Beginner looking to know where to start

Started by Tara_H, December 04, 2023, 05:52:16 PM

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Tara_H

Hi all, I hope this is a reasonable place to post this, if not please let me know!

I'm very new to cheesemaking but I have plenty of experience with making wine and beer, baking bread, and making soap, so I'm hoping that even if the knowledge is not transferable, a lot of the basic skills will be...

I'm allergic to cow's milk and we generally buy Manchego for our household use, and this year we got a couple of sheep in the summer with a view to lambs (and hence milk) in the spring so that we can make our own cheese.  What we didn't know is that the ewe was already pregnant so about a month ago we had an unexpected lamb and a massive learning curve for milking etc (she also wouldn't accept him or let him feed so we had to milk her by hand to keep her supply up, and then bottle feed the lamb).

All that on a slight tangent, but it means I need to accelerate my journey for learning about cheese!  Given that Manchego-style cheese has a pretty long aging period, and on the understanding that I'm going to make mistakes while I'm learning the basics, I'm really looking for suggestions for cheeses I can make that:

  • are well suited to sheep's milk
  • will give me reasonably early feedback on whether I've done them right
  • will help me build the specific skills I'll need to ultimately make a Manchego-style cheese since that's the end goal

We're offering the lamb formula every 4 hours and he's taking a variable amount since the ewe is now ok with him hanging around but not reliably letting him feed.  Then we're milking her in the morning (the lamb is sleeping in an outbuilding since it's below freezing at night here) and in the evening if her udder seems like it's not empty.  So we're slowly building up a small supply.  I'm pasteurising it in the sous vide at 65 degrees C for 30 mins, then cooling fast in an ice bath and freezing.  I expect in the reasonably near future we'll have enough to be worth starting to attempt cheeses, and obviously quite a bit more once he's weaned - I think about 2 litres a day - so would like to have a little practice under my belt by that stage.

Any thoughts and suggestions gratefully received!

broombank

aren't you lucky to have a source of sheep milk. I am envious. In the summer I spent a month in Croatia sampling many many cheeses while my wife did ceramics. All the best were sheep's milk cheeses made primarily on the island of Pag using either pure sheep or sheep/goat or sheep/cow. Most of them were semi/hard so probably not the best if you want rapid feedback. We have recently acquired a sheep dairy just outside Wick in Caithness and they are producing a Manchego stye cheese and selling it. However the sheep are not lactating during the winter so no milk is available till March.
I suggest you need to try a soft sheep's cheese - you problem is going to be getting hold of a good recipe as 90% of people are using cows milk. If you can afford it I suggest that you buy Mastering Artisan Cheese making by Giaclinis Caldwell. This is a comprehensive textbook by a highly experienced west coast American. It is exhaustive   so will have sections on sheeps milk and how it behaves. You might augment this with a beginners guide - I could humbly suggest my own which you can buy on line at www.broombankpublishing.com It is called Mould to Mould. Although it is not geared to sheep milk it will ease you through the basic steps to equip you to make the best of Ms. Caldwell's rather more daunting treatise.  You can also look for soft cheese recipes online at www.cheesemaking.com  This is a New England company who are very generous with their resource. For supplies turn to Goat nutrition ( now called Cheese and Yogurt making - www.cheeseandyogurt.co.uk ) They are an excellent family firm who dispatch very quickly through the UK ( I am i Scotland and I usually get orders the following day from Kent)  Work out the basics before you launch yourself. Good luck and don't hesitate to post here - there are many experienced people who  are only too willing to offer their support

broombank

just thought of something else - there is a French website called Profession Fromager  who produce really clear guides in French and English. They have one on soft cheeses which I don't have but if its as good as their others it would be well worth getting. They are absolute models of clarity.   https://en.professionfromager.com   - look on the right hand side of the page

Aris

Caciotta is a great semi hard melting cheese for a beginner, it can be ready in 2 weeks to 2 months and it doesn't need a cheese press, it doesn't even need to be pressed at all. Once you gain some experience, you can modify it to have the texture of a Manchego by breaking the curds into the size of rice grains, cooking them longer and at higher temperature.
https://cheesemaking.com/products/caciotta-recipe

Tara_H

Thanks so much for the replies, broombank and aris! And sorry for the delay in acknowledging, I had to travel unexpectedly and I wasn't online properly.

This is fantastic information, and that caciotta recipe sounds like an ideal place to start.

I did some reading up about scaling recipes and from what I understand halving a recipe at least shouldn't cause issues; again I don't want to waste a lot of milk while I make my early mistakes! Any opinions on whether smaller quantities are possible?  Say half a gallon?  I do have some scales that are accurate to 100th of a gram so if it's just a case of measuring I should be fine, but are there other reasons that scaling down may cause problems?

Aris

Quote from: Tara_H on December 09, 2023, 02:04:41 PM
Thanks so much for the replies, broombank and aris! And sorry for the delay in acknowledging, I had to travel unexpectedly and I wasn't online properly.

This is fantastic information, and that caciotta recipe sounds like an ideal place to start.

I did some reading up about scaling recipes and from what I understand halving a recipe at least shouldn't cause issues; again I don't want to waste a lot of milk while I make my early mistakes! Any opinions on whether smaller quantities are possible?  Say half a gallon?  I do have some scales that are accurate to 100th of a gram so if it's just a case of measuring I should be fine, but are there other reasons that scaling down may cause problems?
Half gallon is doable, sheep's milk has significantly more milk solids than cow's milk. A half gallon of sheep's milk can yield 350-420 g of cheese, depending on the cheese type and moisture content. Lactic set cheese will yield the most cheese if made properly. Halving a recipe is fine but you should also be aware of the acid development or pH drop when making cheese. You will notice the curds/whey will go from sweet smelling/tasting to sour smelling/tasting during the make. You don't really need a pH meter or strip when tracking acidity/pH. You can use your senses and intuition. Below is a cheese pH guide from Jim Wallace of cheesemaking.com. For measuring rennet accurately, I find this video helpful > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vydpSWd3Fo&ab_channel=TheThingAboutCheese

mikekchar

You can scale it as much as you want.  The only real problem is in aging a very small cheese because it will dry out.  But that's not really a big problem for a caciotta which you won't be aging very long.  I just made a 2 liter, off the cuff cheese that's very similar to caciotta (skipped the stufatura and just let it acidify at room temp for a very long time) and it was great :-)

Tara_H

Quote from: Aris on December 10, 2023, 10:41:11 AM
...sheep's milk has significantly more milk solids than cow's milk.

I had read this, but not really appreciated it before!  I had my first mostly-successful attempt at the weekend, where the rennet actually worked and I got proper curds (previous attempts only resulted in ricotta which was tasty but not what I was hoping for, but now I have better milk so it's made all the difference) and I was amazed at the amount I got!

Ok, so I definitely made a few mistakes along the way, but I was trying a mozzarella recipe with the hopes of getting at least something I could put on pizza - trying not to set my sights too high - and at least I achieved that goal.

Things I know I did wrong:

  • I suspect the milk may have gotten too hot during pasteurising while I was refining the process; I now have that down so it shouldn't be an issue.
  • The milk had been frozen (from what I understand not great in itself) and probably also got too hot when I was thawing it out since I wasn't thinking it through and used a hot water bath to thaw it.
  • I put Calcium Chloride, in an excess of caution, and then read later that it shouldn't be used for mozzarella because it will make the curd too hard.
  • When I started stirring the curds after cutting, I used a slotted spoon with very large slots and they broke up a lot from being pushed through the holes.
  • I also probably cooked and stirred them too much at this stage.

Some or all of these factors combined to give tough, rubbery curds that made my teeth squeak.  Trying to do the 'stretch' in the hot water with a sample just made them much worse, and also kind of grainy.  I guess at this point I may have been able to put them in a mould (maybe under weight?) and make into a hard cheese but I was too tired by then to switch mental tracks.  (I was also having a weird thing where the curds I was trying to stretch just wouldn't get hot; it seemed no matter how much heat I applied, even in the microwave, they just absorbed it and cooled right back down in seconds... I was starting to imagine I'd invented some new heat-absorbing material that might be useful to NASA...)

So at that point I took the curds that didn't seem entirely inedible and put them in the fridge in a dish with no liquid.  They were starting to mat together and I figured I should be able to turn them into some kind of food once I was more rested.



I put the whey in the fridge too and called it a night, feeling pretty disheartened, but the next day after a good night's sleep I feel like I got things turned around quite well!  The clumpy curds grated up into something which definitely passed for pizza mozzarella (although lacking in depth of flavour, I guess due to no culture used; and stretchiness, but probably not the worst I've had)




I used the whey to make ricotta and - omg I don't know if it's because there were some natural cultures in the milk that developed overnight in the fridge but it is the tastiest ricotta I've ever tasted...


And as a side benefit I used the post-ricotta whey to make some spelt soda bread; normally the recipe calls for buttermilk which in my case means faffing around with soya milk and lemon juice, so I had a great reason to use up a couple of pints of spent whey to make 2 loaves of bread :)


So yeah, a huge amount of stuff, and all of that from less than 4 litres of milk!  From what I was reading I could also have skimmed the cream/fat off the whey before making the ricotta and saved it for making butter too - I'll definitely try that next time.

Quote from: Aris on December 10, 2023, 10:41:11 AM
You will notice the curds/whey will go from sweet smelling/tasting to sour smelling/tasting during the make. You don't really need a pH meter or strip when tracking acidity/pH.
I presume this is due to the culture used?  I haven't used any so far but I've just ordered "Allround thermophilic cheese starter culture - AT | for Italian style cheeses" and "Pressed cheese mesophilic starter culture - MSE | for Gouda and cheddar" from startercultures.eu - these are the ones they recommended for Caciotta and Manchego respectively.  It seems unexpectedly hard to buy them locally; as in I was able to find one place which sells one generic "cheese culture"...

Would I be right in thinking that once I have these starter cultures I can maintain the strains without having to continue purchasing them?  I did come across some instructions for cultivating your own thermophilic cultures from yoghurt but I figured I should probably get a sense of how they're supposed to behave before I start to branch out in that area.

It would be fantastic though not to need a pH metre.  I have some strips from soap making but they're very broad range (as it turns out too broad for soap also) so probably not accurate enough for the measurements I'm reading here.  I love the chart you've listed, thanks for that!  Although it does make me want to calibrate my tongue against a pH metre to see if they agree  ;D

Quote from: mikekchar on December 11, 2023, 01:34:18 AM
You can scale it as much as you want.  The only real problem is in aging a very small cheese because it will dry out.  But that's not really a big problem for a caciotta which you won't be aging very long.  I just made a 2 liter, off the cuff cheese that's very similar to caciotta (skipped the stufatura and just let it acidify at room temp for a very long time) and it was great :-)
Awesome!  Given that cheese moulds come in 250g size (at least that's the one I have!) I imagine that's a reasonable size?  Or would you say there's a larger size that would be a minimum for a cheese that's aged for longer (thinking about working my way up to the Manchego...).  I do have a 3d printer so I can feasibly make moulds of whatever size and shape I want up to about 23cm across  ;D

Aris

What recipe did you use to make Mozzarella? I suggest you try this recipe > https://cheesemaking.com/products/mozzarella-cheese-making-recipe-cultured. Don't try Quick mozzarella because it is prone to failure because an acid like Citric acid is used to drastically reduce the pH to stretching pH of 5.1-5.3 and that doesn't always work because milk varies in pH. Quick mozzarella lacks flavor anyway. You didn't use a starter culture when you made Mozzarella so there was no way for the cheese to acidify and the pH to drop to 5.1-5.3 in order to stretch. Even if you used raw milk, it will be very very slow to acidify and there is a chance your raw milk doesn't have the right microbes for successful fermentation. Yeah the cultures will consume lactose and produce lactic acid which will drop the pH of the milk, curd and whey. You can make mother culture/yogurt from the starter cultures you ordered to stretch them out. Add a tiny amount of your commercial starter culture in 500 ml to a liter of milk. If it is mesophilic, ferment at 80-90 f and 100-113 f for thermophilic. Once the milk has coagulated, it is ready to use. Freeze the mother culture/yogurt so it can last for a few months. It will weaken the longer it is frozen. Others put the mother culture in ice cube tray and freeze it. That way, it is portioned and easy to use. I use 1-2% weight of milk in mother culture (10-20 g per 1 liter of milk). Also check this thread about making mother cultures > https://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,5165.0.html I did eventually buy a food pH meter for confirmation and I was right so I never use it nowadays.

Tara_H

Quote from: Aris on December 11, 2023, 02:12:57 PM
What recipe did you use to make Mozzarella? I suggest you try this recipe > https://cheesemaking.com/products/mozzarella-cheese-making-recipe-cultured. Don't try Quick mozzarella because it is prone to failure because an acid like Citric acid is used to drastically reduce the pH to stretching pH of 5.1-5.3 and that doesn't always work because milk varies in pH. Quick mozzarella lacks flavor anyway. You didn't use a starter culture when you made Mozzarella so there was no way for the cheese to acidify and the pH to drop to 5.1-5.3 in order to stretch. Even if you used raw milk, it will be very very slow to acidify and there is a chance your raw milk doesn't have the right microbes for successful fermentation. Yeah the cultures will consume lactose and produce lactic acid which will drop the pH of the milk, curd and whey. You can make mother culture/yogurt from the starter cultures you ordered to stretch them out. Add a tiny amount of your commercial starter culture in 500 ml to a liter of milk. If it is mesophilic, ferment at 80-90 f and 100-113 f for thermophilic. Once the milk has coagulated, it is ready to use. Freeze the mother culture/yogurt so it can last for a few months. It will weaken the longer it is frozen. Others put the mother culture in ice cube tray and freeze it. That way, it is portioned and easy to use. I use 1-2% weight of milk in mother culture (10-20 g per 1 liter of milk). Also check this thread about making mother cultures > https://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,5165.0.html I did eventually buy a food pH meter for confirmation and I was right so I never use it nowadays.
Great info, thanks!

Yeah I was itching to get started but didn't have any culture available so I tried this recipe: https://cheesemaking.com/products/30-minute-mozzarella-recipe-no-microwave - I've since learned that there are a bunch of things in that process that are not ideal, and I found the link to the Serious Eats version on this forum while I was troubleshooting that gave me a lot of better info.  Really the major reason I tried Mozzarella apart from anything else is that because it's listed everywhere as great for beginners, and I've since learned that that's not true either!  Still it was a good learning experience and we got something (multiple things) to eat from it so overall no regrets :)

Hopefully the commercial starter culture will arrive soon since that should definitely bring things to the next level, and I'll be referring back to your post for how to make it stretch.  As soon as I have them I'm very tempted to go straight to the Caciotta recipe next, although I'm wondering if I should try to get a bit more experience before attempting one that needs to be aged (even if only a few weeks).

There's also the issue that my husband now wants us to make cream cheese for cheesecake, which is a whole other thing, it seems...

Aris

Cultured Mozzarella is challenging but you should still give it a try. It will definitely boost your confidence if you got it right and will help you understand the importance of acid development/pH in cheesemaking. It can also demoralize you if you keep failing. For me, Patience is very important when making Mozzarella because you wait for the right moment to stretch the curd. You should also be observant, smell and taste the curd from time to time. If it is starting to have a slightly sour smell/taste, take a small piece of curd and do a stretch test. You submerge a small piece of curd into almost boiling water and try to stretch it. If it stretch over a feet with little effort. You can now proceed to chop all of the curds into thin strips, pour enough 80-90 c water and form them into Mozzarella. If the test curd doesn't stretch, wait 30 minutes to an hour and try again. I only use water buffalo milk to make Mozzarella and the curds must be sour with a pH of 4.9-5.1 in order to stretch properly. You can make a Caciotta and eat it fresh. Or try these fresh cheese recipes > https://cheesemaking.com/products/halloumi-cheese-making-recipe  https://cheesemaking.com/products/imeruli-cheese-making-recipe  https://cheesemaking.com/products/primo-sale-recipe

broombank

its certainly a bit of a myth that Mozzarella is easy. I use brie/camembert for starter teaching purposes as it's easy to complete and send people home with a baby cheese to look after like a tamagotchi!  I suggest you look at the UK sit of cheese and yogurt making ( used to be called Goat nutrition ) www.cheeseandyogurt.co.uk   They are quick and exceptionally helpful. If you have specific questions Ben Dolby is an experienced cheesemaker.  I would also suggest getting a pack of ph 4-7 sticks. I agree with Aris that you can do it yourself but the sticks are a useful confirmation . Certainly if you are going to make hard cheeses having a meter is a good investment. Ph measures are logarithmic so very small differences really affect the finished result. It's good to see you working out solutions to your own problems. There is a mass of information to digest and it's easy to get overwhelmed.

Tara_H

Quote from: broombank on December 13, 2023, 12:20:11 AM
I use brie/camembert for starter teaching purposes as it's easy to complete and send people home with a baby cheese to look after like a tamagotchi!
Wow! I am fond of a good Camembert but I would have assumed that they were super advanced so I've barely looked at them so far. Just shows that what they say is true about when you assume  ::)

I did check out the site you linked, thanks! I'm still at the stage when I'm trying to just soak up all the info I can.  I'm certainly not retaining all of it, but it's getting filed away somewhere in my brain for next time around :)  also trying not to succumb to the temptation to buy all the gadgets, but I came across this and I've been wondering if it's worthwhile at all, any thoughts? If it's basically a toy/waste of plastic I won't bother but I'm not in the market yet for one that's €100 or more!  Digital Ph Meter, 0.00-14.00 https://amzn.eu/d/38ttbKN

(Oh and I meant to say earlier that I love the name of your book, very clever!)

Aris

Tara,
That pH meter is no good. Search for a food pH meter on amazon. The one I have is this > https://shorturl.at/gntEU It is reliable and cost only 46 usd. 

broombank

I totally agree with Aris - don't waste your money - my Ph meter is expensive but from a good company and highly reliable - they are after all complex scientific devices so not cheap. I really think some good Ph sticks ( about 20 euros for 100 ) will suffice until you get in deeper ( and I warn you you will ....)  The book title seems to elude a lot of people but I like it ! I would like to see you buy a copy as I think it would help you.

this is my meter

https://thermometer.co.uk/ph-meters-testers/1063-8000-ph-meter-with-interchangeable-electrode-5024368157270.html