A cheese making list - all the tools you need.

We are barreling down the road toward Goat Season 2015 and by that I mean the goats are due in about a month. Goat baby season? Who cares - all I can dream about is cheese glorious cheese! I need to make a cheese making list so I'm absolutely ready for cheese action - you know how I love to cut the cheese....and the stupid jokes that come along with it.

 Can you believe I made this cheese? So can you!

Books:
I started with the standard issue getting started with cheese but I have to say that I love that I love 200 Easy Homemade Cheese Recipes much better. This book is not for experienced cheese makers - it's great for beginners also.

•  200 Easy Homemade Cheese Recipes: From Cheddar and Brie to Butter and Yogurt An excellent book with lots of goat milk cheese recipes.

•  Artisan Cheese Making at Home: Techniques & Recipes for Mastering World-Class Cheeses This is a beautiful book.

• Home Cheese Making: Recipes for 75 Homemade Cheeses The book most people get started with. Good for cow milk cheese.

Tools

• A big stainless steel stock pot with a lid. This is a light grade but that's OK because you aren't using it to cook just to mix and stir. Make sure the one you get is stainless - and has a lid.

• Long handled stainless steel spoon.

• High quality/commercial grade cheesecloth. Do not skimp on this! Don't just use the loosey-goosey kind from the grocery store.

• A good quality digital thermometer - a waterproof one is even better.

• Cheese wax - I would get red or black.

Starters and kits

• Ultimate Cheese Kit You know that I love Leeners and wow they have an incredible kit. This has everything you need and more. Depending on what kind of cheese you'd like to make this could work for you. I normally stick to buying tools by the piece but if you know someone who wants to go all out this is amazing.

• Rennet - I like the tabs and not the liquid. The tablets can be stored in the freezer for a long time. I just take one out at a time to use and break into pieces. It's not as exact as using the drops but it's easier for me.

• Mesophilic starter. This is the starter for many fresh cheeses. It's a great starting er...starter.

• Cheese salt. Cheese needs a remarkable amount of salt. This cheese is flaky which makes it better for cheesemaking than normal table or kosher salt.

• A cheese press.  If you really want to go all out you need this for hard cheeses. I don't need no stinkin' cheese making press.. you know there isn't anything I can't do with kitty litter buckets... or if you are crafty you can make your own.

You can make this cheese too.

And that is what will get you started. Of course, once you are off and running you might want to get Moldsand molds....and other starters.. Most folks start with a fresh cheese like chevre and then work their way up.

Happy Tuesday everyone - are excited about making cheese?

Editors note: Hey look out! There are affiliate links in this page. How does it work? Easy peasy. I get a tiny portion of the sale when you click on one of the links, go to the Amazon page, and purchase something. It can be anything - this book, movies, or something you need from Amazon anyway.  Do you need anything Amazon? You can support this blog by just clicking one of these links. Or using the black Amazon search box on the right side of this page. It doesn't cost you once cent more but helps me with the "cost" of this blog. If you like this blog, or if I've helped you at all in your farming efforts, just make a purchase from Amazon from one of the links, my store, or the black Amazon search box on the right side of this page. Thanks!

Cheese Making This Summer

This is going to be an epic year for cheese making. I'm already thinking about it. For a lot of reasons I didn't make a lot of cheeses last year. Sure I made a heap of fresh cheeses but none of the aged ones that I worked on two summers ago.

My found cheese from the still life the other day. It was just lovely. And delicious!

But this summer is going to be a glorious cheese making season. Deep in the way back of my storage fridge I found a cheese from two summers ago. It was one of the goudas. It took some courage... but I figured it was well aged and well waxed so I busted it open. It was amazing.

The weird thing about cheese making - especially the aged varieties - is that you never know if your hard work is going to pay off. But it did. And it worked.

My newest cheese making book - I'm excited to try it out.

My big purchase this year needs to be a cheese fridge for aging the cheeses. Altho my hubby might have a break down if I plug in one more electrical appliance (do you know we have three chest freezers?) I think it will be worth it.

One of the problems with this house is that not only is it a split level... the basement is finished. We don't have a real cellar or I'd just age the cheeses downstairs. You want to have the cheese age at about 50*.  A regular fridge is too cold - altho there are gadgets to override a regular refrigerator cooling system.  So an aging fridge is the way to go. We used a wine fridge last time and it worked really well. Until the fridge died. So I need to work on getting a new wine fridge.

In the meantime I'll also be working on my supplies. My favorite book for cheese making is 200 Easy Homemade Cheese Recipes: From Cheddar and Brie to Butter and Yogurt. I like this book the best because the instructions are clear, she provides a lot of tips and additional information in the margins, and she gives so many goat cheese recipes.

I started with Ricki Carroll's bookand while I liked it... her instructions always seemed a bit loosey-goosey to me. Getting started with cheese making seems intimidating and I never felt like I was doing it "right" with her instructions.

But what I eventually learned is that even if you don't do it "right" you generally end up with cheese. And if it fails you just throw the whole mess out to the chickens and try again.

Aside from having the right tools, cheese making isn't that hard. It requires a a huge stainless steel pot and lot of stirring sometimes.... but you just follow a recipe step by step. Think of the most complicated meal you've ever made. Cheese making is easier than that. Just follow the instructions and make sure you have enough time to complete the steps and the right tools to handle the job.

Happy Thursday everyone! Are you getting your cheese making supplies in order?

Editor's note: Amazon affiliate links aplenty today! Yep. I'm hanging out the shingle to my Amazon store again today. THANKS to everyone who's made purchases lately. I never know who orders what so thank you to those who are helping me out. Remember, anything you buy from Amazon by clicking on these links gets me a tiny percentage of the sale. If you like this blog, or if I've helped you at all in your farming efforts, just make a purchase from Amazon from one of the links, my store, or the black Amazon search box on the right side of this page. You can buy anything - hopefully something you need anyway. Or one of my recommendations. Thanks! 

Cheese Making List

Thanks to everyone who has been using my Amazon store or the Amazon search box for their shopping! I really appreciate the support and I hope that my recommendations have been helpful. So far its going great. There's still a few more shopping days left before the holiday - so how about another list? Is cheese making in your future? Or maybe you just need to stock up?

My absolute favorite book, 200 Easy Homemade Cheese Recipes: From Cheddar and Brie to Butter and Yogurt. I love this book especially if you have goats. It has a ton of recipes just for goat milk, does a great job of explaining the difference in goat vs cow cheese making, and gives exact instructions. If you only get one cheese making book this is it.

Of course there are some other great books out there. I started with Ricki Carrol's Home Cheese Making: Recipes for 75 Homemade Cheeses. Its a good start and is great for folks who want to try cheese making and may not have access to a fresh, unpasteurized milk. On my wishlist tho, is the stunningly beautiful Artisan Cheese Making at Home: Techniques & Recipes for Mastering World-Class Cheeses. Isn't it a vision?

Some folks are hesitant to make cheese at home thinking its overly complicated. Nope. If you can follow any cooking recipe then you can make cheese. You just need a few things not normally found in your kitchen and a little confidence. I was absolutely thrilled to see that my favorite cheese making supplier,  Leeners has a store on Amazon. I love these guys. They have superfast delivery, excellent products, and exceptional customer service. You can also order directly from their website http://www.leeners.com and if you are lucky enough you can go and visit their shop.

If you are just starting out, there is a Deluxe Hard Cheese Kit with Red Cheese Wax with absolutely everything you could ever need. Or you can purchase the bits and bobs as you go along. I have everything that I use listed on my Cheese Making store page here.

One thing you need (that most folks don't already have) is the biggest stainless steel stock pot you can find. A 20 quart is probably the minimum. I would probably pass out with joy if I ever got one of the Prime Pacific Heavy Duty Stainless Steel Stock Pot with Lid, 35-Quart. That's 35 quarts! Oh man...the cheese I could make with that... The most important thing to remember is that it must be stainless, NOT aluminum.

A couple "bits and bobs" include really good quality cheese cloth, not from the grocery, but something like Cheesecloth Commercial Grade 3 SqYrd 27 SqFt which is a bargain here on Amazon.

I mostly use mesophilic starter for my cheeses:

 

And I prefer the rennet tablets such as Tablet Vegetable Rennet - 10 ct. They have a liquid version also.

If you are going to make aged cheeses you'll need somewhere to age it. A cool cellar is just the ticket but our basement is finished so that doesn't work for us. If you are skilled you could convert an old fridge so that it holds a temperature of about 50* or below.... or you can do what we did. Get a wine fridge with temperature controls, such as this Koldfront 28 Bottle Ultra Capacity Thermoelectric Wine Cooler - Platinum. This was absolutely our best idea. And it worked like a dream!

The important thing to remember about cheese making is not to be hesitant. There are some new words you'll need to learn, like mesophilic culture, and you might have some cheese fails - but so what? Even if your cheese doesn't turn out perfectly its still cheese. If it's a total fail then you can just give it to your chickens. Or pigs. Plus, what a fun skill to learn!

I have a good friend in the city who called me up after she had a gathering with her friends. Someone brought a goat cheese appetizer that costs something like $15 or $20. We both cracked up laughing because I could make the same thing for a cost of goods of less than $1 plus milk from my goats.

I used to stand in front of the cheese counter at an expensive grocery store and pine away for all that amazing cheese. Now I just go home and make it myself. And so can you! Stop waiting! Now is the time for you to get up some confidence and make some cheese!

Happy Tuesday everyone!

Editor's Notes.... I've added a new "search" features to my Amazon store. But it seems to be limited to certain categories. If you ever get lost in my store, just click on the "Powered by Amazon" badge and you'll go right to the normal Amazon store. Or you can just use the black search box on the right of this page. If you are doing some shopping anyway, why not start here? You'll be supporting this blog and it won't cost you a thing!  And... um.. I might have made a bet that I'll have to make good on here soon. It involves a bra. And me. Oh golly. 

Making a Stunning Neufchatel Cheese

You may be wondering why I'm not making cheese this spring? Well, the sad fact is that my cheese fridge died and now I don't have anywhere to age all that homemade cheese. I really don't have the extra money to replace it right now - especially since I've been spending up all my money on other things.

Isn't it stunning? You can make this at home!

So I've been making a lot of fresh cheeses that don't need to cure at 50*-60* with a specific humidity. One of my favorites is a French Neufchatel. Its fabulous. I have my blog pal, K, to thank for my love affair with neufchatel... he wrote about this cheese a while ago and I've been hooked every since.

When most folks think about neufchatel cheese they usually think of that horrible stuff beside the cream cheese boxes in the dairy section at the megagrocery...and not this stunning cheese lovingly handcrafted and shaped into hearts.  I wish I had a heart shaped mold but my round one is just fine.

The mold forms that white rind on this heavenly fresh cheese.

I found the recipe in my favorite cheesemaking book, 200 Easy Homemade Cheese Recipes: From Cheddar and Brie to Butter and Yogurt by Debra Amrein-boyes.  I like this book the best because it provides easy, clear directions and provides a lot of goat vs cow milk cheese recipes.

The recipe is a snap. Basically make your standard fresh goat milk cheese (chevre) and add a pinch of mold - penicillium candidum to be exact. You can order the mold at Leeners - my favorite cheese making supply shop.  Leeners provides superfast delivery, exceptional customer service, and just about everything you'd need to get your cheese making project underway. Everything but the goat, of course.

There are a couple steps in making this cheese - mostly making sure all the extra whey is out of the cheese and also "curing" it in the fridge until the mold rind forms on the outside. Then its nothing but heavenly snacking. Depending on how long you let this cheese rest - during the steps - this cheese can be very mild....or with a twangy stank - as I like it.  Its incredible with a snappy white wine and crusty homemade bread.

Got milk? Got the book? Go ahead and give this easy, moldy, creamy cheese a try.

Happy Saturday everyone!

Click here for a complete list of cheese making supplies.

Cheese reference and my blue got loose!

If you are even remotely interested in cheese making you have to run right over and check out Dr. David B. Fankhauser's, (Ph.D.), extremely interesting cheese site, Fankhauser's Cheese page. Wow does he know his stuff and he has tons of recipes. The best thing about Dr. Fankhauser is that he makes the science of cheese making approachable. And he's been known to be extremely gracious in answering slightly hysterical emails from...ahem... someone we all might know. Thanks Dr. F for all your great info - and for teaching us how to get 'er done.

That wasn't there before.....

In totally unrelated news..... apparently my blue mold got loose in my cheese fridge! Remember when I attempted to make a Roquefort-goat blue cheese? Well. Honestly, I'm a little afraid of that cheese. Its there - looking at me. Actually it looks like its about to crawl away. So its been sitting in the cheese fridge while I gather up the gumption to do something with it.

While I'd been hiding under the table trying to avoid the Roquefort - the blue mold, apparently, had gone on walkabout. And it got into the gouda that was curing just above it. When I finally opened the fridge I saw the distinctive blue veining you'd see in a lovely blue cheese - in my gouda!. Upon closer inspection I found that there was a small hole in the light yellow cheese wax I'd used. A-ha! The entry point for the blue bacteria spores to creep into the gouda.

I was calmed by a noted cheese expert and instructed not to throw out the cheese! But that I could still use it. And yep, the blue mold just kinda found its way into the gouda since they were sharing a space. Since I wanted to cure the goudas for a bit longer I decided to rewax them.

This time I used black cheesewax from Leeners - which I received by next day delivery -no extra charge! It just showed up the next day. I love those guys. However, my UPS guy who hates us anyway, is now convinced I'm a loon. I heard the truck while I was milking and ran around the corner, clomping along loudly  in my barn boots and muddy work clothes and yelling YOOOO-HOOOO!!!! I was trying to get his attention but instead gave him a huge laugh. I swear I'm gonna be on "People of Walmart" on day... sheesh!

Waxing my cheese.

Anyway. The pix aren't great but the black cheese wax is just beautiful. I think its going to be stunning when I finally open these cheeses. You can see that I melt the wax in an old pan (in a double boiler) and use a natural bristle brush. Mostly I can just dip the cheese into the wax and use the brush to touch up with missed spots. The black wax allowed me to get the whole surface waxed and not leave any holes - unlike the light yellow wax which was the same color as the cheese.

Hopefully the blue mold will remain contained - or at least will stay out of my gouda.  If not I think I've invented a new cheese.  We can call it Barnyard Blue.

Happy Thursday everyone!

An Improper Cheddar - Cheesemaking Step by Step

I was hoping to call this post "A Proper Cheddar" after a phrase we heard one day on one of those Rick Steve's travel shows. However, at one of the last steps it all fell apart and I may have to give myself a "D-" for not making a proper cheddar. I think its still going to work - so while it might still be a cheese, its an Improper Cheddar for sure.

Today's milk was strained directly into my biggest stainless steal pot.

Step One in cheese making is to get out there and get about five gallons of milk. I got about two gallons from the ladies this morning so I had to heat up some of the half gallon jars of milk I had downstairs in our coldest fridge.

Warming up the jars - a half gallon at a time.

Heating up the cold milk is easy enough. Just put them in deep pots and fill with warm water - let the milk warm up a bit (don't break the jars!) and then heat up the water to get the milk warmed to the right temperature. Goat milk cheddar starts with 88* milk so I also used a water bath to get all the milk up to the right temperature.

My biggest pot needs my biggest roaster as a water bath.

Cheese making is a long process but most of the time is letting it set so its easy to just go about your day - just take the timer with you.

After adding the culture I let it set for about 40 minutes. Actually I started a focaccia bread (in the oven now - its a 3 goat cheese version), cleaned up the kitchen, and went and did some laundry. The next step was to add the calcium chloride and rennet. Thirty minutes later I checked for a clean break and then... you know it... I cut the cheese (curds)! Its always my favorite step.

Use your longest knife to cut the curds.

Next comes the business of slowly heating the curds and stirring continuously for about 45 minutes. I was very happy with this batch because I was able to get to the right temperature (102*) in the right amount of time. Then there is more letting it set.

Take out most of the whey. No way? Yes, whey.

After the curds have sunk to the bottom I used a measuring cup to take up most of the whey. I probably took off about 3 gallons. More stirring, more letting the curds set.

See how much whey is removed from the pot!?!

And that's when it fell apart. The last step was letting the curds rest and they were supposed to all mat together at the bottom of the pan... but darn! They didn't.  I gave it another couple tries but the curds just didn't set up right. I tried one of the curds, curious to see what happened. Then there it was - the possible cause: Tough Curds. That's right. They were squeaky and a little tough. One of my references says that it might have been because there was too much rennet or the temperatures were too high. 

Curds, no whey, ready to be pressed.

I was also disappointed at the yield. As you can see it didn't even fill half of the mold. I went ahead with the rest of the steps which were basically to put the curds in a mold, press for an hour, then "redress"  the cheese (that just means to unwrap it from the cheese cloth, flip it over, and put it back in the press), and let it press over night. After its done pressing it will sit and dry for a couple days, cure for about a week, then get waxed.

Even tho this batch didn't set up correctly I'm still excited about this cheese. If I remember right I had a couple cheddars from last year that did the same thing. Even tho they didn't come out as a proper cheddars, I've been grating the cheese and using it like Parmesan! I'd be thrilled with a Proper Cheddar but really I'm hoping for another fakey-Parm. That will show that Rachel Ray and thwart her conspiracy to increase Parm prices! (Not really! love ya Rach!)

A couple things I'll do next time: First, I'm gonna break out another pot and start with 6 or 7 gallons of milk so that I get a bigger cheese. Next, I'll use a smaller amount of rennet. Then I need to make sure I have uniformly sized curds. And I'm gonna make sure that my darn curds mat together correctly.

That's all today in Cheese-land. Hope you had a great day!