Making your own cheese

[mattyfez]

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

 

[mattyfez]

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

 

[mattyfez]

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]

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]

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

 

[mattyfez]

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..

 

[mattyfez]

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!