A quick, low commitment, cheap recipe to see if cheese making will be fun and interesting for you....
I call this a "pot"cheese or farmer cheese.
Time ~30 minutes.
What you need:
Equipment:
(1) 6-8 Qt. stockpot
(1) Long handled-spoon
(1) Probe thermometer or floating dairy thermometer
(1) collander lined with ~24" x 24" square of cheese cloth or butter muslin (the tighter the weave, the better).
Ingredients:
1 Gallon milk (freshest you can find. also small local dairy is better since you'd rather have your milk come from one cow rather than a whole herd or multiple herds from multiple farms mixed together...the reason being that you want your ph or acidity level to be as close to neutral as possible. Older milk or mixed herd milk can often be more acidic).
1/4 cup white vinegar
Herbs, salt, honey (whatever you want) to flavor
Directions...
1) Heat milk to 190-200* F (just below boiling). Stir continuously so the milk doesn't scorch.
Time ~30 minutes.
What you need:
Equipment:
(1) 6-8 Qt. stockpot
(1) Long handled-spoon
(1) Probe thermometer or floating dairy thermometer
(1) collander lined with ~24" x 24" square of cheese cloth or butter muslin (the tighter the weave, the better).
Ingredients:
1 Gallon milk (freshest you can find. also small local dairy is better since you'd rather have your milk come from one cow rather than a whole herd or multiple herds from multiple farms mixed together...the reason being that you want your ph or acidity level to be as close to neutral as possible. Older milk or mixed herd milk can often be more acidic).
1/4 cup white vinegar
Herbs, salt, honey (whatever you want) to flavor
Directions...
1) Heat milk to 190-200* F (just below boiling). Stir continuously so the milk doesn't scorch.
2) Add vinegar and stir until you see the curds form and you are left with the translucent whey. If the curds don't form after stirring for a minute, try adding more vinegar and stirring some more. If the curds still don't form, it is possibly due to the quality of the milk.
3) Drain curds and whey into the cheese-cloth lined collander.
4) You can eat as is or add herbs to flavor. You can also tie the ends of the cheese cloth up and hang/drain the cheese for a few hours if you want a formed and somewhat drier cheese.
If this was fun for you, then maybe you want to try making some other, more interesting kinds of cheese.
If so, I recommend Ricki Carroll's "Home Cheese Making" as a good place to start. You can also buy all the ingredients you need from her website...www.cheesemaking.com There are other places, too, like http://www.dairyconnection.com/ but Carrol's site is less intimidating at first. There isn't anything special about her book or supply store, but it is a comfortable place to begin to learn about cheese making. She also has a handy "good milk" list by which you can find "good milk", hopefully in your area. Good milk is needed to make good cheese. No way around it. http://www.cheesemaking.com/goodmilklist.html
Enjoy.
3) Drain curds and whey into the cheese-cloth lined collander.
4) You can eat as is or add herbs to flavor. You can also tie the ends of the cheese cloth up and hang/drain the cheese for a few hours if you want a formed and somewhat drier cheese.
If this was fun for you, then maybe you want to try making some other, more interesting kinds of cheese.
If so, I recommend Ricki Carroll's "Home Cheese Making" as a good place to start. You can also buy all the ingredients you need from her website...www.cheesemaking.com There are other places, too, like http://www.dairyconnection.com/ but Carrol's site is less intimidating at first. There isn't anything special about her book or supply store, but it is a comfortable place to begin to learn about cheese making. She also has a handy "good milk" list by which you can find "good milk", hopefully in your area. Good milk is needed to make good cheese. No way around it. http://www.cheesemaking.com/goodmilklist.html
Enjoy.
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