Starter is not used.

About one kilogram of cheese will be obtained from nine liters of milk (cow)
About one kilogram of cheese will be obtained from four liters of milk (sheep)

Method:

1. If necessary pasteurise the milk by heating to 72°C and cooling immediately to 32°C.
2. Add rennet extract to firm curd in 40–45 minutes.
3. Cut the curd into inch cubes.
4. Stir the curds and whey mixture gently and heat to 38–42°C. Stir for 30 minutes after this temperature
is reached.
5. Allow the curd to settle.
6. Ladle the whey off the curd and scoop the curd into a mould lined with cheese cloth. Press lightly for about
one hour.
7. Heat the collected whey to 80–90°C.
8. Remove the cheese from the press and cut it into 10 cm x 10 cm x 2 cm pieces.
9. Place the curd pieces in the hot whey. At first the curd pieces sink but when properly textured they rise
to the surface (not less than 20 mins). Transfer the pieces to a draining table.
10. After about 20 minutes the curd pieces are cool. Sprinkle the curd with 3–5% salt and fold
each piece over.

And enjoy a wonderful nice cheese

For more information please drop by on some homemade cheese recipes:

1. Homemade Farmers Cheese
2. Fankhauser’s Cheese Page
3. Homemade Mozarella Cheese Term Paper

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A gentleman named Guiseppe sent me this recipe by email in April, 2009. He had been reading the cheesemaking forums and volunteered this recipe. I am finally getting around to making it in March,2010!

Dilute 1/2 tsp thermophilic starter in some distilled water and stir into 2 gallons of raw cow’s milk. (The original recipe used 5 gallons of milk and the measurements were vague.)

Warm the milk to 100°F (38°C) slowly while stirring.

Remove the milk from the heat and add rennet (I am going to use 1/2 tsp in this trial). Stir to mix in the rennet and then allow to sit, undisturbed, for 1 hour.

When you achieve a clean break cut the curds into 1-inch cubes. Allow to sit for 5 minutes. Now cut the curds again into smaller sizes (“like a nut”—I’m going for peanut), taking 4 to 5 minutes to complete.

Put the curds back on the fire and warm to 107.4°F (42°C) always stirring gently. This should take 10 or more minutes.

Spoon curd into an appropriate plastic mold. Press with hand.

Turn the mold every hour for six hours or so. Then allow to sit and drain for 12 hours in a warm room.

Remove from the mold and salt all faces by spreading salt with your hand.

Put in 50°F refrigerator, 70% to 85% humidity.

Turn every 2 days.

Age for 30 days (maybe 60 since raw milk?). If the rind gets mold, wash with vinegar/water mixture.

Eat the cheese.

Heat 2 gallons cow’s milk to 88°F. Add both mesophilic starter and thermophilic starter and allow them to sit on the top of the warm milk for a couple of minutes. Then, gently stir them into the warm milk with up-and-down strokes from a stainless steel spoon. Allow to ripen for an hour.

Add 1/2 tsp CaCl dissolved in some distilled water and stir in well. Then add 1 tsp rennet dissolved in distilled water, stirring in gently using 20 up-and-down strokes. The milk should still be at 88°F. Cover and allow to set for 30 minutes or until you get a clean break.

Cut the curds into 1/4 inch cubes with a knife and a large stainless steel whisk.

Heat the curds gently to 102°F, raising the temperature about two degrees every 5 minutes. Stir often to prevent matting. Keep the temperature at 102°F for 60 minutes while continuing to stir.

Drain the whey to the level of the curds, reserving for a whey cheese. Add hot water until the curds reach 110°F. Hold at this temperature for 10 minutes. Stir occasionallly to prevent matting. Drain off the whey.

Place the hot curds in a cheesecloth-lined cheese mold and press at 5 pounds for 15 minutes.

redress and press at 5 pounds for 30 minutes

Repeat, but press at 10 pounds for 12 hours.

Place the cheese in a brine and hold at room temperature for 6 hours. Remove and pat dry.

Age the cheese at 55°F to 60°F for 2 months. Keep at high humidity. The cheese can be eaten now, but improves with age.

Gybna Khadra (litteral translation “Cheese Green” which is Raw Fresh white cheese)

I learnt this receipt from a local farmer (old lady), she showed me how to do it, i tried it, and it very nice.

It’s s a soft white cheese, Starter is not used. The storage life of the cheese could be 10 days until more 4 months, i will explain how.

About one kilogram (2.2 pounds) of cheese will be obtained from seven litres (a little less than 2 gallons) of milk.

Method:
1. Heat fresh raw milk to 35°C (95°F).
2. dissolve rennet with small pinch of cheese salt and add them to the warm milk.
3. wait “even you got a clean break before”, two and half hours.
4. with clean hand, slowly stir the coagulum, slowly, until you break it to something like hard yogurt (about 2 min stirring) do not smash the curds, just gentle stirring with hand.
5. let the curds set for 15 mins, pour off the whey (save it for nice ricotta (“Karisheh” as the old lady call it)).
6. While pouring off the whey, the mass will start to matt, take into your both hand a ball (size of big orange) and gently squeeze the whey off, until it became firm and hold itself, place all cheese balls in pan in the fridge (here u can eat it fresh in same day) keep rolling and flipping them to get a final cube alike.
Or roll lightly with cheese salt for the 10 days plan (you will have pan with balls and whey (leave the whey if it is less than 2cm deep). If you want your cheese to last longer, leave the salted balls two days in the fridge, then cut it in slice (3-4cm), bring water to boil, dip the slices for 2 mins, remove, salt it , and place in big jar, filling with brine, store in your fridge.

You should try it, it is yummy :)

A nice white-mold covered, soft, French cheese.

Warm 2 gallons of whole milk and 1 cup of whole cream to 84°F, very slowly in a double boiler.

Sprinkle 1 package of DS mesophilic starter, 1/8 tsp of Penicillium candidum, and 1/4 tsp of Danica Flora on top of cheese and allowed to set for a few minutes. Then stir gently to combine. Allow to set for 15 minutes.

Add 1/8 tsp CaCl mixed with 1/4 cup distilled water and stir well. Then add 1/4 tsp of rennet mixed with 1/4 cup distilled water and stir well. Cover. Keep at 84°F +/- 2 degrees for 1-1/2 hours.

Should have a good clean break after 90 minutes.

Cut curd into 1/2” slices.

Gently stir curd to break it up into 1/2” pieces. Allow to set for 30 minutes. Pour off as much whey as possible.

Gently spoon curds into 4 Camembert molds set on a draining mat atop some glasses in a plastic box. This keeps the bottoms of the molds out of the whey. Let drain this way for 1 hour. Gently turn over the molds by sandwiching them between mats and boards. Allow to drain for another couple of hours then turn the molds again. Pour all whey out of the box, put the lid on tight and place in cool place overnight.

The next morning remove the molds and sprinkle each side of the rounds of cheese with a big pinch of cheese salt. Then place the box with the lid slighly askew into a 50°F mini-fridge.

At the end of the day, spray each round with just a spritz of Geotrichum candidum (the powder should be dissolved in distilled water about 30 hours before and kept in a spritzer in the refrigerator.) Turn the cheeses in a few days and spritz again.

When the white mold begins to bloom, wrap in cheese paper and store at 45°F to 50°F. They will need to age in the plastic bin for 6-8 weeks. Turn them gently occasionally. They are ready when soft in the middle.

Needs formatting help.

I’m copying this list of common cheese defects from a post on the discussion forum. I don’t know the original source, but thank Neil for the content.

Common Cheese Defects

Body In the context of modern sensory analysis body refers to texture, which is confusing because cheese graders use the term ‘texture’ to refer to cheese openness. Here, we will use the traditional cheese grading terms. Some descriptors for body defects are:

Crumbly/short: often due to excess salt or acid
Corky: due to overcooking, low fat, low moisture, or excess salt.
Mealy: this defect can be detected on the palate or by massaging the cheese between the thumb and forefinger. It is usually associated with excess acidity.
Pasty: sticks to the palate and fingers; due to excess moisture.
Weak: breaks down too quickly when worked by hand; due excess fat or moisture.

Texture relates to openness in the cheese which may or may not be desirable depending on the type of cheese and the cause of openness. Openness can be due to:

* Mechanical openings which are holes of irregular shape caused by trapped whey. Trapped whey makes the impression in the cheese during pressing, but during ripening the moisture is dispersed through out the cheese leaving the hole behind. Openness is desirable in Colby, but is considered a defect in Cheddar. Mechanical openings can lead to discolouration around the opening due to local acid development. Usually mechanical openings are closed by vacuum packaging.
* Gas holes are, of course, desirable in many types of cheese. Gas hole defects include:
o Early gas defects due to coliforms. These appear as small, sphericle, shiny holes. The defect is often associated with unclean flavour.
o Late gas due to Clostridium. tyrobutryricum or perfringens, especially in some European made cheese. Clostridia spores are often present in American cheese as well but do not normally cause problems. However, they may be activated by the heat treatment and, therefore, sometimes cause gas defect in processed cheese.
o A third gas defect occurs in Cheddar and American types. The defect is distinctive in that the gas (mainly C02 with some hydrogen sulfide) blows the package but not the cheese. The defect occurs at 6 - 9 months in Cheddar but a similar defect is sometimes observed earlier in American Mozzarella and Colby. The causative anaerobic organism is not fully identified, however, experiments have demonstrated that the defect does not occur in cheese aged at < 10C.
o Yeast slits due to yeast growth.

Flavour. Most grading systems assign the greatest weight to flavour defects. A few common descriptors are:
o Acid flavour is often associated with acid body defects noted above. The common causes all relate to process control:
+ Too much moisture (i.e., too much lactose).
+ Too much starter (i.e., too much acid development before dipping).
+ Salting too late or too little.
+ Too warm during or immediately after pressing.
o Bitter flavours are common defects in American but also other cheese, including fresh cheese. Some causes include:
# High moisture
# Excess rennet
# Bitter cultures
# High ripening temperatures
+ Fruity/Yeasty flavours are usually associated with high pH and bitterness, and sometimes with yeast slits.
+ Unclean flavours are reminiscent of the barn yard, and may be associated with coliforms.
+ Whey taint is due to high moisture and is usually associated with acid defects including bitterness.

These websites offer recipes, equipment, ingredients, inspiration, advice and other useful resources for home cheesemakers.

New England Cheesemaking Company

Dairy Connection

Glendarry Cheesemaking & Dairy Supply

Fias Co Farm

Cheesemaking Made Easy

The Cheese Supply

Recipes from the Gourmetsleuth.com

Frankhauser’s Cheese Site (lot of recipes and other good info)

SmallDairy.com

The Cheese Maker (thecheesemaker.com)

Guidelines & Tutorials

Here is a link to a video tutorial where Rick shows each step in making a Manchego cheese. This might be helpful to new cheese makers just to see how the process works.

Acid is produced when bacteria turn the lactose sugars in milk into lactic acid. Acid production is essential for milk coagulation and curds formation.

Rennet is produced in stomachs of young mammals in order to help digest milk. One of the steps in digestion is to coagulate the milk, causing milk solids (curds) and liquid (whey) to separate. So, it is also used for that purpose in cheese making.

While there are many enzymes in rennet, the key one is chymosin, also called rennin. But, there are additional enzymes that influence cheese such as lipase.

Rennet is most often produced by extracting it from the fourth stomach of a young calf, and is a by-product of veal production.

Many plants also have coagulating ingredients and these plants are used to produce vegetarian rennet. Nettles and thistles are popular plant-based rennets and are often found in artisan cheeses produced for vegetarians or kosher diets. However, vegetable rennet is not produced on a large scale and some non-meat-byproduct rennets are derived from molds or are genetically engineered.