Homemade Cheese

[Gauracandra]

Anyone ever make homemade cheese? Just curious as to how difficult it is. I've made homemade yoghurt, curd, etc... I figure homemade cheese might be fun to try. Anyone done it before?

[Jahnava Nitai Das]

Anyone have a recipe for cream cheese?

 

And how about sour cream?

[Guest guest]

you make cheese the same way you make paneer,except the curdling agent is different.

You need to get a cheese culture,rennet is used by most,but it's part of an animal.

 

Look on the internet for vegie cheese cultures for sale,or ask a local cheese company or food distributor where to geet the coagulent.

 

After getting that,there is a variety of ways to proceed depending on the type of cheese you want.

 

Search on the web for various recipes.

It does have to sit for a period of time,

depending on the type of cheese.

[Guest guest]

quart glass jar

1 cup pastuerized 20% or light,cream.

The cream must be at least this heavy,or heavier.

The heavier the better for good texture.

 

5 t cultured buttermilk

cover jar and shake vigourosly

stir in another cup of cream

cover jar and allow to stand at 75 to 80 degrees farenheit,for 24 hours.

 

you can use ,but it's better to refrigerate for 24 hours first.

[Guest guest]

 

http://mt.essortment.com/howtomakecrea_rkpw.htm

[JRdd]

This isn't really a cheese recipe, but as we are talking about cultured or treated milk, here it is:

 

When a recipe calls for buttermilk and you don't have any, squeeze a little lemon juice into regular milk and let it stand for five minutes. This gives the same results as buttermilk (although I am not sure it would work in shiva's sour cream recipe or not).

 

JR

[JRdd]

Here's the website that GC accidentally made a new thread for:

 

https://camby.crocker.com/cheese2/cgi-bin/web_store/web_store.cgi?page=kit.htm&cart_id=

 

Now these kits look really exciting. I suppose mozzarella and ricotta (which is kind of like curd, in recipes) are fast kind of cheeses. Does anyone know the Vedic or devotee take on aged cheeses? Is cheddar for example considered tamaguna, mode of ignorance?

 

I think the items listed in the kit can be gathered separately, at possibly some savings, not sure. I get the citric acid in bulk, as little or much as i want, and the cheesecloth you can find almost anywhere, even hardware stores sometimes (I have somee for making curd and ghee). I wonder if a candy thermometer would do the same job as a dairy thermometer. The recipes, I am sure, are freely available on the Internet. I would have to look into the flake salt though, never heard of it. I see the value in just having the whole kit, but as I am partially equipped already, and a little strapped for the next few months with a burden of love, I would like to look into assembling one myself. Other thrifty-minded souls may find this useful too.

[Gauracandra]

Thanks Jayaradhe for putting up that link, I accidentally put elsewhere. If I could find a place to purchase vegetable rennet, then I might try the cheese making on my own. I can't imagine this kit will be that complicated to put together on our own, and it might even make the process funner. I just need to find the time to sit down and do all the needed research.

[JRdd]

Hi, I just did a bit of research. Had one site url copied to the clipboard but lost it a minute ago when my browser crashed, so I'll have to find that one later. But so far here is what I discovered:

 

5 tabs of veg. rennet (enough for 40 gal. milk) $5.95 (or 10 tabs for $8.95)

Dairy thermometer $6.95

8 oz flake salt $3.00

8 0z citric acid $6.00

 

These are available separately on the same site that sells the starter kit. But I don't think their prices are necessarily the most competitive;

 

On http://lerners.com/ which is also a winemaking site, I found good quality salt at $1.85 for 3 pounds (compare this to the above's $3.00 for 8 ounces).

They also have

1 oz veg rennet liquid $3.95

(1/4 t of this equals 1/2 tab)

They also have a draining bag for $3.25, and cheaper cheesecloths too.

They have a Mozarella Kit for $11.95. Doesn't make near as much as the original kit you listed, but I am inclined to think it might be good to maybe get this as well as a few more supplies for making hard cheeses too. I notice that you need mesophiliac starter for some hard cheeses, and this is available on most or all of the sites I have seen. But I do not know if it is worth it to invest in supplies separately, or get the hard cheese starter kit (at the New England cheese site) for #29.95.

This site looks fun, and has a lot of supplies and books.

 

One of these sites also has a few recipes for making the softer cheeses, and I am not sure if it is the above site (lerners) or the following:

 

http://www.cheesemaking.com/

has the mozarella kit too, and also supplies separately. I marked this site because I did find much of interest there, and links too.

 

Now http://fiascofarm.com/dairy/

has tons of stuff, supplies, books, equipment, even instructions on how to make your own cheese press and cheese molds if you don't want to buy theirs. It is extensive in its information, and browser-friendly. I will be returning to this site a lot, I think.

 

One cheesemaker recommended buying the salt from winemaking suppliers, which she or she said was best quality and better deals (see lerners.com). Another recommended a salt that can be found in most grocery stores:

Diamond Crystal salt (kosher)--coarse, in a red box.

 

I have met people who make their own cheese and this always seemed wonderful to me. I read on one site that homemade cheese is much superior in quality and taste to store bought. I like the idea that you can use organic milk too, if you want. Or even milk powder.

 

I'm gonna see what else I can find, another time. Will keep ya posted.

 

JR

[Gauracandra]

Wow, thanks Jayaradhe. You've done all the research. I'll check out those websites. I think you are right, it might be best to buy the individual items separately. If I did buy the kit, and wanted to pursue this more, then it would be best to know where to get the products by themselves. Thanks for all the research.

[Jahnava Nitai Das]

Does anyone know the storage life of vegetable renet? How long can it be kept?

 

Also does it need to be refrigerated?

[JRdd]

Wow, I was just looking for the answer to JNdas' question and found the best site I ahve seen on cheesemaking. The other sites are suppliers, but this one actually has incredible information, and recipes. What I like most about it though is the author's list of essentials, and how and what you can use and not invest a lot of money unnecessarily, if you get into home cheese making. Like he says the cheese molds are too big to fit in the refrigerator, and tells you how you can do a simple job of it yourself with a couple of jars or something. That kind of infomation, along with details like preferrable type of salt, but you can use table salt too, he says. A lot of useful info for the noncommercial cheesemaker.

 

Oh so the site is located at:

 

http://www.mindspring.com/~chevrefeuille/pg002.htm

 

And the answer to Jnanadas" question about the storage of rennet, is also on that site. The guy says that the liquid form of rennet must be kept refrigerated. But the tablets keep without refrigeration.

 

[JRdd]

I also read on at least two different sites that ordinary so-called cheesecloth, that I was saying I have and you can get anywhere, is not good enough for cheese (or at least the hard cheese), because of its coarse weave, and the weave being so far apart. One place calls the cheesemaking quality of cloth butter muslin.

[JRdd]

Here is the recipe for mozzarella from the site that shows how you don't need all that special stuff and can in fact do better for your self and the size of your fridge.

 

http://www.mindspring.com/~chevrefeuille/cheeserecipe.htm?

 

[Gauracandra]

I'm seriously going to try to gather up all the things I need to make cheese this weekend. It sounds like a lot of fun. Wish me luck /ubbthreads/images/icons/smile.gif

[JRdd]

Cool. Did you get a chance to read how you do your own presses, etc, with jars and whatever? (just so you don't try to go out and buy something specially)

[Gauracandra]

I haven't started as yet. I'm just going to sit down, and methodically search as best I can for all the ingredients. Once I have those I'll try to rig up a pressing mechanism. But I haven't done anything yet. Hopefully I'll find time. Usually the weekends I just do all of my chores I can't get done during the week. But I'll try to get all this stuff.

[Guest guest]

you don't need a pressing machine.

 

you can use the paneer method.

put a heavy weighted object over the bag of curd,with a drainage angle,for the whey to escape.

you can use a t-shirt type of cloth as a bag,it works fine.

[JRdd]

I figured it had to be simple like pressing curd, and the site also showed that it is. India has it more together as far as keeping things simple, no big complicated equipment and stuff.

 

Great knowing about the T-shirt cloth.

[Guest guest]

Was looking for rennet and ran across your thread and thought I'd share the following site that I came across--it is a homesteaders how to make cheese site--directions are complete with pictures. http://biology.clc.uc.edu/Fankhauser/Cheese/Cheese.html

 

Kira