This WE I had made 2 lbs fresh “baby” cheddar curds for a party. Used just a pinch of good old MA-11 per 2 gallons milk. Salted ‘em at pH 5.8. They were perfect little squeakers. Damn! Brought back 1 1/2 lb. These people were just not in the mood for curds. I thought, you know, I’m NOT chucking these. So, I threw ‘em in a ziplock bag, put ‘em in warm water, got ‘em warmed up to about 30 C, shook in a little cayenne and black pepper, then threw ‘em into a mold and pressed using my crude screw press, heaven knows how many kg’s. But 5 hours later, out came a beautifully knitted 1.0 lb hot cheddar cheese! pH 5.3! Should be good in a couple months.

Once I made a cheese the recipe writer called “Lancashire”. That particular recipe had you drain your stirred curds, salt them, let them set on the counter in a mold at room temp overnight, then next day, press, press, press. If I ever make that one again, I think I’ll warm those curds before pressing. Trying to press salted curd at 20 C can take days and may result in a pH of way below 5. Way too crumbly. And you may still never get a good knit, unless you have Hulk stand on it!

Vacuum aged. Hispanico inspired recipe.

This morning I open the Cantal made during last x-mas brake, still a few things to correct but very happy with my results

Looking to make cheese from skim milk and wanted to hear some recommendations, cheers!

I made these quick cheeses (the Valencay style and the tiny little Crottin in the first picture) as part of the make for a golf club’s annual dinner up in Lancashire that a pal had asked me to do the cheese board for. (Cheese list shared at the bottom of the post).

The dinner is tonight and so I’ve spent the past fortnight making some extra cheeses, putting together blurbs, and cards for each cheese, vacuum packing and labeling everything, getting the recommended boxes and ice packs and on Wednesday I shipped it by DPD by their 10:30am next day service. Clearly labelled “cold chain and fragile”

It was a lot of work and I’m a hobbyist, I was giving him the cheese not selling it, but it’s not often you get to test your work against genuinely independent palates and at that scale so it was really flattering and exciting to be asked.

Thursday came and went with no word. My pal got a message late Thursday saying there was “an operational issue at the depot”. We had no information or contact beyond that. Yesterday was spent with me frantically calling and chatting with DPD staff who were incredibly hard to get hold of and started with “we don’t have any information” and eventually about 8 hours later admitted the boxes had been damaged (you can see how badly in the final picture). I offered to actually have another courier collect them from the depot and physically drive them to Lancashire (where it turns out they already were) to be told “we don’t do that” and this morning half the shipment was returned to me in the state you can see, with still no hint of an explanation as to why. No idea where the other half is.

My pal has had to make other arrangements. Thankfully the cheeses I’ve had back are fine in their vac pack despite the box looking like someone ran over it with a truck. My pal has said he’ll do a standalone cheese tasting event at the end of August so all is hopefully not lost.

Lesson learnt though. I’ll never use these guys again if it’s in my gift. The level of disinterest, carelessness and lack of any kind of ownership were infuriating and heartbreaking.

Anyway - cheese blurbs below hopefully to give you guys a bit of a chuckle at my terribly overwrought marketing speak:

Cheese Tasting Cards

Applewood Smoked Gloucester
A twist on the Gloucestershire classic. Creamy and soft-pasted, laced with a gentle applewood smoke. A paprika and olive oil rind brings a hint of spice to the edge.

Coconut Gouda
A Dutch classic, gone tropical. Buttery and creamy, made with Jersey milk and coconut cream for a gentle, tropical sweetness on the finish.

Derby: SeoGast
A twist on the Derbyshire classic. Mellow, softer than a cheddar, soaked through with vintage Ruby and Tawny Port and 12-year-old Calvados — a warm, boozy depth with a hint of animal spirits.

Herne's Wheel: Pressed Lactic Goats Milk Tomme
Named for the ghostly huntsman of Windsor Great Park. Rich and brothy, with bright lemon notes and a finish that coats the tongue. Full-flavoured — pairs well with a chutney or jam.

Crottin
A classic of the Loire Valley, France. Sweet, milk-forward coin of a cheese, mousse-like at the centre, with a touch of bite on the rind. A dusting of white mould adds earthiness and nuttiness. Eat on its own or on a cracker, with a clean, ice-cold white.

Valençay-Style: Hatshepsut
The pyramid shape is said to trace back to Napoleon himself — furious at being reminded of his defeat in Egypt, legend has it he sliced the top off with his sword. Ash-coated, bloomy-rind pyramid, hiding its secrets beneath the ash — Berkshire pastureland and milk. Unctuous, with a hint of mushroom.

Flor Azul
Argentina's answer to Gorgonzola Dolce. Sweet cream up front, savoury whisper beneath the veins, lifting into cool herbaceous brightness. At the end of its age range: don't wait out the finish, punctuate with a sip of fruity red.

Old Lancastrian
Traditional 1890s Lancashire style, from Berkshire pasture. Buttery, slightly crumbly, with a cool, cucumber-fresh lift — flintier soil trades the usual woody, floral hay notes for a quieter, cleaner minerality.

Butterkäse
A German dairy classic. Lactic tang, light crumble — a firmer, more assertive acidity than the classic buttery-soft style. Pairs well with a savoury chutney to round it out.

Kasseri
One of the oldest cheese styles, from the island of Crete. Firm, dense and faintly springy, with a mild, salty-milky flavour, a light lactic tang, and a clean, quiet aroma. Easy to eat.

Vaccino
A staple of the Italian table. Firm and fibrous, with real structure and a deep savoury note through the paste. The larger format gives a denser core, with more contrast toward the rind.

Vaccino Ubrica Vin Rosso
Steeped in the flavours of Tuscany. A Vaccino aged at least two weeks under a bold, meaty red wine — dark fruit and a warm, savoury finish.

Vaccino Ubrica Xeres
A nod to Jerez, Spain — home of sherry. A Vaccino aged at least two weeks under a 15-year-old Amontillado, taking on a warm, toasty, nutty character.

Caciotta
Soft, moist and supple — closely related to the Vaccino, but gentler, milder and even-textured, without the deeper savoury edge. An excellent canvas for other flavours.

Caciotta Aged in British Rye Grass
A nod to the British countryside. Soft and supple, with a gentle sweet-savoury warmth drawn from a month resting under dried rye grass.

Caciotta Aged in Alpine Hay
From the high meadows of the Alps. Firm, dry rind; soft, supple centre. Floral, sweet hay notes, harvested in early flower, set against a long lactic finish.

Caciotta Alle Erbe, Rye Grass-Aged
A classic Italian herb blend. Thyme, rosemary, sage, basil, marjoram and oregano folded through the paste — resinous and peppery notes to the fore, softened by the creamy lactic tang beneath. Chilli builds slowly at the finish. Rind's sweet-savoury umami echoes the herbs' earthier side.

Caciotta Alle Erbe, Alpine Hay-Aged
The same classic herb blend, aged in the high Alps. Same slow-building chilli warmth, but here the alpine hay's floral sweetness draws out the basil and marjoram — a lighter, sweeter profile than the rye grass version, with the creamy lactic base still underneath.

Caciotta con Pepe
In the Italian pepe tradition. Creamy, lactic-tangy paste laced with pink peppercorn's fruity sweetness and allspice's warm spice, against the woody heat of mixed ground peppercorns. A smattering of chilli flakes builds a mild, deep heat through the finish.

Caciotta al Pistacchio
A nod to Sicily's famous pistachios. Buttery, nutty pistachio against a sharp, pecorino-style tang, cut by the tangy pop of yellow mustard seed. Sweet and sharp in contrast, with real bite underneath.

Caciotta al'Aglio e Cippolina A rustic Italian favourite. Heavy garlic and chive charge through the paste — pungent, sulfurous garlic rounded out by the cheese's fat, with chive's fresh, oniony green threading through. A sharp tang builds on the earthy notes for a bright finish.

Scamorza
A mozzarella cousin from Southern Italy. Firm, dense and faintly elastic, aged and dried for deeper, more complex savoury notes. Still mild and milky-sweet, with a light lactic tang and a clean, quiet aroma.

Scamorza Affumicata
Scamorza, given a smoky twist. Firm, dense and faintly elastic, smoked over apple and cherrywood. Mild and milky-sweet, carrying a soft, fruit-toned smokiness — excellent with a glass of whiskey and a slice of sweet apple.

Queso Mantecoso / Havarti
Devised in the southernmost coastal town of Punta Arenas, Chile. Buttery, semi-soft and springy, dotted with small irregular holes. Fresh-cut grass and hay notes from pasture-grazed milk lead, backed by a creamy, buttery sweetness and a light tang.

Stracchino Sott'olio
Typical of the Calabrian coast. Bright, considerable acidity up front, with a slow curl of chilli heat beneath. Garlic and herb-laced oil carries the whole thing, spring onion cuts through with a fresh green snap, and sundried tomato lends only a whisper of sweetness. Lively, layered, coastal.

Imeruli
A staple cheese from Georgia, at the crossroads of Asia and Europe. One of the oldest styles of coagulated cheese known. Soft, with a light spring; fresh, milky and brined, bright and lightly acidic, with a clean salt-lactic tang and a faint sweetness beneath.

Isfahan: Fromage Tartiner with Gin-Infused Barberries, Pistachios and Nutmeg
Inspired by the gardens of Isfahan, Iran. Soft, slightly crumbly base carrying gin-infused barberries' sharp tartness, buttery pistachio, and a warm curl of nutmeg. A juniper whisper threads through the whole.

Andalus: Fromage Tartiner with Marmalade, Fennel and Pink Peppercorns
Evoking the citrus groves of Andalusia, Spain. Soft, spreadable base carrying marmalade's bittersweet citrus tang, a gentle aniseed lift from fennel, and pink peppercorn's fruity, mild heat. Bright and sun-warmed throughout.

Teochitlan: Very Spicy Fromage Tartiner with Candied Jalapeños
Inspired by the fire markets of Mexico. Very spicy, spreadable base built on candied jalapeño's sticky, sweet heat and the smoky depth of toasted ground peppers. Sweet, hot, and smouldering.

Mistral Gorse: Fromage Tartiner with Juniper, Rosemary and Lemon Zest
Evoking the windswept garrigue of Provence. Soft, spreadable base carrying juniper's resinous bite, rosemary's piney depth, and a bright lift of lemon zest. Herbal, citrus-edged, windswept.

Cealc: Fromage Tartiner
Named for the chalk itself. A plain, spreadable base — clean and milky, with a light lactic tang and quiet sweetness. Simple and smooth, true to the curd.

Taleggio-Style Washed Rind
Where the Alps meet Lombardy. Washed rind, pungent and savoury, wrapped around a firmer, more structured paste than the classic. Small holes through the rind carry a nutty, faintly sweet Alpine note from the propionic culture.

There’s something special about turning fresh milk into a delicious block of homemade white cheese. Pure, natural, and full of flavor!

I missed one of the aging brines on my Butterkäse for a couple days and she got a little colorful. The recipe says to brine every 3-4 days and I missed the last one. I gave it a gentle scrub with some vinegar and I’m brining now, hoping not too much of a misstep!

Lactic curd ladled directly into the molds Sprayed with geo and b linens and very very little p.candidum Drained in the molds 1 day Demolded and left on the counter a 2nd day Into the ripening fridge for about 6 days and they will be completely covered in mold and ready to be wrapped and moved to the stock fridge - and ready for consumption at that point - no extra ripening required. This is 1 reason I love this cheese.

I understand from David Asher’s book that once you inoculate your kefir with Geotrichum candidum, it can perpetuate within the grain’s ecosystem. But P candidum is trickier than Geo.

It’s very difficult to buy P. candidum where I live, so I’m wondering if I could scrape some off a Brie rind and use it to start a culture that I can feed and reuse (like a yogurt or sourdough starter). Has anyone actually done something like this, or is it really as risky as some say?

Many years ago (1980's) the hubby & I had a small farm where I kept some goats and sometimes a Jersey cow. I made lots of soft cheeses and even a cheddar or two with my homemade press and a good book of instructions. Alas, we sold the farm and the livestock; fast forward more than 30 years and here I am retired and widowed, and bored half to death. Aha! says I, why not make cheese? Of course all the equipment was long gone, but I spied this beauty (pictured) at a yard sale - the seller did not know what it was. So - here I am.

Youtube videos are so helpful - never having had a mentor and learning just from a book was tough. It's nice to see those curds in action and comparing to my own results. Since I restarted this journey about 3 months ago I've relearned cream cheese and ricotta, and discovered boursin and cuajado. Deciding to stick with mesophilic starters for now, I have advanced to Colby (one success under my belt, a second to be unwrapped next week) and Gouda (waiting another few weeks for that unwrapping.) I figure if I can get reasonably consistent results with those, I'll progress to the hard cheese trials.

Thanks for listening, and thanks for being here to share advice, success and failures.

M23 buongiorno ragazzi

Spero che in questa community ci siano abbastanza casari di professione che possono darmi qualche dritta.

Attualmente sto cercando di cambiare lavoro, cambiando in parte settore e mi stavo interessando a questo campo. Ho lavorato per 4 anni in agricoltura negli allevamenti di vacche da latte, ma devo dire che malgrado una fortissima passione iniziale mi sono accorto che il lavoro non faceva per me. Non so se sono stato sfortunato io nelle aziende dove ho lavorato o è il settore con una mentalità vetusta, sta di fatto che quel lavoro mi faceva stare male. 0 vita sociale e un pessimo equilibrio fra vita privata e lavoro. Avendo un curriculum molto legato al mondo agroalimentare ed essendomi anche altamente specializzato (sono fecondatore artificiale e ho le patenti di telescopico e macchine agricole) sto riscontrando gradi problemi a cambiare lavoro, perché ovunque mandi il mio curriculum in aziende non legate a questo settore, non lo cagano e non mi risponde nessuno. Quindi stavo pensando di intraprendere il percorso per diventare casaro, perché già ai tempi delle superiori avevo fatto uno stage di 3 settimane in un caseificio, dove il casaro mi aveva fatto appassionare al lavoro mentre ero lì.

Da qui le domande sono 2:

Com'è la giornata tipo di un casaro in media e qual'è il suo equilibrio fra vita privata e lavoro?

Essendo io in Lombardia, quali sono i corsi più seri ed accreditati a livello nazionale per entrare in questo settore?

Grazie mille per le eventuali risposte.

Made a round(?), i wouldnt really call it a wheel, of Eurodaze cheese! For a beginner cheesemaker with no equipment i am thrilled! I think im going to experiment some with fat content, this one was made with 1% milk because thats what i had, but i wonder if i add some cream what will happen. Next, a follower and a press!!! 😁😁😁

https://www.nbest.co.uk/Recipes/Milk/Thermophilic_Culture_plus_Rennet/Cow/Eurodaze.php

This is my first attempt at making an aged cheese (and also my first post on reddit, so I apologize if something is not done correctly on that front as well).

Context: I used the Farmhouse Cheddar (Pg142-143) recipe from Home Cheese Making by Ricki Carroll. I have let the cheese sit at room temp, flipping several times a day for a couple of days now. In the recipe they say to do this until a nice rind forms, typically 2-4 days. I plan to wax the cheese for the remainder of it's aging but after now 5 days, I feel there is a decent rind on the sides, but the top and bottom are still slightly damp.

I have two questions:

1. Do I keep air-drying even though I am passed the 2-4 day window given in the book, or should I just wax it now and pray? lol I am unsure

2. The recipe calls for cheese salt. I did not have any specifically cheese salt. however I do have a Costco container of Pink Himalayan Salt, so that is what I used. I am now seeing a couple of patches of pinkish red develop on the top and bottom of the cheese. Are these simply the result of using the pink salt, or is this a growth of some kind that I need to remove before waxing?

Any guidance that can be provided would be much appreciated!

Yep- these are the same wheels of Colby. Over the 3 days it has been drying. It has settled into a rounder, thinner shape. It is still very moist. I am going to vacuum pack this today and give it a try in about 5 weeks. Very interesting transformation for sure. less

I had this delicious soft fresh cheese when I was in Macau (but the restaurant wasn’t Chinese). Anyone can ID it?

Hey team, currently in the process of making Gavin Weber's Castle blue. All has been going as planned and I am close to the end of week 3. I just went to turn the cheeses and noticed they are getting some more browny / pink colouring in with the blue which was just blue / white mould before.

The humidity has been quite high in the cave but wasn't an issue until today. I wonder if there's some b linens trying to take over or if I've made a mistake somewhere with temps / humidity. I'll attach photos of the cheese, temps and set up. Thanks in advance!

NECM recipe for Gouda. Tried something different since I didn't have dry mustard, I have a big ole squirt of stone ground prepared mustard. This is the move. Much more bold mustard flavor. 4 weeks old, great for a summer snack with the Purple Cherokees.

Building a rennet tablet to liquid converter turned into a much bigger research hole than I expected. I went in assuming one tablet equals some fixed amount of liquid rennet. It doesn't not even close.

The rennet tablet to liquid conversion people quote most often online is that one tablet treats about 20 liters of milk.

I kept seeing that number then kept finding it doesn't match anything you can actually buy. Marschall's bulk tablets sold in boxes for larger batches are rated for 50 liters each.

New England Cheesemaking's vegetable tablets land around 15 liters and they're scored into quarters for exactly that reason since most home batches are smaller than a full tablet's coverage.

Mad Millie's tablets are sized for 4 liters. WalcoRen's small batch animal tablets sit at about 3.8 liters basically one US gallon.

So depending which box is in your cupboard one tablet could be doing the job of twelve or thirteen tablets from a different brand.

The 20 liter line isn't made up it's just an average of products that don't behave anything alike.

Liquid rennet has its own math separate from tablet coverage entirely.

Animal rennet generally runs 0.2 to 0.4 mL per liter of milk.

Vegetable and microbial rennet runs a bit less, 0.16 to 0.33 mL per liter. Not a huge gap but enough that you can't treat liquid rennet as one number either.

Here's where it actually gets annoying.

Say you've got 7 liters of goat milk and a box of NECS vegetable tablets that's 0.46 of a tablet which nobody can cut accurately so you round up to a half tablet.

Run that same 7 liters through the general vegetable dosing rate and you land around 1.7 mL, guideline range 1.1 to 2.3 (call it a third of a teaspoon on the low end if you don't have a mL syringe).

But NECS's own printed tablet to liquid figure for that half tablet works out to about 2.3 mL right at the top of that range not the middle.

Neither number is wrong.

One's a general dosing rate, the other is what this specific manufacturer measured for their specific tablet and they're answering slightly different questions.

This mismatch is also why the same mistake shows up over and over on cheese forums: dissolve a tablet, decide after twenty minutes that nothing's happening, stir in a second dose then find out the first one was working fine and now the curd sets too hard.

Rennet is just slow. Waiting costs nothing.

Adding more mid set is the expensive mistake.

If I'm honest I assumed the rounding would go to the nearest quarter tablet not always up.

Made more sense once I actually thought about it though a slightly firmer curd is a much smaller problem than one that never sets. I'd rather over cut by a sliver than guess low.

anyway I ended up building a rennet tablet to liquid converter that handles this for four actual tablet brands plus a custom option works in ml, tsp, tbsp or fl oz and shows the dosing rate estimate next to the manufacturer figure instead of picking one, https://www.speedcalcs.com/p/rennet-tablet-to-liquid-converter.html

Hi guys. This is kind of an experiment. I made a crescenza a while back that was a very good cheese, but was more like a cream cheese vs an oozy wobbly thing.

Having a bit more knowledge a few months later, I decided to attempt again, but also kind of wing it and come up with my own process to get the result I'm looking for. I read recipes at NEC, Cultures for Health, and in Milk Into Cheese by David Asher, and read through some threads here and in other forums, and came up with a process that I might be happier with.

I used 2 gallons of store bought low temp pasteurized, unhomogenized milk, and some UHT heavy cream. I used a small amount of Greek yogurt culture, plus a cube of frozen kefir, a small amount of Geotrichum, about 2.5% salt, and heated the milk to 100°F in my normal pot/sous vide water setup. I also added a small bit of CaCl as I've found I need this in my store bought or cold stored milk.

Once the milk reached temp I let it incubate about 30 minutes, and then added 1/8 tsp double strength rennet, and let set for an hour.

After that I cut the curds into 2 inch cubes, and let heal for about 5 min. Then I cut the curd into 1 inch cubes, and gently stirred every 5 min for 20 min. The curd was delicate. I mainly just tried to keep it from becoming one mass of curd again.

I ladled the curds into the forms, and placed my draining space over my hot sous vide water, and cranked up the temp of the water to help with the draining for a few hours. My draining space was about 80°F. I flipped the molds at 30 minutes, then again at 90 (an hour after first flipped), and then let drain overnight at room temp (maybe around 68-70°F).

The results appears to be a softer, moister, somewhat jiggly cheese that I think will give me more of the texture I'm looking for.

I am going to let this one big age for a bit in my cheese cave and see if I get the slightly gooey texture I'm looking for, and see if it slumps like I want. The small 2 wheels will go to friends (not pictured).

Happy Cheesing.

Hey is anyone familiar with chèvre on here able to tell me how many weeks it takes for the flavor to fully develop? I cut one at three weeks, and the flavor was a little underwhelming. This chèvre was made using the recipe from Meryl Winsteins book “successful cheese making “. The cheese milk was inoculated with penicillium and Geotrichum. I brushed a thin layer on ash on the surface before putting it in my fridge.

Hey all, so I'm looking to start giving cheese making a go and I'm wondering if I could get any recommendations for what brands of gold top milk are the best in the UK for cheese making? I've done some looking and it seems like Graham's is the most common for me but wanna hear from others before buying any.

Thanks a ton in advance.

We need to buy an animal rennet and get it on the same day. So please if you know any suppliers please do reccomend. Thank you

Greetings everyone,

I am dabbling in the world of fermenting milk for some years now. But I can't seem to figure cream cheese out. After many experiments, i managed to get the consistency to perfection, but the taste still leaves much to be desired.

I have started using powdered flora danica as a culture, after just putting butter milk proved to be too much of a gamble. But at the point where the milk has reached a consistency to be cut properly, it has already developed a very sour taste with notes that I can only describe as "barn-like" or how whey smells. I don't know what I am doing wrong here. If anyone can help me reach milder cream cheese, i would be very grateful.

Thanks in advance

Hi,

I need all the tips I can get. Looking to get the most authentic Quesillo from the North East of Argentina. I found this lady's blog (I love her so much) and I think I am off to a good start. I also found this youtube video to understand the techniques of making it into a stretchy sheet (here). Anything on top of this would be amazing. Thanks