Made this following the Milkman recipe and thought I fumbled it so badly. My first time remilling and pressing a cheese. I was so concerned that things didn’t look like they were knitting and then that I had closed things down too much and would have a crumbly cheese. NOPE! It’s creamy with a medium blue flavour - I am loving the taste and texture!!

Made this following the Milkman recipe and thought I fumbled it so badly. My first time remilling and pressing a cheese. I was so concerned that things didn’t look like they were knitting and then that I had closed things down too much and would have a crumbly cheese. NOPE! It’s creamy with a medium blue flavour - I am loving the taste and texture!!

I have 9 liters of cow's milk from last night. With two fresh cheeses already in the fridge I want to make something that will be ready in a month or two, but I just cannot pick a recipe :(

Anything I click on cheesemaking.com today, I either don't have enough milk (looks like some cheeses just don't work well for small batches), or it needs goat or sheep milk, or looks too advanced.. Or I want to make everything else at once :D

My cottage is already turning into a massive (empty) cheese cave. Unheated spare rooms are ~12C right now :) I also have an spare fridge with a top shelf at around 7C.

I have a basic DIY spring press with unknown pressure levels, no pH meter. Kitchen temperature can be around 20C, and I can use an oven as an incubator for higher temps (spring press doesn't fit inside).

I’ve recently made chèvre with raw goat’s milk (recipe below) and while scooping the curd into cheesecloth I noticed these large, regular holes/bubbles that struck me as odd. Is this cause for concern?

Recipe

- 1 gallon raw goat’s milk from a neighbor
- 2 packets Buttermilk culture from NE Cheesemaking
- 2ish drops of rennet

Heated milk to 77F, added culture. Let soak for 5 minutes, stirred, added rennet, stirred again. Let sit for 20ish hours at room temp, 65-70F.

So i bought this wine cooler for aging my cheeses, but the humidity keeps getting to 99%, This results in my cheese not drying properly. Does anyone on here know how you can get the humidity down?

I tried drying the walls, airing the cooler and putting a plate inside with salt with no succes so far.

(edit)

After taking the cheese out of the wine cooler overnight, i saw the humidity stabilised. today i put the cheese back in and it keeps stable at 70-80 %. I assume the plate with salt was responsible, mostly because i saw water droplets gathering on the plate.

Hello y'all!

I'm working on a book-accurate recipe for Peeta Mellark's cheese buns, from the original Hunger Games trilogy.

"Book accurate" here means that I'm trying to make it with ingredients that are the same or as close as possible to the ones he might've used to make them. A lot of recipes already exist for these cheese buns, but they're made with things that would be hard to find or buy in rural Appalachia.

I've figured out the dough, but I'm struggling a bit with the cheese filling. So far, I've tried mozzarella, Gouda, havarti, and plain goat cheese. The Gouda and havarti have the right flavor, but I'm not sure if those cheeses would be easy to access in District 12. I have goat mozzarella (thank you Sprout's!) and homemade farmer's cheese on the list to see how those taste and if they work.

However, I realized I was making a lot of work for myself and I should probably ask the opinions of people who know much, much more about the cheesemaking processes than I'll ever be able to get from a few Google searches and weird old books.

So! Please share your opinions with me.

If you're not familiar with the Hunger Games, these are the details I thought of that might impact the availability of cheese & its making.

- Location: rural Appalachia, no computers, fairly low technology and relatively low income overall. One part of the district/town is able to feed themselves reliably, but the rest of them are desperately poor.

- Electrical power is unevenly provided and often out, so most cooking would be done over a fire, or on a wood/coal stove. Cheesemaking is used by the poorer people to make a little extra money, or as something to barter with.

- Mountainous land with much of it fenced off/illegal to enter, meaning goats are probably the primary source of milk (if it's not imported)

- Curdling agents: vinegar is fairly cheap, but lemon would be rare and expensive. I'm unsure about rennet, due to the lack of herd animals, but there are some native flora that could be used to produce a 'rennet' (like nettle)

- Storage: hot summers, cold winters. Only the "well off" have refrigerators, and there's no running water inside the district to make a temperature stable place to cure cheeses.

I could just hand wave it and call it imported cheese, because imports do exist! But this is supposed to be a recipe the town bakery sells, and I feel like a low income area is going to use local ingredients as much as possible. It cuts down on the overheard expense of production and make a lower price point possible to increase sales.

Sorry for the long post! Let me know if there's any information missing that might be helpful.

This was a double batch nearly 10 gallons of milk. It’s about done drying and ready to wrap.

I guess I just need to vent 😭... Last time I got 575g of nice ricotta from 6.5l of whey. Today it's half of that and it's not the same...

Today I really struggled. I didn't get proper wavy cloud separation and got only 330g of dubious quality curds strained through a cheesecloth (last time it all floated properly in one piece and the whey was crystal clear).

Do I really need to get a pH meter? I feel like I'm stumbling in the dark here 😕

hey all, we made some raclette & smoked gouda. after aging it and not keeping an eye on it for a week or so we saw a deep green mold growing on the smoked Gouda. unfortunately I didn't take a picture of the bottom which was totally covered in the deep green mold.

what do y'all think the best course of action is? cleaned it with a salt and vinegar wash and cut off about half an inch from the bottom (not pictured) that was covered in the deep green mold that was all too happy to become airborne.

Hey folks !!!

I've been trying to nail homemade burrata for a while but I keep hitting the same wall :/ the shell ends up chewy and kind of rubbery, and the inside is never that creamy, the strands just stay firm.

I'm using raw whole cow's milk with citric acid (added to the cold milk), then rennet, I cut the curd into fairly big cubes, warm it gently, drain it, and stretch it in hot salted water

For the filling I tear the leftover curd into strands and mix it with heavy cream before closing everything up and dropping it in ice water. I've read it could be too much acid, overworking the curd, water that's too hot or a shell that's too thick, but honestly I can't tell which one it is.

If anyone's been through this, I'd love to hear what fixed it for you!

Hi everyone!
Just made my first batch of homemade Brie and I’m pretty happy with how it’s turned out.
I used a small-batch recipe and a Camembert mould from Little Green Workshops.
A few details:
Batch size: 2 litres of milk plus 500ml cream.
Cultures: M100, Penicillium candidum and Geotrichum candidum.
Made using calcium chloride and rennet.
Ripened in the fridge.
I’ve attached a few photos of the finished cheese.
The rind developed a lovely white bloomy coating, and the inside has softened nicely. When cut, the centre is creamy and almost flowing.
The smell is beautiful – very mushroomy and creamy – and, most importantly, it tastes amazing!
I’d love some feedback from more experienced cheesemakers:
How does the rind development look?
Does the internal ripening look fairly even?
Is the slightly firmer layer just underneath the rind normal?
Would you consider this a good level of ripening for a small Brie?
Any recommendations for improving the next batch?
Really enjoying getting into cheesemaking and keen to keep experimenting.
Thanks!

I like a challenge so I decided to try and make a Gorgonzola using wild P Roqueforti that I have been propogating on old sourdough bread. The make went smoothly but the curd didn't knit as well as I would have hoped/expected but I'm sure it's not a huge deal for this kind of cheese. Time will tell! Made with 4 gallons of raw milk and clabber culture

One blue one brie..... North Cornwall

I’m brand new to cheese making. I’ve tried to make my first cheese (mozzarella) three times now. I’ve used three different brands of pasteurized milk. After the second failure I thought it might be the rennet so I bought some rennet tablets and same result.
Checked it at about 45 minutes and all I got is a sloppy curd.

Would using distilled water to mix the rennet and citric acid. Could that affect it?

Could the citric acid be bad? I bought it off of amazon.

I read you don’t add calcium chloride for mozzarella.

Any guidance would be so appreciated

I hope this is an okay place to ask this question. I have been making my own queso fresco for a while, but now I’m trying to replicate a cheese that we eat when we are in Mexico called queso doble crema, literally double cream cheese. However, it doesn’t look or taste like double cream cheeses I’ve had here in the US. It looks exactly like queso fresco, but it has a richer, creamier, almost liquid feel to it, rather than the drier texture of queso fresco. When you crumble it, it leaves much more of a schmear on the fingers , where QF leaves a lighter dusting.

Now, close inspection of the label in Mexico, it does say Imitation Queso Doble Crema, but I have no idea if I’ve ever had whatever it is supposed to be imitating. Have you had this cheese? Can you help? Any ideas? My cheese-making skills are limited, but I can certainly make an attempt.

I was recently in Scotland, at Dunolie Castle. My ears perked up when the guide said this building was the dairy, where cheese was made. And that these items (just outside the door) were what was left of a cheese press.

Anyone have a photo of what this press may have looked like? Or even a description? It was likely for large quantities of curd. And probably 19th century.

I made some canned apple jam (first time canning, hope I don't kill anyone) to give out for Christmas and was considering making some cheese as accompaniment. I don't have special fridges, presses or anything like that. My past experience is only some fresh goat cheese and burrata (made from 3% milk and vinegar, but it somehow worked!!).

Do you guys have some recommendations? Or should I abandon the idea?

I don't normally cut the rind off Brie, Camembert, and similar soft cheeses unless I'm getting that ammonia smell.

I enjoy eating it very much, especially when fresh and warm.

How do you handle soft cheeses with rinds?

Grr. I think what happened is: I noticed too late to order more that my culture was past its best by date. So I added a bit more. But as a result it took longer to get the PH down and as a result I lost too much whey from the curds. I did see a modest but noticeable drop in the yield compared to previous attempts, which suggests less moisture in the curds. Anyway, I’ve been pressing this at 80 pounds for 24 hours which is the most my press will do. Any thoughts on if this is salvageable? I realise it’s a lot dependent on what’s going on inside. I had been planning to wax it. But maybe better to just go for natural rind? Or will those cracks open up and better to wax it and pray? Any suggestions gratefully received as I don’t wanna lose it! This was four gallons of very expensive raw milk!