Blessed are the cheese makers

Anyone here make their own cheese?(settle down at the back!)

My wife is keen for me to do it, and it might be fun to do with the kids. Would be interested to hear any tips and suggestions… or just brags about your wholesome dairy concoctions.

I’ve been making my own all grain beer for 11 years so should be able to organise it.

Have you talked with ‘liz for leader’ truss about a trade deal?

it might be fun to do with the kids

easier with milk.

Blessed indeed

I’m tempted. Just back from a weekend cheese making day at Lacey’s Cheese (would highly recommend) and may give it a go.

I’ve ordered a kit and already have a beer fridge to store while it matures.

Yes actually.

I bought my Mrs a kit last Xmas.

Most of the kit is garbage.

We use a big stainless steel pot that takes 12pints of milk with a couple of inches of space at the top.

Things you do need:
Pan
Thermometer
Properly clean stirring implement
Cheesecloth
Rennet tablets
Calcium carbonate – makes a massive difference to the separation effectiveness in our experience.
Cheese mould – ours is a bit of 6” drainpipe with holes drilled in it and an aluminium plate that looks like it is the waste from a holesaw.
Something to press the curds with – not necessarily a bought press – the press I bought is used only as parts and I prefer to put a weight on top of it rather than use the screw jacks.
Vacuum sealer

Things you don’t need IMO:
Cheese salt – a lot of the online advice goes on at length about this stuff, but all uk salt is fine to use for cheesemaking anyway.
Annato for colouring – colour should be from maturing!
Wax and cheesecloth coverings – maybe due to the insufficient pressing, but wax just cracked off for us – cheesecloth and lard was effective but messy.
Fridge/cheese cave – vacuum sealed once dried for a few weeks then in a plastic box under the stairs.

I’ve no doubt forgotten lots of points, but the process is pretty easy and gives good results.
Lots of opportunities to cock it up if you don’t have an eye for detail mind.
Like you I’ve done beers in the past and there is a lot of similarity.

Gavin Webber on YouTube is a handy little resource – g’day curd nerds!

Below is a Method for making Stilton cheese I copied from an old Snowboard forum many years ago. I’ve never got round to trying it so can’t vouch for how good it is (and Stilton may not be the best choice for the first cheese to make with kids), but it might give you some pointers.

MAKING A STILTON CHEESE.

Things that you need from the kitchen.

A two gallon bucket preferably with lid.
A piece of cotton sheeting 20×20 inches.
A colander.
A beer thermometer (Chemists for £2)
A large spoon to stir with or French balloon whisk.
A long knife with blade about 10” long.
An empty 2 lb fruit tin for a temporary mould or any round receptacle open at both ends. so you can turn your cheese when it is forming.

Things from Shop.

One gallon of whole milk (full cream).
One carton of active buttermilk.
One small (100ml) bottle of rennet (check the date on the box)
A piece of blue cheese (about an ounce) like Stilton or Danish blue.
About an ounce of coarse sea salt.
Two small polystyrene packing bases from pizzas or similar.

YOU ARE NOW READY TO START.

I always keep a log as I go along so that I can always reproduce any cheese that I make and it is always consistent.

Use the sink full of hot water to keep your temperature at the correct
level so that when your milk is in the bucket it is surrounded by warm water and the temperature for Stilton is 88F……no more no less.

Put your cold milk in a sink full of warm water to bring it up to temperature.

Empty the milk in your clean bucket (sterilized)
Check the temperature is at 88F.

Give the buttermilk a good shake up and then open it and use only a quarter of the carton, tip this in the milk and stir vigorously to mix.

Crumble up your piece of blue cheese and add a small drop of milk to it and stir it into a smooth cream, then add a drop more milk and mix well, this is your blue culture. Add this to your bucket of milk and stir very well.

Put a tablespoon of cool water in a cup drop in 10 drops of RENNET
(it has a special dropper hole) Mix this well for several minutes. aDD THIS TOYOUR MILK and stir well.

Cover and leave for 90 minutes at 88F.

Check after this time for what they call “A clean break”
(this is a state of the curd where if you immerse your bent index finger under the curd surface and then pull it gently out. It should come out clean and the hole left fills with green whey.) That is the condition called a clean break and the curds are ready for cutting, if they are not ready then they will not cut cleanly and separate and you must leave the curd for a further 30 minutes to set properly.

Taking a long knife you must cut the curd right to the bottom of the bucket in straight lines across the surface of the curd. Then do it again at right angles to the first cut so that you have sticks a quarter inch square standing on end in the bucket.

Now take your knife at an angle and cut through those sticks, so that you end up with quarter inch square cubes of solid curd.

Very very gently slide your hand down the side of the bucket to the bottom and spread your hand and lift the curds gently upwards so that they turn over, any big ones just reduce them with your knife.

Leave the curds covered at the same temp (88F) for 30 mins.

After 30 mins the curds should have sunk below the whey so scoop the surplus whey off with a clean cup and just leave the whey just covering the curds and leave for a further 30 minutes.

You can put your hand in and lift the curds as before at any time during this hours “cooking time” .

After the second 30 minutes the curds are ready for straining . Lay your straining cloth in the colander and gently cup the curds into the
colander, allowing the whey to drain through.

Take up all four corners of the straining cloth and tie string around these to form a bundle. Hang this bundle over the bucket to drain for 30 minutes.

Taking the drained bundle and place it on the clean draining board and place a plate on top and on the plate place a weight of around ten pounds. Press this for two hours and the whey will continue to run out.

After two hours unwrap your curd, which will be like a flattened disc of soft cheese.
This must be broken up with your fingers into the clean bucket in small pieces the size of cherries, you have a heaped dessert spoon of sea salt to add as you crumble this curd into your bucket.

Take your fruit tin (Cheese mould) and place it on one of the small pizza bases on the draining board, fill your mould with the salted curds and press down holding the mould firmly to prevent it from jumping up. Make sure you have a fairly even surface.

Wrap the top and bottom cut outs from the tin in cling film (this is called a “follower”) and place on top of the curds. You now have to find a weight to place on this to press down on the curd block for several days.

In the first day the cheese must be turned frequently to keep it in balance for expelling the whey, this is where the other pizza base comes in, just take out the follower and place the pizza base over the top of the mould and invert it. The cheese will slide down to the bottom then place your follower on top of the curd again and replace the weight.

After three days your new cheese should hold it’s shape so it is now ready to mature.

Again place on a pizza base and cover the cheese with a plastic basin
to keep the air in and create a 95% humidity environment.
The cheese has to be turned daily and do not touch it with your bare fingers until the crust has well and truly formed.

The outer rind will go all colours during the next week or so but will settle for an orangey brown after three weeks or so.

On the fourth week take a sterilized knitting needle and pierce the cheese repeatedly to the centre only all around.

Do this again at six weeks, through the same hole if you can. This lets the air get inside the cheese for the blue veining, it now has it’s own immune system.

This cheese can be eaten after six weeks but will be stronger flavoured after12 weeks and at 20 weeks is considered to be the King of all Blue cheeses.

It all may sound complicated but after making a few you will do it with your eyes shut it really is so simple to make fantastic cheeses, far far better than anything you could buy in the shop and a King Blue mature Stilton you are looking at about £10/£12 per pound of cheese.

My mum used to make cheese when we had goats, and I’ve made paneer before. It takes a lot of milk to make not a lot of cheese, so I think it’s only really worth it if you have a plentiful supply of milk. My dad make keffir these days, which seems a bit more milk efficient, except I find it totally rank to eat. You could maybe try that before going down the full cheese route?

Someone bought me a kit for making Goat’s Cheese. A lot of effort and expense to make something that you could buy from Tesco for £1.60.

My wife is keen for me to do it,

You see this seems strange to me. I could understand if you were keen to do it, or if she were keen to do it. It just seems odd to be keen on someone else doing it. Be very careful, if your next post is my wife is keen for me to start wingsuit flying you might have a problem 🙂

No we’re not. Milk price is crazy high at the moment and customers don’t seem to want to accept price increases. We’re also producing more milk than ever as well, so one would expect that this would drive down price a bit but it’s quite the opposite.

I know a number of cheesemakers who are refusing to sell to certain supermarkets as they’re expected to make a loss. See the heinz / tesco debacle.

Anyway yes it’s pretty simple to make.
https://cheesemaking.co.uk/ Moorlands are nice to deal with for the small cheesemaker.

Larger scale go see Jaap de Jong at Jongiauk.com

I could give you some recipes but that would be giving away trade secrets to award winning cheese 😉

Simplest cheese to make is pretty much Paneer. Heat to 94C bung in your citric acid, let it cool, whey it off and form into moulds.

Do be careful of a slow vat due to inactive or poor performing starter as this can cause staph to form, not a problem in itself, it’s the toxin that comes afterwards that’s the killer.

Using homogenised store bought milk isn’t the best way either. Better off buying direct from the farm (raw) and batch pasteurising, particularly if making soft cheese (don’t give me anything about raw milk cheese being better, if you’re not testing the milk for pathogens you won’t know how clean it is)

It’s fun to do as a hopbby but don’t expect amazing results instantly. If you want to have a cheese with a half decent flavour, it’ll need maturing for 2 -3 months minimum for a hard cheese.

If you’re wife is keen for you to do it (and not her), I’d give it a swerve to be honest.