Hello folks!
Glad to have my account approved and start getting involved here.
So far I've made a mall handful of cheeses and related things: yogurt, ricotta salata, mozzarella, white cheddar, yellow cheddar with garlic and jalapenos, gouda with fenugreek seeds, and most recently (yesterday!) some pepperjack with tricolor peppercorns and chilies de arbol.
I've assembled a tiny cheese cave from an old college beer fridge, temperate control device, and am controlling humidity with salt and water cups.
I bought a Dutch style cheese press, another type that is like a vice to press the cheese, along with some old dumbbell weights.
I also have just started reading, "Mastering Artisan Cheesemaking" by Gianaclis Caldwell. This is my first cheese book so far.
Other similar interests are gardening, heirloom vegetables, wild plants, wine making, beer making, bread making, and sometimes after drinking some homebrew I start to think I'm ok at playing guitar too.
I definitely have lots of questions and look forward to absorbing as much knowledge as I can!
Hi! Nice to meet you :-)
I'm relatively new to making cheese, too. We just cut into our first attempt at hard cheese today after aging 14 weeks, so that was very exciting! You'll love it here. People are really helpful and generous with their time.
Quote from: NewbieInNewHampshire on February 05, 2023, 09:12:24 PM
Hi! Nice to meet you :-)
I'm relatively new to making cheese, too. We just cut into our first attempt at hard cheese today after aging 14 weeks, so that was very exciting! You'll love it here. People are really helpful and generous with their time.
That's exciting! What type of hard cheese did you make?
I'm still waiting on all my cheese to age. The earliest I can try one will coincidentally be on Valentine's Day, which is when my first project, the white cheddar, is supposed to be ready to try. I've got no dates lined up for VD so I'll take a date with a wheel of cheese instead!
Thanks for the kind welcome :)
It was a chocolate cheese recipe I found in New England Cheesemaking Supply's blog here: https://blog.cheesemaking.com/chocolate-cheese/
The photo hosting function doesn't work here, so people have recommended using Imgur. Here are links to photos of the chocolate cheese:
Today (14 weeks) https://imgur.com/a/f32ctr5
In the aging cave at 9 weeks https://imgur.com/a/pRrRhTw
Quote from: NewbieInNewHampshire on February 05, 2023, 09:43:15 PM
It was a chocolate cheese recipe I found in New England Cheesemaking Supply's blog here: https://blog.cheesemaking.com/chocolate-cheese/
The photo hosting function doesn't work here, so people have recommended using Imgur. Here are links to photos of the chocolate cheese:
Today (14 weeks) https://imgur.com/a/f32ctr5
In the aging cave at 9 weeks https://imgur.com/a/pRrRhTw
That looks amazing!!! I would be so torn on showing it to my family and friends or being a total Gollum and just hide in my cheese cave and calling it my precious lol I am definitely checking that recipe out...It's funny how the world works sometimes...I was literally just this afternoon wondering if there was such a thing as chocolate cheese! No kidding!
Thanks for the imgur tip! Maybe I can ask you another question...how do you update the number of cheeses on our member profiles? So far I haven't figured that out. Is it based off of posts we make showing our cheese projects? Or just a number field we have to update on our own somewhere? Thanks for any info, I think I saw you have 3 cheese accomplished!
I'm not entirely sure, but my assumption has always been that it depends on the number of posts. I could be totally wrong, though!
It's not the actual number of cheeses you have. It's just a fun description for the number of "thumbs up" you have received. I just gave you one :-) When we do that we usually say "A Cheese For You", normally abbreviated "AC4U".
Have fun making cheese!
Quote from: mikekchar on February 06, 2023, 12:43:58 AM
It's not the actual number of cheeses you have. It's just a fun description for the number of "thumbs up" you have received. I just gave you one :-) When we do that we usually say "A Cheese For You", normally abbreviated "AC4U".
Have fun making cheese!
Ahhh! Thanks for that! :)