The raw milk is cheaper but I have to age the cheese longer
How do you figure? Because you're unsure it's free of pathogens? Can't sell raw milk in WA unless it's tested. One of the best joys of making cheese for oneself is that you can enjoy extraordinary delicacies, like 3-4 week old raw milk bloomy rind and smear rind types. One of my favorites, for example, is to skim all the fat from my goat milk in the spring, and make a double creme bloomy rind that I eat in 4 weeks and infuse with petals from cherry blossoms. Thin, mixed-species yeast/geo/linens rind, or PLA if I'm lazy.
does raw milk make better cheese then pasteurized milk?
When it's high quality milk, yes.
Right now I just make cheese out of the cheap milk at the store ($2.50 gallon).
Which milk? Pooled Dairygold? Rebranded sunshine dairy shipped up here from Portland? One of the smaller producers? Because IMHO, the only passable cheeses you can make from store milk around here are blues, gouda types, and very low moisture types such as parmesan.
Do raw, it's how cheese was meant to be. And if you're paranoid about bacteria, then thermize it.
I am very much a beginner and like being able to see my mistakes quickly.
Having trouble following how you can tell when you made a mistake when the only way to tell most of the time is to age a cheese out. A cheese at 2 weeks is not the same cheese at 4 weeks is not the same cheese at 4 months, etc.