Hi from London, UK

[RobinsonN]

Hi from London, UK,

I'm new to cheese-making, and am keen to learn about the subject, and to hopefully make some good cheese.

So far, I have made ricotta, mozzarella, halloumi, and feta.  My cheese cave is now set-up (fridge with external thermostat), so I am able to begin aging cheese.  This weekend I plan to make a Caerphilly...

I have access (from a local farm shop) to a good raw goat's milk, and a pasteurized (very creamy) Jersey cow's milk, so if anybody has any suggestions for great cheeses to try, I'd be very pleased to hear... 

Cheers,
Neil

[tally]

Gouda is always a good one to start with. There are some excellent recipes here on the forum. My favorite is from djdebbie from about 2009. Fabulous! And always turns out well.

[tally]

Oops, sorry. That's Deejaydebi.

[John@PC]

... if anybody has any suggestions for great cheeses to try, I'd be very pleased to hear... 

Hi Neal and welcome.  I think there was a similar question a while ago on the forum about recommending cheese to make and I think the best answer was "what do you like?" of the commercial / artisan cheese you have tasted and prefer.  The other way to go is follow a progression from "easy" to harder cheeses, but difficulty is in the eyes of the cheese maker.  For instance stretched-curd cheeses like mozzarella are usually considered a easy cheese but it took me several tries to get it right .  Good luck.

[JeffHamm]

Welcome to the board Neil.

I think caerphilly is a good choice to start with.  It is quite tasty when cut into even at 3 or 4 weeks, so you can get feedback on how things are going really quickly and improve your technique.  There's at least 4 different protocols for caerphilly on the boards, and all are good. 

Other good cheeses that are ready fairly quickly (meaning 2 months or less) are butterkase and lancashire. 

Some of the bloomy cheeses, like brie and camembert are ready fairly quick too, and they are not too difficult but will require some attending to with respect to rind development.  Read a few makes on the boards and look for tips on the how tos.

Some of the washed rind cheeses are pretty straight forward, but again, it's the rind development and aging where the tricks and need to adjust procedure comes in. Still, they can be ready in 6 to 8 weeks, so you can get feedback on your technique reasonably quick.

For both bloomy rinds and washed rinds, one tip is to make sure you clean your ripening containers with boiling water and disinfectant before putting the cheese in.  Any mould from previous cheeses will contaiminate your new one (not needed if you're making another batch of the same, but you don't want blue mould on your brie or stinking bishop, for example).   

Anyway, once you're happy with how your caerphilly turns out, then lancashire, wensleydale, staffordshire, and dunlop are all good UK cheeses that can be ready in a couple months (2 to 4, though some of these will improve up to a year or more).   There's a good cheshire make on the boards that is excellent after 8 months (originally posted by fied from Glasgow). 

Gouda is popular (as mentioned above).  Montasio is another that is straight forward and good (though if you find one of my old makes, I highly recommend you leave our the lipase and use some of that goat's milk you have access to - say a 20/80 mix of goat/cow instead.  You could use that mix for "bitto", which I've made a couple times too.

Also, there are some great tips on alpine type cheeses to be found here as well. 

And since many of those are best after extended aging, make one or two, then make more caerphilly and the other quick to table cheeses to help wait it out for the longer stuff (i.e. if you make a traditional cheddar, there's no point in cutting into it when it's still mild - age it for at least a year, 1.5 if you can, and 2 if you want to punish yourself).

Anyway, take very detailed notes, refer to them whne you are going to make a cheese again, and post here with lots of photos.  Look forward to seeing your makes.

[RobinsonN]

Thank you for your very helpful responses...