As you know… my style of cooking in general is “Measure with your heart.” Cheesemaking has come a long way in terms of there now being a standard process to provide consistent results, but there is still room in cheesemaking to measure with your heart!

The first cheeses were discovered because some traveler was carrying his lunch of fresh milk in an animal skin bag. In my head I imagine this traveler with animal skin clothes, riding on a camel, somewhere hot. (Hot because cheddars culture at approximately 90 degrees). When he stopped for lunch, he discovered that his delicious fresh milk was chunky… I’m betting he didn’t drink it. Or maybe he was hungry and rolled the dice. I don’t know. The point is, sometimes there are very delicious accidents. The milk cultured because the inside of that animal skin had rennet in it. When you mix fresh milk, rennet, and either a thermophilic or mesophilic starter culture, you get delicious magic.

Supplies

• The freshest milk you can buy. (I prefer raw from local dairies whenever possible but have been known to buy whole milk from the grocery store as well.) Just don’t buy super-pasteurized or it won’t work out well.
• Rennet (I get this delivered from Amazon. Bonus points if you can find a local cheese shop to support.)
• Starter Culture. It will differ based on the cheese you want to make, but for a general Cheddar, get a Mesophilic Starter Like This One.
• Big metal pot. I use a Pasta Strainer pot like this one. The strainer portion is great for putting the curds in to drain right back into the pot during one of the steps.
• A long knife to cut the curds. It needs to be long enough to reach top to bottom in your pan for as much milk as you’re going to put in the pot. (Did that make sense? Just get a long one. Bread or carving knives work great.)
• Cheese press – This one is important to get right. If your press is too small you’ll only be able to handle a gallon of milk at a time and end up with a bunch of 1 lb wheels. That’s not exactly a bad thing but it takes awhile to make cheese, but it takes the same amount of time to make 1 lb as it does to make 5… so in this case as big as you can handle is good. I got this press as a starter kit with cheesecloth and I wish I would have gone bigger. I’ll be upgrading my size very soon.
• Dairy thermometer (like the one your barista uses at your favorite coffee shop)

OK – so that’s the basic supplies. You need milk, a pan to put it in, a way to take the temperature and cut it, something to press it into to hold it’s shape.

The hands on portion of cheesemaking is very little. It’s a lot of “hurry and wait” steps. You heat up your milk, add the rennet, wait, then add your mesophilic culture and wait. Then cut the curds and wait, Then stir and wait and stir and wait and stir. Then you drain the curds and wait. Then press the curds and wait. See what I mean? A lot of waiting. You can totally fit this in if you’re planning on being in the kitchen during the day doing other things.

I was a little stressed at all the instructions in the book I bought with cheesemaking recipes. But I’ve realized that they’re more like guidelines. If you don’t keep your cheese at exactly 90 degrees, and it falls below… you’ll still end up with cheese, and it’s not even going to suck. So just measure with your heart and keep working through the steps. You’ll end up with cheese, I promise!

Oh, do you want to check out the best cheesemaking recipe book I’ve seen yet? It’s got EVERYTHING in it. Just CLICK HERE. My favorite like I’ve said is the Farmhouse Cheddar.