Who loves cheese? Well I do, that is for sure, and I love making it and sharing it with family and friends.
Having produced cheese as a hobby now at least monthly if not weekly
for more than 3 years, I thought it would be a great time to share with you some tips
that I have learnt.
Tip #1 - Cleanliness
Firstly and most importantly is
cleanliness. The area that you intend on making your cheese, and your
tools that you make your cheese with, must be spotlessly clean and sterilised.
I cannot stress this enough. Some people use bleach to clean their
surfaces and utensils, but I prefer vinegar and bicarbonate soda, and to boil
all the utensils for 15 minutes. It doesn't take long, and this is one of the first things I teach everyone in my cheese making classes.
I spray all surfaces with white
vinegar including the utensils that I can't boil to sterilise and let them dry
naturally. This kills any wild mould spores that can inoculate your
cheese unintentionally. I even spray my hands with vinegar and give them
a good rub together every time I handle the cheese during the process to alleviate
this problem. I have not had a problem with bad mould to date.
Tip #2 - Preparation
Have everything all prepared and laid out before you
start. As I am waiting for the 15-20 minutes for the pot, stainless
steel utensils and cheese cloths to sterilise, I get a clean tea towel and lay
it on the kitchen bench next to the stove top, ready to place all the tools
on. I select the recipe well in advance, and get out all the necessary
ingredients and put them on the side ready to go. Cheese making requires
un-chlorinated water for diluting some ingredients, so I have to pre-boil some
rain water from my tank and let it cool to room temperature. You could
use bottled water, but I do not due to environmental reasons. I pre mix
the diluted calcium chloride with this water, and do the same with the
rennet. Something I learnt in the Boy Scouts that I shall never forget
and that is the Scouts motto, "Be Prepared".
Tip #3 - Plan Your Time.
Although the process of cheese making is not particularly
difficult, it can be time consuming. Ensure you take into account all
factors involved in culturing the milk, renneting, stirring, milling, and
pressing. If making a simple hard cheese, allow at least 4-5 hours to
entirely finish the process. I make one cheese, Wensleydale, that take
over 9 hours from start to the final pressing! Mind you the final product
is well worth the effort.
Tip #4 - Start Simply
Start off with a simple cheese to build your confidence.
Try a soft cheese like yoghurt cheese (or Labneh) which is basically putting 1 kg (2 lbs) of natural yoghurt into a
cheesecloth and draining for a few hours, then gather into a ball and suspend
over a large pot overnight in the fridge. Simple, yet tasty and you can
mix in different flavours, either savoury or sweet to liven it up as a dip.
Ricotta is another easy cheese to
make. Take 4 litres of milk, bring to about 93C (200F) and add a quarter
of a cup (67ml) of white vinegar or lemon juice and stir. You will
see the milk separate into curds and whey. Ladle into cheesecloth lined
colander to drain. When cool to touch, tie the corners of the cloth into
a ball and wrap the ends around a large wooden spoon and drain over a large
pot. After a few hours of draining you can add salt to taste and it will
keep for about 5 days in the fridge in an airtight container. Great for
lasagne and any other dish that requires a large amount of ricotta. As I
said, simple successes give you the confidence to try something a little harder
next time.
Tip #5 - Attend A Cheese Making Course
If you find that you enjoy making simple and basic
cheeses, see if you can find a local cheese making course that is held
nearby. The knowledge that you will learn will take you to the next
level, and as I found, the interaction with other amateur cheese makers is
priceless. Some of the courses can be expensive, but I found a relatively
cheap one that was definitely worth the money. I have attended two of
these courses (basic and mould) at our local community centre. Have a
look around your local area. You might just get a surprise.
Tip #6 - Try Something Harder
When taking the next step and you have the urge to make an
intermediate skill level cheese, like cheddar, feta, parmesan, edam or the
like, try and make one like feta or Caerphilly that only take a short time to
ripen so that you can taste your handy work quickly. By making these
quick to ripen cheeses once a month, you will always have some type of cheese
at hand at home and never be tempted to by that processed store bought rubbish
that some supermarkets try and pass off as cheese!
Tip #7 - Don't Be Afraid To Experiment
Once you get the basics right fairly consistently, don't
be afraid to experiment a little by adding other flavours to your cheeses
during pressing or milling. I add a layer of home grown sage leaves into
the middle of my Wensleydale and it imparts a fantastic flavour. I add
home grown dried Birdseye chilli to my Monterey Jack to produce a variety
called Pepper Jack. I have even added green peppercorns to my Farmhouse cheddar. It is all about the cheese and the
final flavour.
Tip #8 - Have Patience.
A good cheese, like a good wine,
needs to ripen for a specific period of time and get better with age. Try
and resist temptation by eating your cheese earlier than recommended. All
hard cheeses take time to mature to the right taste. You would be amazed
by the difference a week or month between tastings. Depending on the
cheese, if tasted early it will be very mild, but if left for longer the flavour
gets stronger over time. I will give you an example. I made some
Camembert, tried it at 3 weeks and it was fantastic. Left one for 4
weeks, and it was so strong it was overpowering but out of this world.
Another example, my first Caerphilly cheese I sampled at 15 days, when it was
supposed to ripen to 28 days. It was nice, but when we tried it at 28
days, it was fantastic. I don't dare try my Parmesan until at least
12 months!Tip #9 - Invest In Good Equipment
If you find that cheese making is the hobby
for you, invest in a few good books, a decent press, and if you don't
have a cellar that maintains a constant temperature between 10-15 C, then you
will need to invest in a wine fridge that has the same temperature range.
After I decided that cheese making was going to be a long term hobby, then I
took this step and invested in such a fridge and it has become my "cheese
cave". The summers can be pretty gruesome where I live, so it was a
need more than a want if I was to continue to make cheese during this hot
season. I picked it up relatively cheaply, and it has served me well so
far. I can now make un-waxed cheeses as well as mould type cheeses (blue vein,
brie, camembert) because I can keep the temperature constant.Tip #10 - Share Your Success.
Don't forget to have fun and share the final
product. I usually make my cheese on a Friday night, with a few glasses
of wine to relax after a tough week at the office. I find it very
therapeutic. I also enjoy breaking out a small cheese platter when
friends drop by whereby sharing all the different tastes. Most say I
should sell it at a local farmers market, but I think it would spoil the fun of
the hobby. Some of my friends have never heard of most of the cheese
types that I make, because the main cheese consumed in Australia is cheddar or
processed cheese slices. I love the variety that home make cheese making
gives you.
Summary
Cheese making is great fun, so give it a go, and remember the most important rule. Don't cry over spilt milk :-).
