Home Cheesemaking Class

[laurel]

At lunch today I mentioned taking a home cheesemaking class, and people seemed interested in it. The same instructor will teach a "Holiday Cheesemaking and Fermentation" class in Mountlake Terrace in December, and "Cheesemaking and Fermentation" (the class I took) at NSCC in January. The schedule is on the instructor's website: http://moonwise.wmnsnetbiz.com/

[Placebo]

Excellent - what sorts of cheeses did you make? My original inspiration for cheese-making was a mention of a workshop in Northgate (maybe at the community center or community college) last spring. We'll eventually be offering home cheesemaking classes at Beecher's, once we get a bit more settled in (and have a bunch of the New England Cheese Company gear in stock in the store). I've finally found a source of good goat milk and will be doing more home chevre experiments over the winter. Now if I could just find sheep's milk...

[laurel]

It was taught over two classes. On the first day, we started with making cultured butter, then used the buttermilk from that as the culture for feta, then we made queso blanco and a yogurt cheese. On the second day, we made 30 minute mozzarella (without culture), paneer, chevre, and cheddar. If you're planning to sell cheesemaking supplies, you should probably get in touch with Linda (the class instructor). She was complaining about not being able to get cheesemaking supplies locally, so she'd probably be willing to mention you to her students if you do. She might also want to teach a class there.

[Placebo]

Oooh - that sounds excellent. I'd love to hear more about how you made the various cheeses. Did you give the nozzarella a good solid stretching with lots of hot water dunkings between pulls? MMm.. cultured buttwr - I think we're gonna fire up the dasher at work in the next couple of weeks. Did you cheddar the dheddar or was it mainly aiming at generally being the same sort of flavor and texture as a young cheddar? I'll send her some mail about our supplies. We have a lot of the stuff from the New England CHeesemaking catalog (no presses though) though we won't have cultures until probably the end of next week. Sounds like a great class - I should check it out as I'm curious to see what other cheese-o-philes are doing in the area.

[laurel]

Yep, we spent quite a bit of time stretching the mozzarella. The whey was heated up to about 150, then we just scooped up balls of it and took it over to the sink to stretch it.

The cheddar was not actually cheddared. She described it as kind of a farmhouse style, where the curds were simply stirred as they cooked.

Most of the cheese we made in the class was based on Ricki Carroll's Home Cheesemaking book (which I just received a copy of).

Do you carry citric acid at Beecher's? I was thinking of organizing a mozarella-making gathering...

[MGLloyd]

Do you carry citric acid at Beecher's? I was thinking of organizing a mozarella-making gathering...

FYI, you can usually find bulk citric acid at soapmaking, winemaking and homebrew supply stores. You can also occasionally find it at health food stores, but it is usually much more expensive. I use it in espresso machine cleaning.

If you are buying it for food purposes, make certain that the citric acid is at least 'food grade'. Don't buy anything less, and don't pay the extra money for 'reagent grade'. You can also buy it over the Internet, but the shipping costs will more than eat up anything you save over local buying in bulk.

Noting that you are in the North End, as am I, I usually get my citric acid at Zenith Supplies (63rd and Roosevelt) or the Cellar (144th and Greenwood).

[Placebo]

I'm not actually sure if we carry citric acid or not. I'll try and remember to check tomorrow (someone else asked me on Saturday for the same reason). We do have the New England Cheese Company's 30 minute mozzarella kit and I'll probably try it at home sometime to familiarize myself with it. That said, I'd love to join in a mozarella-making gathering. The cheddar you made sounds more like a colby. At work today we made a little havarti and the better part of 900 pounds of jack (made essentially like our flagship cheddar-style except that we stirred and then washed the curds instead of cheddaring and milling them). Both should be ready to eat in about a month and a half. I suspect that I'll be doing a lot more home cheese-making projects starting in January when I have a bit more time on my hands.