Hello, all. My name is Michael Richards. I'm not the guy from seinfeld, though in high school everyone called me Kramer. I live in Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA. I'm a mechanical engineer and am currently teaching college courses. I became interested in cheese making 7 years ago, and made a couple then, but didn't have the resources to get very involved with it. I put my stuff up and forgot about it.
During the past year I became very interested in homesteading skills, which led me to pull out my copy of home cheese making. Over the past couple of months I've become more and more involved in cheesemaking. I turned the space under my stairs in the basement into a cheese cave--tricking a window A/C unit to pulling down below the 64 F set point (the top of the room stays between 46 and 54 F, not terribly tight, but I've got a number of water containers in there that act as thermal mass and maintain a more constant temperature close to 50 F). I've made a number of different cheeses, though I haven't been really happy with any of them. That dissatisfaction has led me to do more research. I recently finished the joy of cheesemaking (with which I was disappointed) and American Farmstead Cheese (which was exactly what I was looking for). I built a compression-spring press, and recently bought a good pH meter. I'm looking into making a cheese harp soon (after I pay myself back for the pH meter...).
My current plan is do trial and error with a single type of cheese until I am happy with it (a suggestion from Linuxboy--thanks!). I'm thinking about gouda. Anyone have thoughts on that choice?
This site has been a great source of information for me. I appreciate all of you who post regularly and answer people's questions.
Long intro. Thanks for reading!
Mike
Welcome, Mike. A tomme or gouda (really a sort of washed curd tomme) are great starter cheeses. :)
Greetings from the neighborhood of Gouda, The Netherlands. Of course it's a good choise to start with Gouda :D
During the build up of experience you can use a variety of herbs in your Gouda, thus making "different" cheeses.
Welcome to the forum, Mike.
I'd second linuxboy's suggestion for a Tomme. It's a very forgiving yet versatile cheese. You might check out linuxboy's guide (http://www.wacheese.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=49:basic-tomme-howto&catid=43:moderate-cook-temp&Itemid=66).
I've had some success with Tommes and have one in progress (https://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,9807.0.html) as I type.
Good luck.
-Boofer-
Thanks for the warm welcomes. I've just tried a gouda. I'll open a new topic and post my experience with it.