Recipes

I made another batch of Farmhouse Cheddar yesterday. I pressed it
for 12 hours and just turned it over to press it for another 12 hours. It
looks great. Tonight I will put it in my "little chief" smoker for 30 min
with some hickory chips. I use store bought milk. 2 gallons of 2% and
1 pt. heavy cream. I know the cream is ultra pasturized. I also add
1/4 tsp of calcium chloride with the rennet. I have made several batches
and every one of the Farmhouse Cheddars have been excellent. The
recipe is from NewEngland Cheese Making Supply. Ginger

Made a batch of feta last night, mozzarella this morning with Italian herbs.

Should be nice for snacking over the holidays.

I just bought a 24 quart SS pot for making cheese. I could heat maybe five gallons of milk in it easily. It's overkill, but it'll come in handy anyway, I'm sure.

tomhog, the smoked farmhouse cheddar sounds great.