Cheese and the making thereof

Mr Flibble

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So, this week I have begun making cheese -- in a small way to begin with (it's part of my and the Old Man's Five Year Plan, which will include becoming as self sufficient as possible)


My first effort -- a terribly simple recipe for a firmer cream-like cheese -- wasn't half bad at all, and was easy as anything once I got the bloody curds to form! It was nice on tonight's lasagne anyway. What was left after I scarfed a handful. *cough*

I am probably being over ambitious by saying once I've got the hang of things I really want to make some brie. I shall be trying haloumi at the weekend (looks easy-ish)

Anyone here make their own cheese? Hints, tips (esp on the bloody curds.....), handy places to age your cheese I may not of thought of, recipes etc etc?
 

ULTRAGOTHA

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1/2 cup (four US fluid ounces) of bleach and 1/2 cup (ditto) of 5% acidic distilled white vineagar to 5 US gallons of water makes an excellent disinfectant.

USE IT on EVERYTHING. Every tool, every container, the cheesecloth, the table, the sink, the counter, everything.

That's extraordinarily important for hard cheeses. Less so for softer younger ones.

Also, come up with lots of cool ways to use the whey. I made paneer and used the whey instead of water in the tomato sauce for an Indian dish. Wow, that was good. You can use it in bread or as a base for soups instead of water, etc. Or feed it to pigs.
 

quicklime

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sorry; why add the vinegar? my fear is you'd only neutralize a portion of the hypochlorite....

fwiw, cell hoods, etc that can withstand it, 10% bleach is a common disinfectant in biology...but I've never seen it with acetic acid?
 

quicklime

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queso fresco is great and supposedly not hard to make, flibble...a crumbly mexican cheese like salty feta
 

ULTRAGOTHA

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Bleach is alkaline. Adding some acid makes it more effective for killing bacteria. The guy who I took some cheese making classes from swears by it.

However, in Googling for a link just now, I see conflicting advice on its safety, even on the same site. So don't follow my advice without your own research. The important thing is that everything is disinfected, especially for aged cheeses.
 

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IMO, hard cheeses are called so not because of their texture but because they're bloody hard to make. Mine always grow weird shit under the wax and have to be tossed out. Soft cheeses are way easier.

Haloumi: haven't tried it but am told it's easy.

Mozzerella: fairly easy but you do have to stretch the stuff in very hot whey, so wear thick gloves unless you're really inured to hot water.

Brie/Cam: easy to make, but you do need moulds (food grade plastic with pipe with holes drilled in it, or a coffee can with holes drilled in it) and you do need to line the mould with cheesecloth, and you do need to buy the mould spores as well as the culture, and you really really need somewhere very clean and very temperature controlled** (about halfway between room temp and fridge is ideal) to culture it. There's only a short period between not-ripe and over-ripe, so once it's ripe you will have to eat the whole thing. Yes, what a hardship :D

Feta: easiest of all, I think, but you have to buy the enzymes for cow's milk (or use goat milk). Using two or three different enzymes (that is, from different species -- goat, lamb, pig, etc) gives a really nice sharp zingy flavour. I don't brine it. Just let it drain for a day hanging in cheesecloth, slice it about 4 cm/1.5 inches thick, salt it heavily and let it sit in a glass bowl for a couple of days, turning regularly and draining the salt-whey off, and then eat it.

**I use an igloo/chilly bin/cooler with a bunch of freezer blocks in the bottom, and sit the cheeses on a plastic rack that fits in the chilly bin, and change the freezer blocks each day. It's a pain in the arse, and only works well when the house/room temp is around 15 C/50F.
 
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ULTRAGOTHA

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I give up. Woshm? Between this tablet and AW posting things in the last thread I visited, I am going to go have a lie down.
 

Karen Junker

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We make paneer a lot, but I've never tried hard cheese. 40 years ago when I had goats, I made cheese and gave it to anyone who would take it off my hands. Let us know how it works out!
 

frimble3

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IMO, hard cheeses are called so not because of their texture but because they're bloody hard to make. Mine always grow weird shit under the wax and have to be tossed out. Soft cheeses are way easier.

Haloumi: haven't tried it but am told it's easy.

Mozzerella: fairly easy but you do have to stretch the stuff in very hot whey, so wear thick gloves unless you're really inured to hot water.

Brie/Cam: easy to make, but you do need moulds (food grade plastic with pipe with holes drilled in it, or a coffee can with holes drilled in it) and you do need to line the mould with cheesecloth, and you do need to buy the mould spores as well as the culture, and you really really need somewhere very clean and very temperature controlled** (about halfway between room temp and fridge is ideal) to culture it. There's only a short period between not-ripe and over-ripe, so once it's ripe you will have to eat the whole thing. Yes, what a hardship :D

Feta: easiest of all, I think, but you have to buy the enzymes for cow's milk (or use goat milk). Using two or three different enzymes (that is, from different species -- goat, lamb, pig, etc) gives a really nice sharp zingy flavour. I don't brine it. Just let it drain for a day hanging in cheesecloth, slice it about 4 cm/1.5 inches thick, salt it heavily and let it sit in a glass bowl for a couple of days, turning regularly and draining the salt-whey off, and then eat it.

**I use an igloo/chilly bin/cooler with a bunch of freezer blocks in the bottom, and sit the cheeses on a plastic rack that fits in the chilly bin, and change the freezer blocks each day. It's a pain in the arse, and only works well when the house/room temp is around 15 C/50F.
I have a suggestion, on the 'temperature controlled' part of the operation. If you're enjoying the cheese-making process, how about getting a bar-fridge? I assume they have a temperature setting like their larger counterparts. Room for small batches of cheese (and it sounds like small-but-frequent is the way to go), you don't have to empty the cooler all the time and you'd get a stable temperature.
And, between cheese batches, you could keep the overflow from the main fridge in there.:)
 

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Dunno about in the US, but here fridges -- unless they're circa pre-1950 -- are made so they can't be set above a 'safe' refrigeration temp, which is still too cold for cheesemaking. I'm told you can buy electrical thingies to bypass the fridge's thermostat and re-set it to cheese temp, but they cost like $100 or something.

I go in binges cheesemaking (mostly during the months after my house cow has calved, since that's when I have excess milk). If I were ever to get into it on a more regular scale, then I'd look more seriously into a cheese fridge or coolroom (or a cave!).
 

CoffeeBeans

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We make paneer a lot, but I've never tried hard cheese. 40 years ago when I had goats, I made cheese and gave it to anyone who would take it off my hands. Let us know how it works out!

I second paneer, which I have made and found lovely.

I have a suggestion, on the 'temperature controlled' part of the operation. If you're enjoying the cheese-making process, how about getting a bar-fridge? I assume they have a temperature setting like their larger counterparts. Room for small batches of cheese (and it sounds like small-but-frequent is the way to go), you don't have to empty the cooler all the time and you'd get a stable temperature.

I was going to say, this is a common suggestion for those of us who brew beer too, for temperature control.

This is the paneer recipe I've used. I'd love to make goat cheese, but it's not legal to see unpasteurized goat cheese where I live.

Also, the best tip I've heard for improving curd is to use non-homogenized milk. Just a thought!
 

Cath

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We make ricotta and mozzarella at home all the time. The flavor difference is amazing.

If you are using non-homogenized milk, you may not be using enough acid or the temperature isn't quite right when you add it.

Good luck with the Brie!
 

quicklime

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Bleach is alkaline. Adding some acid makes it more effective for killing bacteria. The guy who I took some cheese making classes from swears by it.

adding an acid to a base only neutralizes part of each....I haven't had chem in some time but all that should do is lower the pH of the bleach, and make some complex salt from the hypochlorite/acetic acid, and reduce the absolute concentration of both the bleach and the vinegar.

Don't doubt it still works but my suspicion is you're running off reduced bleach still being sufficient to kill, beyond that you just neutralized part of it. Unless they react very slowly with one another, perhaps, or the process makes a bunch of superoxide

*scratches head
 

Xelebes

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adding an acid to a base only neutralizes part of each....I haven't had chem in some time but all that should do is lower the pH of the bleach, and make some complex salt from the hypochlorite/acetic acid, and reduce the absolute concentration of both the bleach and the vinegar.

Don't doubt it still works but my suspicion is you're running off reduced bleach still being sufficient to kill, beyond that you just neutralized part of it. Unless they react very slowly with one another, perhaps, or the process makes a bunch of superoxide

*scratches head

Possibly it is due to the emission of chlorine gas that is believed to make it effective.
 

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Paneer sounds yummy.
Paneer is dead easy as long as you don't scorch the milk on the bottom of the pan (yes, I speak from experience!). And while it doesn't have a lot of flavour, it's a great substitute for chicken breast in curries etc; just cube it and toss it in, and no one will ever know it's not chicken.

We also brew beer, but not lager, so the temp control we need is usually to warm it (in our largely unheated house in winter) rather than chill it. Our glass carboy has its own little electric heating pad :D
 

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adding an acid to a base only neutralizes part of each....I haven't had chem in some time but all that should do is lower the pH of the bleach, and make some complex salt from the hypochlorite/acetic acid, and reduce the absolute concentration of both the bleach and the vinegar.

Don't doubt it still works but my suspicion is you're running off reduced bleach still being sufficient to kill, beyond that you just neutralized part of it. Unless they react very slowly with one another, perhaps, or the process makes a bunch of superoxide

*scratches head
I'll ask my chemist-wifey and try to come back with a response....

Editing to add: Boss has dusted off her PhD and says:
Vinegar will kill bacteria because of its low pH; most bacteria can't thrive in low pH.

Bleach will kill bacteria because the hypochlorite is an oxidizer.

You can use them serially to 'double up' your chances of killing bacteria, but mixing them is probably counter productive. (Wifey started talking about how pH affects the kinetics of redox reactions, at which point my eyes glazed over....)
 
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Yay!

You end up with a ridiculously small amount of ricotta from whey, but it's worth doing/keeping because it's so yummy (and so expensive in the shops!).
 

Mr Flibble

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Yeah but my way of looking at it, it's using a by-product, so awesome! (And haloumi is damned expensive here and I made it for less than half the price. *fist bump*)

Also, yummy by-product

Waste not want not!


Watch this space, where I tell you all how I put on five stone from eating too much cheese....
 

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If you ever try a goat cheese, gjetost can be made with the leftover whey. It's creamy and amazing, with caramel notes (not technically a cheese, though).
 

TedTheewen

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I live in cheese country. Near my workplace is a giant plant that takes the whey from all the cheese factories around here and dries it, then uses it for animal feed. Such a waste!

Whey is great for all kinds of stuff. I've made bread with it, too. It was some pretty damned good bread. Whey biscuits are awesome, too.

I would also spend some time on cheesemaking forums. Homesteadingtoday.com is a my favorite place away from AW. They have a place all about cheesemaking.

Oh, and careful with giving too much whey to dogs. It's rich and heavy in protein, which can harm their kidneys and liver. However, I've seen dogs go nuts for just a half a cup poured on their food as a treat.