John,
What a long and very well detailed response that answered a great many of my questions. You don’t realize how much I appreciate and learned from your long response. The links were great!
Now what I have to do is continue to read through each of the links and spend a few hours each day here on the board reading and learning. Let me address a few of the points you mentioned.
Yes the cheese that we currently make “Granny” has been making for decades and it was passed down to her as well. The customers are accustomed to it so we will always keep making it. I personally think it needs to be refined better IMHO as to add a better flavor or some optional textures as I find it very bland and lactic so this is the first step (or cheese) I will be working on. I like the idea of adding nuts of dried fruit to the cheese, as well as the various types of cheeses that can be made.
I know that some cheeses have to be aged for a period of time while others cheese age for years at a time. What I am interested in doing is finding a few different types of cheeses, making them and perfecting them and then selling them on a regular basis as a local brand name cheese.
As I mentioned we own a small grocery store so our idea is to make cheeses to sell in our store and eventually we will have several people working for us in our cheese making business. This is why I really want to learn a few specific types of cheeses to make and get them down so we can make a regular and consistent cheese. Now the hard part is determining what types to make. I have to make at least two soft types of cheese and I want to make at least two hard types. I think four cheeses will keep me busy for a while.
We will also be building a new kitchen specifically designed for cheese making and will have purposely be building it to operate like a turn of the century kitchen. Wood burning stove, hand operated mill, etc. The reason for this is we want the kitchen to be operational without electricity or modern appliances because at times we don’t have electricity like half the day yesterday.
If anyone has any suggestions or ideas on the kitchen please let me know.
Regarding the molds and other thing posted I will read up on them before I comment so that I won’t look so uneducated.
See you all soon, I’ve got a of of reading to do today!
