Hello from Portland, OR

[headcheese]

Really glad I found you all!  I'm an absolute beginner with a passion for all things cheesy.  I've had pretty good luck with some fresh varieties, 30 min mozz, fromage blanc and cream cheese.  I finally bought some molds and put together a press.  I had one of the barbell weights slide off and dent the stainless kitchen sink, oops.  I've got two farmhouse cheddars in my unheated basement (apox 58 Fahrenheit). Come warmer weather I'll need to set up a cave and I'm scanning Craigslist daily for an old freezer.

When the raw goat's milk is available in March I'll be working with that as much as I can.  I haven't found sheep's milk for feta yet but I will keep looking.  I'm going to have a lot of dumb questions so please bear with me. Thanks, Michael H.

[Cheese Head]

Hi Michael & welcome!

On cheese cave, there's a couple of Wiki Articles including one on Example Cheese Caves. In that article you can see that chest freezers are no good (my and member Daggerdoggie's experience), and others have had problems with vertical freezers where condensation drips on cheeses. It's worth having a good read of the Cheese Cave Board before you plunk down some cash.

On feta, if you use goat's milk then you get the natural feta piquant taste, but if you use cow's or sheep's milk then you need to add Lipase.

[headcheese]

Thank you for the tips John.  I had assumed since my favorite commercial feta seem to be sheep's milk, that's  where I should go.  But I'll try the goat milk first.

[Cheese Head]

Hope you have a source of goat's milk, I can only get store bought goat's milk which is ultra pasteurized and thus very tough to rennet coagulate.

Most people here make cow's milk feta and add lipase, have fun!