Creative Living

[MrsL]

This recipe and method is for a simple, basic home made hard cheese, not unlike a Cheshire cheese. It's a good way of using up surplus milk if and when you have it. The best cheese, in my view, is made from unpasteurised milk , but that is increasingly difficult to get hold of. I use ordinary milk bought in for mine from the farmshop or the milkman. Some people say that homogenised milk won't make cheese, but I find it does. If you buy organic milk, it is not homogenised, but turns out more expensive. It is not a cheap thing to make if you have to buy in the milk, but it is very satisfying to make, and you won;t buy any cheese that tastes like it. You also get to choose the stage at which you eat it, according to preference.
The cheese is simple to make, with a minimum of equipment. The main piece you need is a press of some sort. Proper cheese presses are lovely, and the real thing, but you can improvise very successfully with other containers, as long as there are holes for the whey to drain away, and the cheese itself is fairly easy to remove from the press for turning.

First step is to pour your whole milk into the pan; 1 gallon of whole milk will make approximately 12 - 13 oz of cheese I have found. Heat the milk gently to about 35 degrees.
Remove from heat and whisk in 1 tablespoon good plain live yoghurt; this raises the acidity of the milk. Leave for 30 minutes, then add 1/4 teaspoon of rennet - I use vegetarian rennet, which is easily available in the home baking department in supermarkets. Stir well, then cover loosely and leave for at least 40 minutes until the curd has set - it will look like set yoghurt of junket. When it looks ready, press your forefinger on the surface - if it is ready, there will be no milk stain left on your finger.
Cut the curd into cubes using a sharp knife, cover again, and leave until the whey rises to the surface. It should look like this:


Return the pan to the heat and heat gently for about half an hour, stirring the curds intermittently.

After a while, the curds will sink under the whey.

Line a colander with clean muslin and turn the curds and whey into it; drain for a couple of hours until the whey is drained off and the curds feel dryish

Turn the drained curds into a clean bowl, add salt to taste and break up with your fingers. rinse out the muslin in hot water, and use it to line your mould. For this one, I used one of the milk cartons with both ends cut off; you could also use a tin can with both ends removed. Pack the drained curds into the mould.




Turn over the tops of the muslin to cover the cheese, and place weights on top. Leave overnight to press.

Next day, remove the cheese from the press, unwrap the muslin and give it a good rinse. Re-wrap the cheese in it and replace in the press, but the other way up, and return the weights to the top. Do this for 3 - 4 days. The whey will run out, so sit your preferred mould in a bowl, or plate with a lip, etc to catch it. It can be fed to the hens, or used in cooking - add to soup, etc. Shetlanders used to make a sparkling drink from fermented whey, called "blaand", but I haven't tried that yet.

After the allotted time, remove the muslin, and leave your cheese in the open air for 2 days to dry out a bit. A rind will start to form on it. For keeping, wrap it up in muslin and coat with lard, ensuring it is completely covered; or wax it (get the proper melting wax from Ascott); or you can use a cheese coating (which is what I use), also from Ascott, which goes on white and dries clear.

Leave your cheese in a cool, airy place for at least three weeks, or longer if you like it stronger; this is very much an experimental stage, and it will take several goes to find out how long is the best for you. The younger the cheese, the sharper it will taste, and will mellow with age; I like mine quite sharp, and as I said earlier, it will be like nothing you can buy in the shops.
If a bit of mould appears, which is very likely, just wipe off with a clean damp cloth, or brush with a clean small brush.
When we visited the cheese place in Herefordshire, where all their cheese is really handmade, including all the stirring, etc, some of the cheeses in their store were mouldy. I asked what they did to remove it before sale, and was delighted to hear they use the vegetable brush method too...........

Any questions, ask away; happy cheesemaking.

[kddevon]

Brilliant, Mrs L. Thank you.

[kddevon]

I've been doing this today - with these instructions printed out. Really useful, thank you.

I've got a couple of questions because once or twice I wasn't sure if I was doing it right.

The first stage (heating, adding the yoghurt and then the rennet) - I left it for 40 minutes, and it had not turned into curds and whey. It just looked like sloppy yoghurt. I heated it again and it separated and looked like it was supposed to, but then I wasn't sure which stage I'd got it. I couldn't press on the cheese and not get a milky finger at any point. What did I do wrong?

How much weight do you use to press yours? At the moment I have a bottle of sloe gin and a pound weight balancing on top of the follower my brother made for me. (The sloe gin bottle was the largest and fullest in the house!)

You say to remove the muslin and rinse it - I take it that means the muslin, not the cheese.

When I get to the stage of coating it in lard, do I spread it on like butter? And what sort of thickness should it be? The muslin will be lumpy in places, does this matter or should I be trying to make it as smooth as possible?

I'm sorry for all the questions, but I've looked at several cheese books from the library and they just make it seem really complicated and almost put me off - your instructions were great.

[MrsL]

I can't alwasy get it right around the milky fingerprint stage, so I just carry on when the curds are well separated.

I have no idea of how much weight was on the one in the pics up there, I'm afraid - just "some". The more weight and longer you leave, it, the denser the finished cheese. My cheese press has a turn screw for pressing, so impossible (for me, anyway) to gauge how much pressure/weight that is. There just needs to be as much weight as needed to expel the whey from the curds as much as possible.

Yes, rinse the muslin.

Lumpy musling won't matter, and about 1/4" or so thick will be fine.

Hope this helps - shout if you need more.
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[kddevon]

Thank you very much. You can't ask a book questions!

[kddevon]

Help! My cheese is going very mouldy! In places where the lard coating is thinner I can see a lot of mould growing. I was confidently ready to brush a little bit of mould off, but this is underneath the lard and there's a lot of it. Is my cheese spoiled? Is it too late to unwrap it and coat it with cheese wax? What should I do, please?

[somerset lad]

Kd, scrape the lard off ,rub in some vinegar, then apply fresh lard. Nothing spoiled just a hitch. 8)
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[kddevon]

You're a star, SL! Thank you. I thought I'd spoiled it!

[kddevon]

We tried the cheese today. It's got a flavour unlike anything I've ever tasted in a cheese before, but if I'd bought an expensive chunk of it in a cheese shop I would simply think I'd bought a different type of cheese. In other words, I've made cheese! I'm all fired up to make others now.

Thanks Mrs L and SL for your help. (And I've bought cheese wax for next time!)

[somerset lad]

Nothing like it is there KD. keep making it now, it is often different each time but the flavour is so good. 8)
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Grow it, catch it, forage for it, cook it, eat it, enjoy it.

[pattypan.2]

I have had an afternoon browsing on the internet, as a result of Wren's interest in making Feta cheese - well my interest in making cheese as well and I found a couple of sites which have some extra recipes in for the more adventurous of you.

Not sure whether it is in the right place here but thought it best to keep with how to make cheesemaking etc for ease. Hope this is OK Mrs L.

gourmetsleuth.com/cheeserecipes.htm

There is also another site biology.clc.uc.edu/Fankauser/Chesse/Cheese.html

Hope this is of some interest and of some use to the more adventurous amongst us

Tricia




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Pattypan
aka Tricia

What goes around comes around and usually ends up biting me on the bum!

http://tarragonnthyme.blogspot.com/

[kddevon]

I've got my second cheese pressing at the moment, and cheese wax lined up for coating it next weekend. I've been scrupulous with hygiene this time in an attempt to avoid quite as much mould. I have a question, though. When I get to the stage of leaving it for a day or two to harden, would it be OK to wipe it with vingar to avoid mould growing under the wax?

[somerset lad]

I would say just try to keep it dry Kddevon and dry well before waxing. 8) and the cheese
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Grow it, catch it, forage for it, cook it, eat it, enjoy it.

[kddevon]

Thanks SL. Good advice and a laugh all in the same sentence!

[Yarrow]

Can anyone tell me the name of the company that sells the cheese and sausage making equipment. I thought I'd finally give this a go and would like to get some of the wax.
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