Selfsufficientish.com

Hi everyone,

Hope I'm doing this right and this is the right place to put this. I'm new one the whole posting on forums thing so here it goes.

In my do-everyting-yourself-quest I have decided to start a new project... making cheese!!!

Anyone got any experience/good advice/free sources of information they wish to share? I don't have a lot of money so everything has to be done as cheaply as possible.

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Greets Roos

Ingredients - 5 litres of full fat cow's milk; a teaspoon of rennet and approximately 10g of salt.

Add the rennet to the fresh milk which has been heated gently to 32c (use a thermometer to ensure the correct heat) and leave for about 30 minuted to set. Break up the curds and place the solids into a large muslin bag or several and allow the whey to drain into a pan.

After the whey has drained fully wring the muslin to squeeze as much liquid as possible from the cheese. Remove from the muslin and break the curd into pea sized pieces, sprinkle with the salt and roll gently with a rolling pin to further break up the curd.

Use a mould lined with a sterilised cheesecloth, press the curd into the mould until full and cover with the cheesecloth. Place a weight on the mould and exert pressure onto the weight with a homemade press which uses a car vice to exert pressure (lots of instructions are available just search for homemade cheese press) to extract any remaining whey for about a day.

Remove the cheese from mould and the cheesecloth and dip the cheese into very hot water for a few minutes to allow the surface of the cheese to smooth. Leave in a well ventilated but warm area to dry for a few days and a rind will begin to form.

The cheese at this stage is rather tasteless and needs to be left in a cool and dry place (about 7-10c) for 3-4 weeks to mature whilst turning daily.

WHAH slow down! Thanx for your quick reply but I didn't get half of the things you were saying hehehe. So gonna ask a lot of questions.

What sort of milk do I have to use? Do I use pasturised, sterilized or rawmilk?
What is rennet? Do I have to buy it?
What is muslin? Can I use another cloth instead? Same questions for the cheesecloth and the mould.

So sorry but I am a complete novice

Greets Roos

Thanks for that Okra, my next project too. I have everything except the press.

I don't have a press. I just get two one-kilogram food grade containers (ex-yoghurt pots in my case) that fit one into the other. Then I punch holes in one of them (from the inside so it does stop the other container sliding in), then put the cheesecloth wrapped curd into one, put the other one on top, fill it with water and put the lid on, then place another large water-filled pan on top of them for extra pressure. The whole lot sits on a chopping board which has a pen or something under one side to make sure it drains into the sink. It might not provide enough pressure for hard cheeses, but it works fine for typical home cheeses.

You can make soft cheese very easily with whole milk and lemon juice very nice, if you look up on here there was a whole thing a couple of years back with loads of lovely recipes

Didn't you post a video of cheese making, Maykal? Or was that someone else?

I just followed your website link and it's all houses for sale now

I think that was Merlin from Bulgaria, I think he had some videos about cheese and wine making. I have a post I put together on another blog of mine about making simple white cheese though:

http://romanianfoodblog.blogspot.ro/201 ... -casa.html

Ah, sorry, getting mixed up. That's a very nice blog post, though. Thank you

Blessed are the cheese makers

doofaloofa wrote:Blessed are the cheese makers

And any manufacturers of dairy products

diggernotdreamer wrote:

doofaloofa wrote:Blessed are the cheese makers

And any manufacturers of dairy products

And the cows...

have a go at making ' Rasmolai' too , an indian cheese dessert. it's a bit like marmite only in that you either love or hate it. but if you love it, ooohhhhh..

I have been making Bulgarian sirene cheese, similar to feta, using the same method as Maykal uses, but with what they call yeast instead of rennet. I buy raw milk from a local farm at around 80p for two litres, skim off some of the cream to make a tiny amount of salted butter (yum) and Bob's your uncle.

I wish I could find someone to sell me proper cream though, it is rare as hen's teeth here. Most of the butter is awful, unless you get lucky and find German butter...at a cost.

It's all lovely with home made bread!