Cheese vs Wine vs Beer Making

[umgowa]

I debated whether to make cheese, wine, or beer . . . and after reading some books I have decided to make cheese because it appears to me that of the three areas, cheese-making involves a wider margin of error.  Yes, there are technical hoops to jump through in cheese-making, but those hoops are not as narrow and demanding as with wine and beer-making.  It's not as difficult to come up with an edible final cheese product as it is a good wine or beer product.   I would ask any of you cheese-making experts here if that conclusion is correct.   Thanks.

[Cheese Head]

Hi ungowa, welcome.

Good question, while I used to make beer and wine with my Dad when young, I'm no expert. I've made a lot of poor cheese, but I've also drunk a lot of rough beer and wine , however I think you are right. Except for fresh cheeses, all three take maturing time to tell. The bad news is that I think per equivalent volume (1 kg cheese = 6 botles wine?), cheese takes more care and attention, the good news is that with cheese, when you get poor results, it is with smaller batches than typical wine or beer is made in.

Have fun!

[wharris]

I would argue that both wine making and cheese making are both exercises in delayed gratification. 

But what a great question. The discussion of the relative margins of error could be a discussion that never ends...

I would start this way;  When starting with raw materials, one cannot help but turn grape juice into wine,  (Wine just kinda happens)  while milk  tends  to rot  rather than go to cheese.

But if you divide both activities up into production, and aging the discussion gets more interesting.
With cheese making, the production of a good cheese depends on the execution of a good plan, good timing and accurate understanding of what your’re trying to accomplish.  In many cases the cheese being made can be very different if even one step is varied by a small amount of time.  In any case, curd production takes place in the span of 8ish hours and moulding takes place in another 24 hours. After that, all your measurements, plans and decisions are kinda set, and what is left is affinage

Wine on the other hand takes 8-14 days of production prior to the onset of the aging/maturation phase. Decisions during this timeframe do not have to be made as quickly, and there is time to contemplate your measurements, and associated process adjustments. While the principle of managing the subtleties exist for both cheese making and wine making, I would argue that winemaking gives you time to contemplate those decisions.
Both winemaking and cheese making can be as technical as you want it to be. (There is something to be said for topics this important to man, that have been studied for 5000 years….)

But I liken winemaking to bumper bowling, in that my job is to just keep the wine in play.  A tiny nudge here and there and the wine will continue to mature on its own.

Cheese on the other hand, gets right up in your face, and if you do not give it all your attention up front, you will be tossing that batch.

My conclusion?  I have no solid conclusion. I do both.

 

[umgowa]

How about this as a comparison then . . .with cheese-making the entry bar is significantly lower because:  a) the raw material (milk and cream) is far more readily available than any kind of cabernet sauvignon. or merlot, grape mash.  And b)  the equipment needed to make the final product (a cheese press) is easier and cheaper to make or obtain than all the exotic equipment needed for wine and beer making.

[MrsKK]

I have made wine off and on ever since I was 15 years old and I have never purchased any equipment other than tubing for siphoning, so I would have to argue that winemaking is by far the less expensive venture.  I use baker's yeast and grapes that grow wild (or raspberries and rhubarb that were planted) on our property and come up with some very nice wines.  The few that I haven't liked for drinking, such as the pear wine I made one year, are very acceptable for cooking with.

Milk is available year-round, except for when my cow is dried off for her next calving.  Milk is also more plentiful so I don't regret mistakes with cheese as I would with winemaking, but I have only thrown 2-3 cheeses to the chickens and pigs as complete failures.  I have only been cheesemaking for just over 2 years now and have made many many more batches of cheese than I have wine.  I also started out at the low end of purchases with cheesemaking, limiting myself to buying cultures and rennet, while using household items for my mold and press, as I wasn't sure it was something that would hold my interest and I didn't want to make a huge investment.

I don't claim to be an expert in either one, but I very much enjoy both.  I don't think the one excludes the other.

[Cheese Head]

Team, it seems like the question is also around what type of wine or beer or cheese:

• Wine or beer from a kit needs less kit and steps.
• Light cream cheese (American style Neufchatel) needs just milk, buttermilk and a cheesecloth.

All three can as Wayne says be taken to extremes, huge range of wines, beers and cheeses .

[MarkShelton]

Actually, I think I've spent more on cheese the last few months than I ever have on wine! I have been making wine since before I could legally drink it.
When I started making cheese a few months ago, it was because I wanted a hobby that was a little "quicker" as the turnaround for wine can be up to 18 months from start to finish. Little did I know that cheese wasn't too far off taking anywhere from 3-24 months to age. But it is much more involved than, say, waiting 3 months between rackings for wine. Plus I can make a cheese in any day or weekend, instead of waiting until fall for the next grape harvest. I made beer once, but it didn't really thrill me the way wine did (though I'm contemplating giving it another go). Cheese is giving me the same kind of thrill 

[DeejayDebi]

It all boils down to how anal you become with a hobby. I starting brewing beer and statrted with a kit I think cost about $10 - within month I was buying kegs, CO2 bottles, Larger fermenting vessals etc. Why bcuase that was only a few years ago and I found internet sources for all kinds of crap and other brewwers that recommended this and that.

With my cheese for almost 30 years (until I came here -  ) I was happy with a bunch of plastic tubes, baskets and PVC pipes for moulds, and yogurt and buttermilk for starters. Why? Because until about a year ago I never knew anyone else that made cheese and only knew about the things written in books written in the early 70's and they were few and far between. Then I found Wayne with these pretty kadova moulds and now they are multipling like rabbits!

I think beer is an easier and can be cheaper hobby. Things like bottles and sometimes kegs can be had for free, you can grow your own hops, 50 pounds of basic malt grains cost less than 50 pounds of raw milk unless you have your own cow, goat or sheep.

Wine I have no experiance with.

Not as many people into cheese and I have never found anything free yet but very very small changes make a HUGE difference. A few degrees in temperature, a few minutes in cooking, healing even draining can totally change the outcome. I enjoy the challenge of cheese more because it is more difficult to master and waiting for the cheese to age, washing and caring for the cheeses and watching the changes can be very exciting. Then that day months or years down the road when you finally break into that golden pate and taste it ...  Mmmmmmm!

[umgowa]

Well, I'll let you know in a year . . . after I've actually made some cheese . . But I can tell you now that after making wine and beer and from what I've read about cheese-making, I am totally convinced that my hypothosis is accurate.  I'm willing to be proven wrong and I'll admit it if I am.   The arguments that cheese-making is just as anal, detailed and has just as high an entry threshold as wine and beer making just don't ring true to me.  The idea that I could possibly grow my own hops is a pipe dream.  I am in the Kroger supermarket every day . . and picking up some extra buttermilk, milk, or yogurt is very easy.  Some rennet, a bit of coloring, a simple press . .. it all seems so much simpler than the tortured, laborious, anal, and detailed technical hoops I had to jump through when making wine and beer.   I'll let you know If I prove myself wrong.

[wharris]

Then again,
I've seen birds, intoxicated from eating the berries from a vine that have fermented into wine, all the while still in the berry.

Wine just kinda happens.

[umgowa]

Nothing you'd want to drink.

[wharris]

I would completely agree. 
But in my view, most wine is wine you really would not want to drink.  Good grapes made poorly, can be bad, conversely bad ingrediants made well can also be bad.     I mean really, wine from Dandelions?  Wine from pine nuts?  Both are not only doable, but people really actually make it.  I've had it, and to me, its horrific. 

But cheese can be the same way. I have tossed more cheese than I care to admit to.  And this is the stuff that I really tried to do right.  (not some wierd experiment such as with muskrat milk)

So, I am split right down the middle on this.

On one had, grape juice will almost always pass through wine country its way to vinegar town.  But I'm not sure that milk wants to ever really get to cheese-berg on its way to spoilville.

IMHO, The redeeming quality of milk is that the tear-down and reset is soooo much easier. If you blow a batch, you can merely toss it, and get more milk the next day. 

With good grape wine, the tear-down and reset takes a year (or 6 months if you can get grapes from the other side of the equator.)

BTW, this is a great thread.

[mtncheesemaker]

My $.02:
I've been making wine since '02, some years more than others, depending on the grape crop. I made some cheeses off and on for a few years but really got into it last spring. (Big thanks to the info on this forum.)
I've had way more failures with cheeses (even though I've eaten most of them anyway) than with wine.
I like the wine-making as it's a lot of work for a few weeks, but after that it just needs a little watching for several months. The cheese-making is a lot more stressful to me, but more rewarding as it's such a versatile food. (Don't really drink wine with breakfast!)
As long as I have access to good quality grapes and milk, I plan to keep making both. In my mind, they're two different activities, both very rewarding.
Pam

[Dean]

I've been making wine and beer on my own and with the family since I can remember.  It was probably early 80s when the family really started to ramp up wine production to the tune of 200 to 300 gallons per year, of all types of wine.  After I turned 18 and moved out of home, I sort of left that practice behind, but still helped at certain times during the year to get some wine.  About 10 years ago, I started on my own production of wine and beer.  I live on the west coast, so sourcing materials has never really been hard for me, as well as enjoying some country wines made from other fruit too, as well as meads!  I love a good mead.

I collect Bordeaux and frequent purchase futures.  I've taken many wine courses through continuing education, and am on my way to becoming a fully certified sommelier.  In short, I love wine and the culture it has developed.

About 6 years ago, I started to make beer.  Growing up of European descent with family on a farm in the Prairies of Canada, we always made what we wanted/needed.  My family used to distill their own alcohol years ago, and beer is not far off of a typical grain mash for making moonshine.  Since my personality is such that I jump into things with both feet, my first beer was a partial extract beer.  After that, I quickly went to full grain beers.  Beer is far more tricky than wine.  A lot more can go wrong with it, due to higher PH levels that make it the perfect breeding ground for spoilage organisms.

Cheese has been my next adventure, and sadly, time to spend on making it has not come as freely as I would like.  However, I can tell you, that in terms of steps and "fussiness", cheese is the most demanding.  You can go from one PH marker to past what it should be in a matter of minutes!  Wine and beer are not that precise.  Cheese takes a lot of work over a short period of time (minutes to hours).  Beer takes a lot of work over the course of a day, and wine takes a lot of work over the course of a month to years.  With wine and beer, you can usually save them if something goes wrong and fix flaws.  With cheese, you usually cannot save it, and just have to start again.

But honestly, all things fermented are fun!  Personally, I think wine is the easiest.  It's the hobby for procrastinators, because putting things off, usually helps wine.  Too many new wine makers fuss over things they don't need to fuss over.  Just let it be, and it will become wine.  Cheese is the most demanding in terms of precise work and time to do things in.  Both wine and cheese need to be aged to get good as well (usually, except for fresh cheeses).  Beer is almost instant gratification, as it can be ready in just a few weeks to enjoy.  Cheese goes well with both wine and beer, so why not make all 3?

[MarkShelton]

All things fermented ARE fun! I couldn't agree more!