cheese making

Now that I've learned how to brew and have actually created beer that I liked drinking, I want to learn to make cheese. Cheese for eating with wine, cheese for sandwhiches and cheese for shredding and putting on pizza...

Who has done this? How hard is it? Are there any good web resources like John Palmer's howtobrew.com--is there one of those for cheese? Or is what I'm looking to do much less complicated than brewing?

It depends on the cheese, unlike beer different styles of cheese can have completely different processes and equipment to make them. That said even the more complicated styles will rely mostly on skills you've picked up from brewing. Something like mozzarella and other similar soft cheeses are very simple and quick to make, hard cheese requires fermentation with various acid producing bacteria and the use of a cheese press.
I dont know of any definitive guides to cheese making but there is a lot of stuff on the net that should help.

Here is a good site....

Fankhauser's Cheese Page

I used to make cheese years ago but gave it up after my supplier of raw milk sold the farm!

I think this is the definitive website for cheese making:
CheeseMaking - Online Store This site sells a book, but also has quite a few free recipes, but, it does not really go into the technical details (website that is, I do not have the book).

The folks from this site sell to LHBS, I got the basic hard cheese kit. If you add citric acid to that, you can easily make mozzarella.

I made some cheddar, it came out dry and salty. I think I know what to do to fix that, I just need to fix it.

I have also made microwave mozzarella. It came out really good, needed a bit more salt, but we used it all in one day on home made pizza.

Here are some step-by-step howto that a member here put together (these are the methods advocated in the above site):
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f56/30-minute-microwave-mozzarella-55325/
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f56/farmhouse-cheddar-pictorial-54572/

I have a source for fresh raw goat's milk, so I've been making chevre, feta, ricotta and mozzeralla. All have been excellent! I bought my kit from the site listed above, and followed the frankhauser's link on the ricotta. I'm planning on making cheddar as soon as I get a brush for the waxing.

YooperBrew said:

I'm planning on making cheddar as soon as I get a brush for the waxing.

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I melted my wax in a coffee can on the stove and put the cheese on some parchment paper and just spooned the wax on, worked well.

Fankhauser's is ok for experimenting and getting the basic idea, but I don't agree with him on using Junket Rennet as it just doesn't work as nicely as regular Rennet. Ricki Carrol's book on cheesemaking is a good beginners source to get you into the more advanced stages (and recipes). This topic comes up from time to time and I always end up suggesting the same thing. If you want to do it right, look into getting a humidity controlled environment set up first. This is the only way to surpass what you can find in a store for any of the cured/aged cheeses.

zoebisch01 said:

If you want to do it right, look into getting a humidity controlled environment set up first. This is the only way to surpass what you can find in a store for any of the cured/aged cheeses.

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This is where I am stuck right now. I just don't have the proper environment for aging this cheese. Next house I get, I will have to look for one with a cave, a cheese cave.