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Here are some shots at my first try at blue cheese. The really gorgeous cheese there isn't mine, it is the cheese I'm using for the inoculation since it contains live roqueforti cultures. If this technique and recipe works, it means making blue cheese would cost right about $5.00 a pound, and even less than that if you can re-culture the roqueforti from your own cheese.

It sits on the kitchen counter, and the cats mostly leave it alone, they are more interested in the fish on the other counter The reason I do it this way is pretty simple, unless you have a hydrolic press and some stainless steel forms, you are going to futz with your weights. Maybe the weights are leaning just a bit too much to one side, or maybe you want to observe how fast the compression is happening so you'll know if you need to shim. All sorts of reasons to keep it out in the open so you can see it. None of the equipment should cost very much. For home pressing you want solid, strong, food grade plastic. Wooden presses look really nice, but they just aren't practical. Just remember if you build your own, the press needs to be able to handle fifty pounds of pressure for 12-24 hours. That's the equivalent weight of six one gallon milk containers, so for weights the only practical things are usually free-weights.

Guinness Cheddar!

Grilled cheese sandwich made from home made cheese (if you read my blog, it's #6)

I have set up cheese experiments with the following combination's so far (details on my blog): * Skim milk (pasteurized and homogenized) * 1% (pasteurized and homogenized) * 2% (pasteurized and homogenized) * Whole (pasteurized and homogenized) * 1% + 2% (pasteurized and homogenized) * 2% + whole (pasteurized and homogenized) * whole plus heavy cream (pasteurized and homogenized) * Raw cow * Raw goat In addition to that, some experiments have included washing the curd, brining, and other changes. The net result for a home cheese maker that wants to make a medium sharp to extra sharp hard pressed cheese is this: * Whole milk is useless, it causes more problems than it solves * Skim milk is useless, unless you just want to make a photogenic loaf (it may age well, I don't know yet, but young skim milk loaves are dog food) * Cream isn't necessary unless you want to correct some visual defects in homogenized milk * Using a ratio of 60% 2% milk, and 40% 1% milk, with calcium chloride and fresh rennet will give you a great slicing cheese without costing very much (I can post the exact recipe if you would like) * Raw milk is easier to work with, makes a better looking loaf, ages better, is more nutritious (more beta carotene), has a more complex flavor, and costs 3x-5x per gallon than the stuff you get at the store. So, it is better to start off practicing with pressed hard cheeses with just lowly old 2% until you get the hang of it, then move on to raw. Otherwise, if something gets screwed up, you are out a lot less money. And of course, Ultrapastuerized/homogenized is useless since it will never form a curd. As for soft cheeses, I made a fantastic chevre with raw goats milk, so yes you certainly can

Port brined cheddar!

I've read cheese style guidelines and I can tell you most if not all the cheese I've made breaks at least a few rules each. This loaf is probably closer to havarti than anything else, with a nice elastic texture, an open/checked center, and very mild flavor. I'm not actually getting recipes from anywhere, I am creating variants of the simplest of hard cheese recipes--1 gallon milk, 1 cup cultured buttermilk, rennet, and salt. With that simple formula, I'm doing experiments with fat levels, weights, raw/homogenized, etc. The recipe for this one is actually quite simple: Recipe * 1 gallon skim, pastuerized and homogenized * 1 gallon 2%, pastuerized and homogenized * 2 cup cultured buttermilk * 1 tablet of rennet * 10 drops calcium chloride * Mortons kosher salt Then it is pressed, dried, waxed, and aged. You can see all the details of this particular make here, and the resulting tasting fifteen days later (today) here. I suspect the open interior is due primarily to trapped whey, which seems to happen in 2% milk but not so much in any other. The skim, 1%, whole, and raw milks have had quite different interiors than this.

Here is today's cheese, it tastes great and has a fantastic texture, even after only 15 days.

It's quite good, needs a bit of a contrast like pear or fig, but the flavor is fantastic. The next batch will have a bit of cream added to it for texture, and maybe less pressing. Since this was raw goat milk in March in the NW the fat content may be less than other times, I am not sure. Regardless, I could cut it and it was more firm than most goat cheeses I have had in stores. Still delicious.

Here is my first attempt at chevre that came out of the mold today.

Again, these are variations on recipes presented in Charcuterie, but I would never have attempted them without the book. So, in honor of St. Patricks, here is home made corned beef with butter lettuce, home made raw milk cheddar, and avocado (which you can't really see).

Though not directly from the book, this was inspired by it--and it's something I make quite regularly because of how easy and delishus it is. Cured then confitted pork loin. I like to serve it with a variation on home made mayo, but with almonds, more lemon juice, and cilantro blended in as well.

Latest raw milk cheddar. It is delicious and only a week or two old.

One last reply, and I promise I'll go away. I know I won't change any opinions, and there are a lot of analogies of the usefulness of arguing on the Internet. So with that in mind: * I'm operating on the very critical assumption that Harold McGee doesn't want us to eat poorly cooked pasta. If that assumption is incorrect, then please disregard everything I've said on the matter. * The entire point of conservation is to add up otherwise inconsequential advantages into something substantial. * In my opinion, assuming McGee is using energy conservation as a hook, angle, or agenda is a bias. While I don't advocate trying out every technique written about in the NYT, I do believe that McGee is in a rare circle of experts that should be evaluated fairly before being disregarded out of hand. Bottom line--in my opinion the argument is not sound. It doesn't mean the end result isn't true, I don't know the answer to that. But from an intellectual standpoint I cannot accept your arguments based on their own merits. And now I'll go away

Ooh, now *that* is what I'm talkin' about. However, I am gonna try to find some PVC pipe big enough that I can fit the weights on the press. I LOVE the pic though, and post your recipes if you can!!

Bunton and Carrol are fixtures in the home cheese making movement. If they didn't do what they did, I wouldn't be making cheese now. I have treeeemendous respect, so please understand that this small critique is just that, and probably related to the milk I can get. Whole homogenized pasteurized milk is entirely unsuitable for home cheese making, in regards to cheddared and pressed hard cheeses. If you are a beginner, start with 1%, then after a few loaves that you have aged and tasted, go to 2%. Do not add cream, seriously go through the process. Making good cheese is at least about making bad cheese--failures are as important as recipes. And like brewing and baking bread, you should expect duds, as long as you are honest with yourself and do pre and post mortems you can become a fantastic cheese maker. In fact, if you are making a pressed loaf of cheese, here is what you do: * Follow all of Carrolls instructions, except the only milk you should use is skim * After following the instructions and pressing loaf, try a bit yourself and give it to your dog for dinner Basically all I am saying is that the process for preparing and pressing a loaf of cheese the first time won't be overwhelming. It's only through practice and *ahem* cheeseaday.blogspot.com and www.foodsci.uoguelph.ca/cheese/welcom.htm that you will as a maker you'll get through the challenges we all face.

that looks eerily similar to the first few presses I went through, but after many loaves falling over I went for this sorta thing Cheese Press. It is easier to center the weight and control the pressing, though in a pinch I have used pots, pans, and textbooks as well. Here is the real sekret though, the thing that noone either knows or doesn't tell--to press cheese well you have to have a very small, very dense weight source. Water jugs are terrible, they fall over. Books are terrible as well, they don't enough weight. The *only* thing to do is either purchase freeweights like you would use for working out, or a serious press that can push a lot of weight. Jugs of water or large weights fall over and make you adjust your weights at 3am, small heavy weights let you sleep through the night. Invest in good weights, it is worth it. p.s., they are cheap

four years ago I learned the steam explosion from a turkey pan covered with a lid can cause semi-permanent arm damage. The scar has only gone away in the last six months, but for several years I walked around with an arm that looks like ham

My hope was that keeping it at 75% would manage to do the trick for both. A little on the low side for cheese, but people have reported good success with that level for charcuterie. I could conceivably build the chamber as a two-compartment deal, with differing humidities, but I don't think I am going to be that ambitious. ← The *only* time to store cheese and anything else in the same area is if you wax your cheese. And then you still run a risk of not developing flavor or just plain loosing it. Otherwise the humidity will destroy your cheese over the long run. I have a small wine fridge with two temp settings that works well for waxed cheeses, but unwaxed cheeses become checked and split in no time. A regular fridge is one of the *worst* places to store pressed cheeses, as it is either: * The wrong temp, so they don't develop flavor * Too dry so they turn into plastic * Too wet so they turn into mold machines I'm in the process of experimenting with cheap ways to cellar cheese, but I gotta tell you if you want to cellar charcuterie, cheese, and fermented beverages, then I hope you have patience

Buy vegetarian rennet for your first ten loaves. Seriously, unless you are an anti plant person, use vegetarian rennet tabs until you understand your milk and pressing. Most home bread bakers don't need King Arthur and fresh yeast, most home brewers don't need Marris Otter and Wyeast, and most home cheese makers don't need organic milk and animal rennet.

Use rennet, vegetarian rennet in my experience is more consistent than animal rennet. Plus, I can't taste any off flavors. You can get rennet tabs from cheesemaking.com, or from many local home brew shops. Lemon juice or vinegar work for young cheeses, but if you add a bacterial culture which by definition will acidify your cheese it may get too sour.

This is great for thermophillic type cheeses, however the growth temperature for the cultures found in yogurt are ~15F higher (and closer to the 'danger zone') than mesophillic. My own personal opinion, don't use yogurt, use cultured butter milk. That way you can keep the temps a bit lower, it will mature a bit faster, and you can enjoy it earlier.

I've taken refractometer readings of both raw goats milk and raw moocow milk, and currently at this time of year with these two different farms, goat milk has less lactose, hence less likely to become more sour.

Sour == lactose turning into lactic acid via fermentation. This is either good or bad, depending on what you want. If you want a less sour cheese, you have a couple options: reduce the amount of time between your make and the salting, though this will just make your 18 month loaf just as sour, but your 3 month much less so; wash your curd, i.e. when you are removing your whey, when you hit the half way/whey (heh) point, add an equal amount of 105F potable tap water for mesophillic or 125F for thermophillic then drain. You can repeat that a couple times, but I don't recommend more than twice.

Sous-vide controller ... riiiiiiiight. Next to my Wolf range and my walk-in fridge. ... ← I was meaning something like this - http://auberins.com/index.php?main_page=pr...&products_id=74 (scroll down for photo illustrating use with a rice cooker as the waterbath) And if you check the sous-vide thread, you'll see that an aquarium 'bubbler' (for around $10) is recommended as a simple means of non-manual stirring of the waterbath. ← Take your pasteurized milk in a jug that is still sealed and place it under a slow stream from your tap at the temp you want to hit. Go and have a coffee or a beer. Come back, perfect temperature. Not as carbon friendly as I would like, but it probably uses less energy than baking a loaf of bread or drying your clothes in a drier.