Can someone point me in the right direction?

[SoCal-Doug]

I've never made cheese but would like to try something from my childhood that I really miss and crave.
​

Back when I was young (maybe early to mid 70's), my dad would make cheese. I loved it and we used it for many things. My favorite was to simply break a chunk off and sprinkle a little salt on it. He called it dry curd cottage cheese but I have no clue if that is the correct definition.

He would have a giant kettle on the stove, warm it, it would harden a bit (kinda looked like white flan or custard), he would cut stripes in it in two directions, and eventually stir it up. He would then put it in canvas bags and hang it up to drip dry (it kinda looked like chunky white oatmeal at this point). When dry/done, it was quite firm, white, and kinda looked like cottage cheese with no liquid or goo. I have no idea what milk or culture was used (my faint memory wants to say some buttermilk was involved but I might be wrong. it's just been too many years)

When we didn't have any home made, a few stores carried canvas bags of the same stuff (haven't seen anything like it in many many years).

When I google it, "farmers cheese" comes up a lot, but every time I buy farmers cheese, its wet, runny, and is almost sweet. The stuff we made had a very slight bitterness to it and was nearly bone dry.

If anyone can point me in the right direction, or a recipe for a complete noob at cheese making, it would be mucho appreciated!!! Thanks.

 

[bernardsmith]

Hi So-Cal Doug - and welcome. This is a recipe for what is called a squeaky curd cheese. It requires rennet and it takes about 3 - 4 hours to make. It's relatively simple and I would say can easily be made by a novice cheese maker.
You need
4 quarts of milk (a gallon)
1/2 teaspoon calcium chloride dissolved in chlorine free water.(assuming that your milk is not raw but has been pasteurized: the Ca Cl is needed to replace some of the material that is destroyed when the milk was heated to a high enough temperature to kill bacteria)
I use kefir to culture the milk but you could use active buttermilk (about 1/4 cup)
1/4 teaspoon rennet dissolved in chlorine free water (don't dissolve the rennet until you are ready to use to it).
1. Heat milk in kettle to 90 F (best to use a double boiler: that is a smaller kettle in which you have poured the milk placed inside a larger kettle filled with hot water. A double boiler prevents the bottom of the milk from being burnt by the flame or the electric burner.
2. add Ca Cl and stir well for a minute. Best to stir from bottom to top and not simply round in circles.
3. add the culture and stir in the same way. Allow to ripen - 40 minutes
4. Add rennet and stir in same way. Cover the kettle and allow the milk to set (coagulate) - about 40 minutes.
5. Check to see if the milk has set firmly. If you place a knife or your clean finger in it the milk should "split" and that cut should remain visible. If it has set you have curds. This is known as a clean break.
6. If the milk has not set let it stand another 10 minutes.
7. Cut the curds with a knife every 1/2- 1 inch right down to the bottom of the pot.
8. Turn the pot and cut again so that you are now cutting at 90 degrees to the first set of cuts. This should form squares.
9. Take your knife and try to cut those squares into cubes (about the same height as the width and breadth). This is not easy and if you cannot do this well don't fret. The key idea is that you want to create a lot of surfaces from which the curds can expel the whey.
10. Very gently increase the temperature to 100 F over 30 minutes stirring these curds very , very gently. What you are trying to do is help them express the whey. The curds should shrink smaller and smaller as you stir. I stir for a couple of minutes every five minutes.
11. Cover a colander with cheese cloth and allow the curds to drain into the cloth for 10 minutes. This is cheese cloth used by cheese makers and not the kind of "cloth" your supermarket might sell. But if that is all you can get you can still use it IF you triple fold it. The whey is good to drink or use if you bake bread or if you have a yard it is great for tomatoes (and cats love it). You can also use this whey as your culture for another batch.
12. Gather the corners of this cloth to create a bag and hang the bag to allow the curds to drain for 15 minutes.
You might get about 3.5 quarts of whey in all.
13. Fold this bag to kind of "capture" the curds and place the bag between two large plates. Place a weight of about 8 lbs on top of the top plate (you can use the gallon container the milk came in if you fill that with water.
14. Turn the bag so that what was at the bottom is now on the top every 15 minutes for 60 minutes.
15. at the end of this hour the cheese should be quite firm. Cut it in two and place one piece on top of the other. cover the cheese to the cloth and allow this to stay under the plate and weight for another 30 minutes only this time you are taking the top half and putting it on the bottom and placing the bottom half on the top every 10 minutes. This process is called cheddaring.
16. After the 30 minutes take the two pieces and slice each into 1 inch cubes.
17. Sprinkle a teaspoon of salt on the cubes. (best to use iodine free salt: this allows the cheese to ripen, but if you use salt with iodine this is not a problem. The culture may be killed and the cheese won't become more acidic because the cultures won't be able to eat the lactose and convert it into lactic acid), But Voila! You have about 1 lb of very tasty curd cheese. They will squeak when you eat them for the first 24 hours. The cheese will be good for another week or more in the fridge...

 

[dmtaylor]

I'm no expert on cheese, never made it myself, but I've seen it made before and it doesn't seem like rocket science. All you really need is a big kettle or Nesco and some rennet, and rudimentary instructions, and you can make great cheese without much trouble. One of these days I'll give it a try myself. Should be easy to look up. Just get some rennet and you'll figure it out pretty quick I think. Good luck.

EDIT: And there you go! See above. Looks like he's done this.

 

[bernardsmith]

True - It ain't rocket science but it does involve a process and that process while simple does need to be followed closely or understood well. Making cheese is an analogous to brewing beer: each step is simple, but each step is there for a reason and if you don't know what you are doing but you play fast and loose with any step you may not have the beer you thought you were making. So, for example, increasing the temperature too quickly will seal the curds and so they cannot expel the whey; Mixing the rennet with water too early may result in a solution that cannot set the milk because the rennet is no longer active. Adding too much rennet will make for a sandy textured cheese; adding too little may not allow the milk to set. Failing to add Ca Cl may also result in a curd that does not set. Failing to stir the curds will discourage them from releasing the whey; adding too much weight will expel curds with the whey, adding insufficient weight will not encourage the curds to knit...

 

[passedpawn]

I've never made cheese but would like to try something from my childhood that I really miss and crave.
​

Back when I was young (maybe early to mid 70's), my dad would make cheese. I loved it and we used it for many things. My favorite was to simply break a chunk off and sprinkle a little salt on it. He called it dry curd cottage cheese but I have no clue if that is the correct definition.

He would have a giant kettle on the stove, warm it, it would harden a bit (kinda looked like white flan or custard), he would cut stripes in it in two directions, and eventually stir it up. He would then put it in canvas bags and hang it up to drip dry (it kinda looked like chunky white oatmeal at this point). When dry/done, it was quite firm, white, and kinda looked like cottage cheese with no liquid or goo. I have no idea what milk or culture was used (my faint memory wants to say some buttermilk was involved but I might be wrong. it's just been too many years)

When we didn't have any home made, a few stores carried canvas bags of the same stuff (haven't seen anything like it in many many years).

When I google it, "farmers cheese" comes up a lot, but every time I buy farmers cheese, its wet, runny, and is almost sweet. The stuff we made had a very slight bitterness to it and was nearly bone dry.

If anyone can point me in the right direction, or a recipe for a complete noob at cheese making, it would be mucho appreciated!!! Thanks.

What you describe is the beginning of a lot of cheese that I make. If you want a dry cheese, use extra rennet, cut the curds small (pea-sized, use a whisk), dump into a colander lined with cheesecloth, tie the cheesecloth above the sink and let it hang for an hour or two (or more). You get what you're looking for.

Regarding making the curds, it's pretty simple, but I'll forward you to cheesemaking.com where you should do your research. You can get everything you need from that site.