Little Green Cheese

Cheese making at home with Gavin Webber the Cheeseman

Difficulty Heating Milk for Cheesemaking?

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Previously I’ve used a double boiler method for heating milk during the cheese-making process. It was hard work maintaining the correct temperature and there was always some drift up or down the scale which is not ideal. Additionally, it does not induce the state of calmness that one needs to maintain during a session.

Although I’ve been making cheese at home since 2009, I cannot honestly say that I’d perfected a method of heating milk during cheese-making and keeping it at a constant temperature during the entire process using a double boiler until now. Well, now I believe I’ve cracked the code. I use a precision cooker!

Precision Cooker is a Useful Tool!

I recently discovered an easy method of heating the milk using my kitchen sink and a precision cooker (aka Sous Vide cooker). I was so excited that I made a video about the entire process. https://youtu.be/uDCTTJjVjyQ

Perfect, maybe?

Now, is it perfect? Well, as perfect as it can be for the home cheesemaker without costing the earth. I tend to set the temperature one or two degrees celsius higher than required. This is due to the heat loss from the metal sink and convection lag between the water bath and the milk. It’s not an issue and is easy to account for during the process.

Also, the divider between the two sinks is just narrow enough to screw the precision cooker to without it moving. Our sink only holds my 15 Litre / 4 gallons stockpot with enough water flow to surround it. If I need to make a larger batch of cheese, I would get a bigger pot and use a large plastic tub to hold the water. To aid in water flow underneath, I sit the pot on a trivet.

Recommendations

Originally I purchased an Anova brand precision cooker. It worked okay but emitted a high-pitched whine that was irritating beyond words. It also came across in the audio of my videos, so it was a show stopper for me and I had to stop using it.

However, I then found the Inkbird ISV-200W Wi-Fi Precision Cooker. No noise and about 2 times cheaper than the Anova precision cooker. It has all the same features and works as expected without any fuss. I also control mine via the Android/iOS app that you can download for free.

It can be set to Celcius or Fahrenheit and you can get the Australian/New Zealand ISV-200W version here or the US/Canada ISV-200W version here.

I’ve used mine for about two years now without issues and highly recommend it to anyone wanting to take home cheese making to the next level with this set-and-forget heating tool!

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How to Make a Cheese Fridge

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Many of you have asked how I mature my cheese and what conditions are required to facilitate this. Well, I have a cheese fridge and that is where I place all my cheese when it is ready to mature and affinage.

I maintain mine at a temperature range of 11-13°C or 52-55.4°F. The humidity varies because I use ripening boxes to maintain the relative humidity for individual cheese, or just wax or vacuum package the cheese wheel whereby no humidity regulation is required.

So how do you make a cheese fridge, I hear you ask? Well, the easiest way for the home cheese maker to maintain the temperature for maturation is to convert a standard refrigerator or under-counter small fridge using an external thermostat.

I used to use a wine fridge but found that the temperature would drift during our hot summer here in Australia. I then decided to convert a conventional refrigerator to a cheese fridge.

Conversion Process

The process for converting a fridge is straightforward. All you need to do is source an external thermostat (recommendations below), plug in the refrigerator of your choice to the cooling socket, set the desired temperature on the controller, then place the temperature sensor probe through the door seal and loosely tie it to a rack in the fridge.

Cheese Fridge

Once set, the fridge will automatically turn on and off as required to maintain the desired temperature!

Then all you have to do is fill your new cheese fridge with lots of delicious cheese that you’ve made in your very own kitchen. Easy peasy lotsa cheesy!

Recommendations

So what brand do I use and recommend? I have had very good success using the Inkbird WiFi ITC-308 digital temperature controller. Easy to set up and even has an Andriod/iOS app to monitor and help with setup. It supports Celcius and Farenheit.

You get the Australian/New Zealand Inkbird WiFi ITC-308 here or the US/Canada Inkbird WiFi ITC-308 here.

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DISCLAIMER: Links included in this post may be affiliate links. If you purchase a product or service with the links that I provide I may receive a small commission. There is no additional charge to you! Thank you for supporting my work.

Heating Milk for Cheese Making

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I’ve had many questions asking me how I control the temperature of the milk during cheesemaking. Well, let me show you two easy methods that work like a treat!

 

There is also another method that I didn’t mention in the video.  There is a new product on the market called an Anova Precision Cooker.

Anova Precision Cooker

You can place this device into your kitchen sink, fill the sink with water, and put in your cheese pot.  The precision cooker then controls the water temperature creating a water jacket or pseudo double boiler.

You can pick one up here in Australia, or here in the US or Canada.

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