Making your own cheese

mattyfez · 24 Jul 2019 at 19:19

Been looking at cheese kits online – this one looks pretty comprehensive compared to say this or this or this

Shuold I just start with a cheaper soft chese kit? Ideally I’d like to have more options, but not sure if i should jump straight in with a £90 kit..

Anyone had any experience?

Thanks

PlacidCasual · 24 Jul 2019 at 21:56

My wife has done a bit of cheese making it has been a bit hit or miss just from books. Her skills took a big step up after a bit of training. You might want to go on a taught course first just to help you see the fundamentals. The kits that focus on hard cheese will be more expensive and it is a more involved process. Go ahead and buy one of the cheaper kits for a fresh soft cheese but consider a course before hard cheese would be my advice.

mattyfez · 24 Jul 2019 at 22:29

Thanks.. After a bit of reading it does seem like soft cheese is easier and a lot quicker to get a result.. The hard cheeses seem to be a bit more difficult in terms of time maturing in a more temperature /humidity controlled environment.

Think I'll go with a soft cheese kit and take it from there.. Thanks

heeeed · 25 Jul 2019 at 06:30

Hard cheese isn’t too difficult really and you don’t need to spend much at all, certainly not £90 on equipment.

I haven’t done it for a few years, but other than the starter culture and some rennet I bought a roll of cheesecloth and half a dozen large fist sized slightly dome shaped Tupperware type tubs and drilled holes in them, and used books, dumbbell weights etc for pressing. I reckon I spent about £15 quid on stuff. I went expensive on milk which was worth it, I already had a very large stock pot from making industrial amounts of jam and marmalade

That initial kit sorted me for a year of making cheese before I paid for more gear. I’ve also used cake tins very effectively for making larger cheeses too. That kit was good enough that I won a couple of awards in a national amateur cheese making competition

bjorkiii · 25 Jul 2019 at 13:41

Sniff my fingers mmmm

randomshenans · 26 Jul 2019 at 07:43

heeeed said:
Hard cheese isn’t too difficult really and you don’t need to spend much at all, certainly not £90 on equipment.

I haven’t done it for a few years, but other than the starter culture and some rennet I bought a roll of cheesecloth and half a dozen large fist sized slightly dome shaped Tupperware type tubs and drilled holes in them, and used books, dumbbell weights etc for pressing. I reckon I spent about £15 quid on stuff. I went expensive on milk which was worth it, I already had a very large stock pot from making industrial amounts of jam and marmalade

That initial kit sorted me for a year of making cheese before I paid for more gear. I’ve also used cake tins very effectively for making larger cheeses too. That kit was good enough that I won a couple of awards in a national amateur cheese making competition

We all need a write up with pics of this. I love this kind of stuff!

BlueMerle · 27 Jul 2019 at 00:54

bjorkiii said:
Sniff my fingers mmmm

I see what you did there....

Bear · 27 Jul 2019 at 08:47

I used to make cheese quite often (Brie, Stilton, Cheddar, Manchego, Parmesan etc). Used to enjoy making it as it’s quite therapeutic, problem is that it is quite time consuming. Soft cheese is certainly a lot quicker to make and eat as you don’t have to wait so long for the cheese to mature.

I used to use a wine fridge to mature my cheeses as it also has a water draw to control humidity. There used to be cheese making thread here, might be worth searching for it, found ones that I did
https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/threads/making-cheese-halloumi.18465753/page-5#post-23413672

HeadlessChicken · 28 Jul 2019 at 11:38

Really helps if you can find unhamogonised milk.

heeeed · 28 Jul 2019 at 12:12

HeadlessChicken said:
Really helps if you can find unhamogonised milk.

I agree. That was the thing that helped texture in mine more than anything else

mattyfez · 28 Jul 2019 at 17:40

Thanks all, some really interesting stuff..

I've read that the specific type of milk is key, as in you have to get un homogenised milk.. Although I did read you can use skimmed milk with double cream at a certain ratio to accomplish the same thing.

For example, I've seen comments like this a few times..

Milk proteins are very variable, and this season appears to be more than usually fragile in some cases. I suggest you try buying skimmed milk and double cream, instead of whole milk. Combine them at the ratio of 12 parts skim to 1 part double cream. I'm using this myself at the moment, and with a supermarket supply; its going OK.

mattyfez · 28 Jul 2019 at 18:00

So I'm guessing that I can just buy supermarket skimmed milk and just add double cream to make up the difference?
Rather then hunting around to buy a specific type of milk?

mattyfez · 28 Jul 2019 at 18:12

Bear said:
I used to make cheese quite often (Brie, Stilton, Cheddar, Manchego, Parmesan etc). Used to enjoy making it as it’s quite therapeutic, problem is that it is quite time consuming. Soft cheese is certainly a lot quicker to make and eat as you don’t have to wait so long for the cheese to mature.

I used to use a wine fridge to mature my cheeses as it also has a water draw to control humidity. There used to be cheese making thread here, might be worth searching for it, found ones that I did
https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/threads/making-cheese-halloumi.18465753/page-5#post-23413672

That's a really interesting thread, thanks Bear.. I'll read it in more detail when I get time

dulcificum · 28 Jul 2019 at 18:33

The thing is decent quality french cheeses are so affordable these days especially if you have a speciality shop or Waitrose nearby I cba making my own. Even simple stuff like mozzarella and ricotta is barely worth doing. I only bother making my own goat's ricotta these days.

mattyfez · 28 Jul 2019 at 18:42

I'm just doing it for fun to be honest, it's something that interests me...

I love roule! But I'm also a fan of wendlesydale and Cheddar and the occasional blue.. And I really like brie..

If I could pull off a good brie, that's basically my goal. Mozzerealla and ricotta are a bit boring.

But I really like soft cheeses like roule and feta..

dulcificum · 28 Jul 2019 at 18:58

The thing is you can get an infinitely better Cornish or French brie for literally pennies.

I would love to be able to make a decent Epoisses, Chaource, Saint-Félicien, Livarot, Saint Vernier, Mont d’Or, etc.

What might be useful would be making a decent standard Gruyere, Raclette or Vacherin for much cheaper than the supermarkets.

heeeed · 28 Jul 2019 at 18:59

It’s not hard to get the unhomogenised milk tbh. It is a bit more expensive though

https://www.sainsburys.co.uk/shop/gb/groceries/grahams-whole-milk--organic-1l-7844801-p-44

Definitely it’s something to do for fun rather than to supply lots of cheese. Like lots of food making. I can buy a nice sausage from my butcher, I can buy good beer. It’s fun to do.

mattyfez · 28 Jul 2019 at 19:02

I'm going to make some cheese.

I'd like to go through the processing and see what happens lol! I want to learn what's involved, and possibly make bad cheese.

Of course I could buy any cheese from a shop! But I want to make cheese!

BlueMerle · 3 Aug 2019 at 00:13

heeeed said:
Definitely it’s something to do for fun rather than to supply lots of cheese. Like lots of food making. I can buy a nice sausage from my butcher, I can buy good beer. It’s fun to do.

Agreed 100%! It's done for fun, and the love of the craft, and not because it's cheaper.

heeeed said:
It’s not hard to get the unhomogenised milk tbh. It is a bit more expensive though

I think this is true for Europe/UK, but I think it's considerably harder in the US. That said, I've never looked for unhomoginised milk here.