Hello from PA

[r3tic]

Hello everyone...

A little background first.  I am a stay at home dad since my youngest was born about 2-1/2 years ago.  Since then, I have gotten back into gardening(something I did a lot of in grade school).  I also have started making pasta from scratch, using sourdough for nearly everything you can imagine and making yogurt and granola.  While at the library, I came across the book Making Your Own Cheese and Yogurt by Max Alth.  I checked it out to see if there were any ways I could improve you yogurt.   Needless to say that book got me thinking about making cheese.  I went to cheesemaking.com and ordered some rennet, a mesophilic starter and a new yogurt culture to try.  My library also has Cheese Making Made Easy by Ricki Carroll, which I will be picking up to read soon.

I plan on making a 30 minute mozz or maybe the lemon cheese recipe on this site as my first playing with curds experience.  I figure I have the bacterial experience from making yogurt and sourdough for the past couple of years.  From there I am thinking of doing either a Monterrey Jack or American before moving on to cheddar or something else a little more involved. 

If anyone has any suggestions, I gladly listen to them.  I'll most likely end up going overboard on cheese making, much like my other hobbies, and I'd like to get off on a good start.  I'm in the process of reading the forums here, but there is a lot of material to get through.

Dave

[Cheese Head]

Hello Dave, welcome!

There are some reviews of books in our Library, lots of people have trouble making moz, suggest read many of posts on it first, for your first fresh cheeses you'll need some molds, see the Equipment - Making Board, for more involved aged cheeses like Jack you will need a temp & humidity controlled space, often called a cheese cave, the search button works well for anything special, have fun!

[FarmerJd]

 Welcome to the forum!

[MarkShelton]

Welcome r3tic!
Mozzarella can be a tough cheese to make, even though it may seem simple. It's difficult to get the right acidification, and that will make or break the cheese. I'd suggest going with a lemon cheese or paneer to start. It's simple, quick, and you'll get to see what whey and curds look like and taste like (at least for a fresh cheese, which is a good start). Plus, you can start small, even a quart at a time.

You may want to try mozzarella anyways, and it's a good way to see a solid curd and seeing how the process of cutting and cooking the curd works, which is an important part of the process when making hard cheeses.

Most of all, have fun. Experiment. Ask any questions you may have, and show off your accomplishments

[r3tic]

Thanks for the replies.
I was leaning towards the lemon cheese as one of my firsts, so I guess it will be.  I will still be doing a mozzarella to see what happens.  I'll definitely post my results.

[DeejayDebi]

Welcome Dave. If you are planning on maing a cheese you might want to post a help thread first some of those books have typos that may wreck havac with your cheese making.