Farmhouse Cheddar Pictorial

[FungusBrew]

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

 

[justbrewit]

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

 

[PinkBlueRiver]

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]

Subscribe.

 

[Brandon O]

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]

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]

This would be fun. I could even most likely get this hobby done through SWMBO. " Hey honey, you shuold try making cheese". She loves wine. Now I get homemade cheese without working

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).

 

[murph25]

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]

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?

'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]

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

 

[murph25]

I went to turn over my aged/waxed farmhouse cheddar and noticed small spots of some sort of leakage? Has anyone else had this happen? Does this mean the cheese needs to be thrown out?

 

[malvado78]

I went to turn over my aged/waxed farmhouse cheddar and noticed small spots of some sort of leakage? Has anyone else had this happen? Does this mean the cheese needs to be thrown out?

How long has it aged?

When it is first made it should be air dried for a couple weeks. In the the beginning it will "leak" or weep for a while. During this time you wrap it in a cloth or paper towel to absorb it and flip it daily so it dries evenly.

When the towel is no longer wet you can stop wrapping it.

If this is what is happening then you are good. Don't worry about it.

 

[murph25]

It has been waxed and aging for almost three weeks....

 

[malvado78]

It has been waxed and aging for almost three weeks....

How long did you dry it before you waxed it?

See this thread. Sounds about like what you've described.

http://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,827.msg7031.html#msg7031

Edit: Post 45 or 46 is where the person discusses the wax leaking...

 

[murph25]

about 4 or 5 days...Yes, I guess I need to bust it out of the wax..

 

[Nokitchen]

I couldn't wait eight weeks any more than I could wait two weeks after bottling my first homebrew. But I made it seven weeks, and I was SMRT and dried and waxed the cheese in two batches so I can age some of it some more.

My farmhouse cheddar is crumbly and nutty and sharp and just all-around good. And that was with regular old milk and not very good technique in raising the temperature during cooking. There will definitely be more cheese made soon. I'm planning a trip out to Pennsylvania to get some raw milk, and in the meantime I'm assembling molds and thinking about how I want to go about a press. Looks like I've got another hobby.


cheese by homebrew901, on Flickr

 

[Justleesa]

Aloha All!

Just came across this pictorial and had to join )

I do have a question for the OP, you have the pot in the sink and are keeping it at 90℉ - how are you doing that in the sink? and how are you keeping the temp consistent? What am I missing?

 

[Zixxer10R]

Found this for you guys who wanted to MAKE a cheese press:

http://www.fiascofarm.com/dairy/cheesepress.html

 

[PinkBlueRiver]

Aloha All!

Just came across this pictorial and had to join )

I do have a question for the OP, you have the pot in the sink and are keeping it at 90℉ - how are you doing that in the sink? and how are you keeping the temp consistent? What am I missing?

Keep the temperature of the water in the sink 10 degrees warmer than the liquid in the pot.

 

[Justleesa]

right, but by which means do you keep the water warmer over time? keep pouring hot water in it? Using an immersion heater?

 

[PinkBlueRiver]

Pour out some of the cold and add more hot. You could use tap water or a kettle.

 

[StittsvilleJames]

Did my first cheese today, right now it's sitting in my sink with buckets, cans, and containers of screws on it to make around 40 lbs or so squishing it in the cheese mold.

I noticed you said in the OP that you pressed it for 12 hours, then flipped it and pressed again for 12 more hours. My instructions only say 12 hours at around 45 lbs (Mad Millie cheese kit). Does the extra 12 hours you used make it drier? I am going to do this as my kit's instructions say to do it, but was wondering what the extra pressing time would do to it?

Thanks!

 

[boo boo]

Keep in mind that the weight of the cheese and the style of the press determine the actual weight needed to form a particular cheese AFAIK.
I found out the hard way with my press and doing Gouda that called for a final weight of 40 pounds was for a 5 pound cheese and
a larger mold than I was doing. I did a 2 pound Gouda and used a smaller diameter mold. The cheese turned out drier than a Gouda should be.

 

[jjwtay]

Found this for you guys who wanted to MAKE a cheese press:

http://www.fiascofarm.com/dairy/cheesepress.html

We did one similar to this though replaced the legs with some half inch by 2 ft pvc pipes and these little stoppers for them that we found at Home Depot which causes the base to sit about 2 inches up. We did that so we could then drill a lot of holes in the bottom board then placing the whole thing in a baking sheet when we use it allowing the press to drain whey directly out of it which has worked out nicely.

 

[Homercidal]

Dang. The tutorial pictures show up as temporarily unavailable.

 

[Zuljin]

Aw, booooooooo!

Nice write up still.

We may cook up something tomorrow.

 

[Homercidal]

I ended up using this recipe along with Ricki Carrol's page for ricotta. I figured I may as well use the hour the cheddar was draining for something useful like making 1/4 cup of ricotta from the gallon of leftover whey...

What a waste of time.

Didn't really make curds, but it still tastes like ricotta. I may have needed to add more or less citric acid, or maybe just add some more milk to get more cheese at the end. The seems like cheating somehow.

Almost time to add the last set of weights (50 lbs.) and then off to bed so I am not ornery and tired for "shopping with the wife day" in GR. I need to make it a good time, not even more painful. Maybe she will take me to Founders or one of the many other breweries if I'm good.

 

[Haputanlas]

Damn, what a shame. This is the problem with hosting files somewhere other than Homebrew talk. Now this thread is crippled a little bit. Would be nice to have a cached copy.

 

[Haputanlas]

Looks like this is happening to everyone with old webshots accounts. If the OP doesn't have the original pictures, this might be lost forever.

http://www.thecj2apage.com/forums/pictures-temporarily-unavailable_topic26618.html

 

[LabRatBrewer]

Bummer, I wish the pictures were still up.