Author Topic: Beginner Cheese Making Type Recommendations?  (Read 2431 times)

First Timer

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Beginner Cheese Making Type Recommendations?
« on: October 11, 2011, 06:31:50 PM »
Ok, so I posted before about 2 batches I tried to make of a blue cheese that, I thought failed.  I was wondering if anyone out there has a good beginner's recipe or can point me to one.  I guess it doesn't have to be blue cheese but I had originally thought that would be the easiest.  I'm stuck with store bought milk and Junket tablets.  I'd like to make a hard set cut-able curd cheese that's good for beginners.  Any help would be appreciated.  Thanks!

cheesequeen

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Re: Beginner Cheese Making Type Recommendations?
« Reply #1 on: October 11, 2011, 07:50:12 PM »
Hi
Check out my farmhouse cheddar # 1 blog and reveal day on this forum . My own experience in making my first pressed cheese. I just made Caciotta semi soft Italian cheese infused with saffron. Easy steps than the stirred curd method cheddar I made in the beginning. I will try Cambozola or Gorgonzola later when I get better in the simple ones first.
Happy Cheesemaking 8)

dthelmers

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Re: Beginner Cheese Making Type Recommendations?
« Reply #2 on: October 11, 2011, 08:04:39 PM »
Try Caerphilly. I use the recipe from 200 Easy Cheese Recipes by Debra Amrein-Boyes. It ripens quickly.
Here's advice on store bought milk that I posted elsewhere:
"...you can make eatable cheese from drinkable milk. I've been using store bought P/H since I started making cheese last September, about 40-45 cheeses so far. A half dozen of those were with real milk, and they were memorable. P/H milk is harder to work with, and can convince you that you don't want to make cheese; but if you persist you can gain the experience that only comes with the repetition of the process. My current practice is to use 1 gallon of raw Jersey milk to 3 gallons of a local dairy's P/H milk; this is strictly because money is quite short at present. It's making a tolerable good cheese. Use real milk at least once at first, so that you can experience what real curd feels like. Then make a bunch of quick ripening cheeses, like Caerphilly or Lancashire from the store bought milk, and make a lot of Welsh Rarebit and macaroni and cheese.
Here's what I do for P/H milk:
Adding calcium chloride in about the same amount as your rennet will give you a stronger curd. Heating the milk just a couple of degrees hotter initially when you add the rennet will help. Some brands of milk are handled more gently than others, and give a better curd, so try all your local brands. When you cut the curd, do the cross cuts first and let it rest a couple of minutes until whey starts coming out, then do your horizontal cuts. Work very gently. When first stirring, use the narrow handle of your ladle, and just gently nudge the curd until it starts to firm up. As the curd starts to shrink, it will firm up, and you can start using your ladle to lift the curd from the bottom to the top; as it firms and shrinks more, you can actually stir it back and forth. The biggest problem that I've found with cheap milk is that hte fat has been damaged enough that it easily forms short chain fatty acids (think Parmesan) that give the cheese a lot of sharpness. I go for cheeses that have a long pre-ripening time, where the extra time ripening with mesophilic  bacterias help to give the milk some of the character that it was lacking.
Making quick ripening cheeses let me see where I was going astray with handling the curd too roughly and letting the acidity get away from me."
I will also add this advice: order yourself some calf rennet and use your Junket tablets for Junket. I've had much better results with actual rennet, and it's well worth the cost.
I also started with one gallon batches, then switched to two gallons, then four. The larger the batch, the easier I found it to keep control over temperature and acidification, so the four gallon batches I do now are easier to make than the one gallon batches I started with.

Cheese Head

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Re: Beginner Cheese Making Type Recommendations?
« Reply #3 on: October 11, 2011, 10:20:11 PM »
Good points above, especially on also see Wiki: Recommendations For New Cheese Makers.

My vote is for Queso Fresco, simple, fast (no aging required), & flavourful!

Cloversmilker

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Re: Beginner Cheese Making Type Recommendations?
« Reply #4 on: October 12, 2011, 04:23:17 AM »
Gouda is also a good choice for beginning cheese makers. 

CowDung

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Re: Beginner Cheese Making Type Recommendations?
« Reply #5 on: October 12, 2011, 03:06:49 PM »
I started making cheese about a year ago.

I use store bought milk, but I use skim blended with heavy cream rather than whole milk. I usually use a gallon of skim and 0.5 to .75 pint of cream. I've made batches with and without CaCl2 and have never had issues with the coagulation.

I found that blue cheeses are easy to make as I didn't have to worry about pressing and such. I've made a couple of Camemberts as well, but the blues seem to turn out better for me. Even the 'bad' blues I've made were still pretty good to eat. I can't say the same for my Camembert failures...

An easy pressed cheese would be Caerphilly--you don't have to have really heavy weights for it (at least for a 1 gallon size batch). It also ripens rather quickly. I press mine in a plastic pitcher with drainage holes. I cut a disk from a plastic cutting board for the 'press' piece. The weights I have fit nicely inside the diameter of the pitcher, so it works out rather well.


dthelmers

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Re: Beginner Cheese Making Type Recommendations?
« Reply #6 on: October 12, 2011, 03:55:18 PM »
Cloversmilker's post reminded me that Gouda does pretty well without a lot of press weight, particularly if you press under whey first. Search the forum for "pressing under whey" for some good threads about getting a good knit. I didn't think to ask if you had a good cheese press, because if you don't cheddars can be problematic, but Gouda seems to knit well, especially when you press under whey.