While doing my cheese chores I noticed this guy from last March was weeping some whey in the vacuum bag it was in, so I opened it to find it's extremely fragrant with a very strong, almost fruity cheddary smell and I'm having the toughest time deciding if I'll cut into it or put it back in a bag for a few months.

Was making cheddar, pulled some curd out when I was draining. Through it in hoop for 12 hours flipping every now and then with dry salt. Put in 5% brine for 2 hours dry salted over weekend and then another hour in brine. I usually leach alot of calcium so I'm not going try and keep it in brine and will pack later today when it's dried out some more. Any thoughts?

Hello,

I humbly ask for your help.

I accidentally read the measurement on my rennet's package, instead of my recipe's. I was making a lactic cheese, with 2 gallons of milk where I should have used ~8 drops of rennet. Instead. I used 1/4 tsp. This morning, after 20hrs the curd was well set and separated from the whey. I measured whey's Ph and it only went down to 5.9 after all this time at a temp of 20c.

Obviously I won't be able to still aim for the same cheese, but would anyone have any tips on how to save this curd?

I used :

• Aroma B
• P. candidum
• geo 15
• kl-2d
• Debaryomyces hansenii

many many thanks

I'm wanting to make brie today but I don't have the money for the various cultures and mould (cylinder to shape). I'm hoping to scrape off the culture from a fresh cut of good quality brie and use that to inoculate it, and make my own mould, with a hard food grade plastic cylinder (I'm thinking of getting a cylindrical tupperware and cutting off the bottom and drilling holes around it). I've got the rennet and other things for getting it to the curd stage, that's not a concern, it's really the maturing bit I'm worried about getting to and being caught short.

Is there anything else I need? I don't need a cheese press for brie so that's not an issue right now. We have an enclosed, tiled porch which is cold but not as cold as the fridge, so that seems a good place to store it during ageing.

Hope folks aren’t getting tired of seeing my cheeses. This is a four month white cheddar. Texture and flavor are spot on and I’m pretty proud of this one. I’ll age half for another four months or so. But the other half is getting eaten and passed around to friends! Sharper than I was expecting, in a very good way!

I currently have a 5 gallon pot, and can make a 3.5lb. Round of Parmesan-ish like cheese. I have also made cheddar just to try the recipe. It turned out ok, tasty, but the amount of cheddar I eat does not make that or mozz, worth the effort except for a fun time.

I have a 64 gallon pot, that I planned on using as a water bath to hold a 20 gallon pot. I want to up my gallons from 5, to 12. This should get me an 8 pound round. The problem is, and sou vide cookers are not large enough to handle the water throughput or having heating elements with enough power to get the water bath and the milk up to the 90 degree culture phaze within an hour to hour and half, let alone the 120s or 130s needed to complete many of the recipes after rennet and curding.

I have contacted companies, even used ChatGPT to help me get a list of potential companies that would or have a system that can control and raise the water bath temperature at a quicker rate. I am capable of building the pump and piping, and have an old hottub pump with an element, though I would rather have a system with a built in controller.

I cannot be the only person that wants to build a larger scale home operation. I actually would love to make a ceramic tile room like many I worked in at the cheese factory back 40 some years ago. When I got the itch.

I have looked at sou vide systems with larger baths, commercial ones, but they are all still small. Using an actual heat element, as many know, brings in new complications and burning the milk is generally the outcome. The factory I had, had a coil tank, which is beyond my setup, that pumped the hot water through the tank coils.

Again, I could put something together, but then would need to make my own Raspberry PI or Arduino controller, and, I don't want to get electrocuted as well.

So, anyone gone this direction? Anyone have any plans or companies that make a system much like I have described. I am not necessarily looking for a valve system to control the temperatures automatically, I can drain and lower the temperature if needed, though, designing the automatic valves for the system I could do. I just need a large enough gallon per minute with a high enough temperature element to offset and equalize the milk temperature and hold the bath at a stable temp.

Thanks in advance, and feel free to help me adjust my idea. I already have a custom dutch cheese press I build and am also designing a metal one using a pneumatic cylinder. I have cheese forms for up to 20lb rounds. Though, I am currently targeting 8lb rounds, though using the stove, I can make a 5 gallon batch. I even have automatic agitation to keep the milk circulating.

Thanks in advance.

R.

I made a whole bunch of Brie this time. Legitimately b. Ri this weekend and wondering how else I can flavor it or what I can rub on it to flavor it as a option. I was thinking Rosemary but I'm already kind of doing that. I was wondering about Chipotle's in adobo or would that be too much liquid or maybe just straight up smoked paprika?

Very first cheese made, a mixed cow/goat camembert that matured about 15 days.

Hey guys! I hope you’re all thriving!!

I’m new to cheesemaking, and was looking for recommendations- I have mesophilic culture and no cheese press- what cheeses can I make with this? Preferably something relatively easy, as I’ve only made mozzarella before 🤓

Thank you so much!!

Let’s say theoretically that you have 11 gallons of 1% pasteurized homogenized milk. Drinking it and yogurt are not options. Your cheese skills are beginner. What would you do with it? Is it even possible to make cheese with this kind of milk? Could you add cream and then make it into cheese? Is it a lost cause? Let me know what you think.

Hey guys!

Do you know if fresh milk has to be pasteurised in order to make Gouda (I'm planning to let it develop for 6-12 months).

And, if I pasteurise it by myself... should I add the calcium chloride or that's only for store-bought milk?

Thanks!

Amazing how there are people here looking for support or advice, I'm new and I like the interaction. Sometimes you forget that there are people with the same problems or worse than yours. But I like the support that is provided, I have not seen ridicule but rather rude responses. I like it.

Thanks to the advice received in past posts, I noted that the heavy cream I was using probably would be harder to work with due to its high butterfat content and being homogenized, as well as it being pasteurized would likely make it behave differently from most cream sold in the US that is UHT. So I decided to try a low fat recipe, as many pointed it out as an easier alternative.

I wasn't able to replicate any specific recipe that people here recommended to me, as it either used more cream than it was available to me, or it used tartaric acid, which I don't have the budget for atm etc. But I did try following the overall principles and advice from what I gathered.

Started with only 250g of the same pasteurized 40% cream I have been using, and mixed it with 270g of 4% whole milk of the same brand that has a flavor profile that I really enjoy.

At first, I heated the mixture to around 80°C and added half a lime as the acid (clearly it wasn't enough, as I would notice later). Immediately saw way more curds and texture change than in previous attempts, however it did not curdle to the point it was like a "fatty riccota" as shown in some reference recipe pictures. After letting it sit for 30 minutes to cool, I poured it over a strainer lined with a clean kitchen towel (cheesecloth is hard to find for me) to drain overnight in the fridge.

The next day, I noticed way more whey leaked out of it than in previous attempts, as it was expected, given that I diluted the cream with milk after all. However, it didn't quite achieve the consistency I was hoping for, and after tasting I noticed it was really not sour at all, even in comparison to the mild sourness of supermarket mascarpone, basically it had no "tanginess" at all.

So I decided as a last resort to do as a comment in one of my "reference" recipes suggested for troubleshooting, and I reheated the mixture, this time to around 85°C, and I added more acid, but inthe form of white vinegar, in hopes of achieving a final product with a flavor profile closer to tartaric acid. After around 20minutes of cooling, poured it over the same straining setup as before and went to work.

Arriving home, around 8 hours later I was the final product as pictured, given the quite generous yield for gram of heavy cream (228g for 250g), it probably is a product that is halfway between sour cream and mascarpone, but it is still very much like mascarpone in taste (slightly more tangy than the supermarket product, but still very subtle and certainly not as intense as sour cream), and it has more adequate texture than any other result from previous attempts.

It isn't perfect, but I feel like I can't actually complain at anyone but me this time, because I didn't really follow a single defined recipe, but given the final result is better than anything else I tried before, I used most of it as an ingredient in a recipe anyway (James Hoffmann's Tiramisu), and it cost me way less than the other recipes that had me use an entire 450g bottle of heavy cream; even if the results were not perfect, I am more than satisfied.

I am specially glad to the people of this sub for giving me the fundamentals and advice that lead me to this small success. Now, two years since my first attempt, I can finally make tiramisu without investing almost a tenth of my wage in mascapone (really, it is indeed that expensive for me to buy it) or using cream cheese as a substitute.

Thanks.

I struggle to get hold of milk in my area that is not homogenised. Is it feasible to make any cheeses with milk bought from a shop? I am in the U.K if that makes a difference. Apologies for the idiocy and thank you in advance!

Is it possible to are decent cheese with homogenized milk? It's not easy for me to find. Thanks.

I’m making the Venison For Dinner big batch mozzarella recipe. Two gallons of raw milk. 1/2 tsp liquid rennet, 1 tablespoon citric acid. I added my rennet when it was around 91 degrees and left it alone. I came back half an hour later or so and instead of clean breaking curds it sunk to the bottom and is kind smooshy. My rennet is expired. Whoops. I know after googling that I should have gotten fresh rennet. What would you do at this point? Add more rennet? Try to stretch what’s in the pot? Strain and use as is? Help me salvage this please! Ordering fresh rennet now.

Hi all.. is there anyway to salvage this? Started with 1gal. Whole milk heated to 82, added 2/3cp white vinegar and gently stirred. Left it to cool and it hardly curdled. This is my second attempt, first one came out fine. Should I reheat and add more vinegar? Can I make ricotta from it? Just hate tossing all that milk. TIA

Helo guys, good morning!

Im trying to make my first gouda cheese, but the first attempt was a complete failure...

I used pasteurized milk with calcium chloride, the culture and the rennet, but the milk didn´t split as it should...

what would you recommend me to do?

I’ve had worse things for breakfast! Very decadent and wildly delicious!

First cheddar with homemade press. Made the press from an IKEA drawer front, an old bed slat, a wooden curtain pole, broom handle. I found an old 14lb 7kg weight then put in dowels for 9, 13.5, 18 and 22.5kg presses. Double checked the load with a scale to verify the leverage.

Followed Gavin Webber’s Yesterdaze cheese recipe. It’s not technically my “first” cheese. That one is a parm style cheese that is currently aging. This one is the first I’ve broken into. I let it age for about a week. The flavor is similar to a mild feta. Good texture. Definitely not melty but it was still delicious in a grilled cheese and melted enough to make the bread stay together. No cheese pull. Not sure if any of that is right or not. So please critique if you’ve made this one before.

This is a Saint Marcellin cheese at day 3 of aging. I tasted it a year ago and got addicted, because of the price I decided to try and make it myself. So far I think it looks ok. Anyone has any advice or observations? Greatly appreciated

I am from India, and there are only a few handful artisanal cheesemakers here. How and where do I start? I have taken up an online course which is quite helpful but if I want to establish my own unit, how do I do that?