I joined a milk share to start making cheeses to pair with my homemade wines.

Here is my very first cheddar using the recipe from practical self reliance. I’m so excited to see how it turns out! I’ll vacuum seal it tomorrow and I just got an inkbird temperature controller set up on my mini fridge.

I’m hosting my wine tasting in June so this cheddar has got plenty of time to age and I’ll make a few more varieties for the occasion.

Next week I’m hoping to make a blueberry Wensleydale(not for wine tasting)!

Any and all advice is welcome.

Love watching Gavin Webber. Decided to try making his Smoked Paprika Caerphilly. I think its 50/50 if this one turns out. Had to press it a little longer than the recipe suggested to get the curds to knit. Its aging now in my cheese fridge and had two weeks left to go. Will post some pictures when I cut into it. 🤞

Hi All!
I have a “Stilton style” blue cheese in the fridge (post mini cheese cave aging). I’m doing the weekly unwrap and check on it (wrapped in a foil paper) and I’m wondering whether these little white molds should come off. I’m uncertain after checking around because it sounds like some white mold is ok and others not? Advice appreciated.

This was one of my first ever makes, and I finally cracked it after ~6 months aging. It's got a wild rind which I'd also applied a few coats of olive oil to (early into aging). The paste itself is sharp and punchy, fairly similar to cheddar. The only culture added was flora danica.

This was made with regular ole' milk from the supermarket, and as one of my first makes, I'm very pleased with how it's turned out 😊 we served it on crackers with homemade hawberry ketchup, which was a winning combination!

Due to a couple of factors out of my control,(construction workers moving my cheese from a basement and put who knows where) I’m not sure if my wheel of Tomme is edible anymore? A cheese maker friend of mine gave me this wheel to age in my basement. It’s certainly not supposed to be this moldy I know but what do you guys think?

Admittedly I haven't been very motivated to make cheese or any other kind of ferments as the company I'm working for predicts that we will run out of money in February. My meso clabber culture also started developing some gas after having been left in the fridge for a couple of weeks without being fed. My thermo clabber was in good shape and I had already ordered 9 gallons of milk so I decided to make a high temp cooked curd cheese that might not miss the enzymes left behind from the meso culture as much. Ended up making a 7lb 12oz wheel and a sizable wheel of pressed ricotta that I'll be smoking again. Shown with a Belgium pilsner that I made as well. I wish it was easier to sell homemade cheese in Washington as this is my favorite hobby. I also am making an oatmeal stout beer which I'm thinking of washing a cheese with.

I attempted to make a Brie with my limited tools but this sort of mold started growing on the cheese. It doesn’t seem like “good mold” to me. Should I just take the L and throw the cheese out or is it recoverable? 🙏

I'm looking for a good staple cheese to make regularly and keep in the fridge for everyday cooking.

Ideally, something relatively straightforward to make that melts nicely and keeps well.

I'm happy to plan a few weeks ahead for aging, but preferably not months 😆

What's your go-to recipe for this?

You guys all know I'm a sucker for Claudia's videos. I haven't even watched this one all the way through, but I'm sure it's going to be excellent. As always, she goes to a traditional commercial maker and documents what they actually do (as opposed to the recipes we tend to find in books and the internet). Pretty much in all of her videos there is enough information present to pretty much reverse engineer the recipe/process. I'll post later with my impressions. Would be interested to see other people's thoughts on the process and if there are any insights or surprises for you.

Found a new supplier of milk (buy wholesale from the farm and save!) and bought 16 liters. Enough for two batches.

Here is the curds cooking:

And a "Before" serious press (so far 5 lbs for an hour and 10 lbs for an hour)

Then some "after" photos with the SYM and HP Colbys, after they were in additional 20 lbs for 90 minutes, then 30 lbs for two hours. I know some people are against experimenting, but I figure I need to adjust the weights and times till I get a well knitted set of two cheeses. I think I have it.

I put it in now for 4 hours at 40 lbs, and then will overnight it at 50 lbs

Will update if they are worthy; else new shots tomorrow

Hello, this is Vamsi.

My cousin and I are exploring the idea of starting a cheese business. We’re looking to connect with professional cheesemakers with experience producing popular cheeses in urban Indian markets, such as mozzarella, burrata, feta, parmesan, and cottage cheese (paneer).

If you know any independent cheesemakers or cheese manufacturing units/factories that we could connect with, we’d love to have a conversation and explore potential opportunities to work together.

Any leads or introductions would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

I'm so fed up with the system. I've always wanted to be a traditional cheesemaker. Since my suburban childhood reading ye olde time books I always dreamt of handmilking cows and making aged cheeses. Now I'm doing it on my own homestead and it's going beautifully. My passion seems to have bred a natural talent.

I had dairy goats, now just one house cow(I want two!!) and am making beautiful wheels of many kinds. I'm so proud of my shiny healthy livestock and the freestyle raw milk aged cheeses I'm turning out. With only a wine fridge and a single cow in milk I have around 20kg of cheese aging on rotation at any given time. About half the joy of cheesemaking for me is the cattle. They are beautiful emotionally attached animals and my daily joy! Because I dont want to turn a delightful hobby into a stressful full-time job, I have no interest in increasing production towards a business model.

I just love to share my passion project cheese. Everyone who visits tastes and leaves with free wedges. So many ask very seriously if I'll sell to them because now they crave the silky REAL stuff after only ever tasting insipid rubbery supermarket cheeses before.

I would love to be able to sell a small amount at low prices to local acquaintances, just to contribute towards cost of my hobby. But I can't, not without risking my entire land value in fines and penalties. People don't understand that and pressure me saying they won't tell! Lol sure, but someone else might and it's a risk I can't take sorry.

I understand the chemistry and microbiology of raw milk cheese and the hygiene requirements, age for 3 months etc. Cheese was a staple preserved food long before modern knowledge of these things though.

I looked into all the regulations and compliance costs if I want to sell and it's simply not possible financially and practically for just a side hustle. The big dairy industry and their henchmen the "food safety" regulators will not tolerate anyone buying cheese that is not mass produced in a sterile environment. Yet people are regularly hospitalized from eating unregulated berries or lettuce 🙄 🤔

I dream of a lost world where people were actually allowed the freedom of choice to visit a small farm, inspect the husbandry and production methods, taste the product and decide for themselves if they'd like to buy it. Imagine that.

//Rant over.

Both quark (varškė) and Lithuanian white cheese (lietuviškas varškės sūris) are staples in our house, so I do this once or twice a week. I stopped buying either of them many years ago. Homemade quark tastes better and often keeps better, and the cheese is much cheaper to make, with very little extra effort. We also prefer the fully fermented versions, with noticeable acidity.

The cheese in the picture weighs 750 g; it was made from 4 litres of milk (my typical batch). Estimated fat content is around 12–13%. Supermarket cheese commonly comes in 9%, 13% and 15% fat versions.

This is my "lazy" method. It's not quick, but it's mostly hands-off. I'm not sure how widely used it is or whether the process has a specific name.

I start with 2.5% homogenized, pasteurized supermarket milk. I bring it to room temperature, either by leaving it on the kitchen table for a few hours or gently warming it in a pot.

I typically use some soured milk from the previous batch as a starter (backslopping). If something goes wrong and I forget to save some before heating, I start again with supermarket buttermilk.

I mix in the culture, cover the pot and forget it until the next day. How quickly it develops depends on the room temperature. I check it visually, sometimes by gently jiggling the pot. It should be solid, with some clear whey separation, before it's ready for the next step.

Right now it can take two days to sour properly in a cold house, so I'm about to start using an incubator. Ideally, I aim to fit it into 24 hours.

At this point, I save some of the soured milk for the next batch (around half to two-thirds of a small 330 ml jar). To reduce the risk of surface contamination, I scoop it from deeper inside the pot, never from the top layer. I've been keeping the current culture going for over a year without any noticeable changes.

Next, I put the whole pot in an oven set to 125°C, using top and bottom heat with no fan, without stirring or cutting the curd. Heating typically takes 1.5–2 hours. Towards the end, I check it visually and sometimes poke it with a finger if I'm not sure. The curd should be visibly firm and starting to split slightly, but not really cooked. It gradually firms up from the outside towards the centre.

I take the pot out and let it stand, covered. Once it's cooled a little (15–20 minutes), I transfer the curds to a colander to drain. If I'm making cheese, the curd goes into a linen cheesecloth bag and gets pressed within about half an hour. If I'm making quark, I simply leave it to drain in the colander.

We prefer to salt the cheese after taking it out of the bag. I think it gives the cheese a better final texture. If using caraway seeds, I mix them into the curds before bagging. Quark is not salted.

There are also occasional family debates about which end of the cheese is the correct one to start eating. While cutting the bum off first is more practical, in our house it inevitably gets eaten from both ends at once.

There are other traditional Lithuanian ways of making quark, of course, including combining nearly boiling fresh milk with some sour milk (seemingly most popular now), or simply heating sour milk until the curds separate (Grandma's method).

My method is the one I've settled into over the years. I like that I don't have to stand there stirring the pot and making sure it doesn't scorch or get so hot that the curds dry out. It's probably not perfect, but it works.

In cooking and baking recipes translated to and from Lithuanian, I've seen varškė called everything from cottage cheese and farmer's cheese to tvarog, quark and even ricotta. I'm never quite sure which English term is most accurate, but quark seems like the best fit? :)

By the way, supermarket varškė varies enormously between brands and even between product lines, both in texture and fat content. You can find anything from virtually fat-free to over 30% fat. I suspect the production methods differ quite a bit too, which makes finding an exact English equivalent even more confusing.

Long post, but maybe it will help someone. :) I wish I had all this info when I first started figuring it out.

I was this close into buying a new wine fridge, obviously my very first one is already way to small for all my projects, also I am making bigger and bigger wheels every time.

But then I decided to go the regular fridge + external temperature control + humidifier combo, and this is how I testing it's capabilities!

I got myself an ESP32 controller, a DHT22 humidity and temperature sensor and learnt how to do basic programming. I have accomplished this situation where there is a programmable humidifier (I bought second hand fo 20€) on the bottom of my regular sized dedicated fridge (generously donated by a relative of mine).

All the graphs are taken by monitoring the internal fridge situation, and rappresent roughly 6 hours of data collected.

It is nice to see that when the cooling of the fridge is ON the humidity varies a little more and more frequently, possibily due to some condensation happening on the back of the fridge, small detail but very interesting to be able to spot it.

My first opition is that this really works very well, it is reliably keeping the average humidity around 86-88% and the temperature oscillates around the average 11°C mark, registered minimum of 9.8°C and maximum 12.9°C. I am double checking with all my other thermometers and igrometers and they all agree on the readings.

Never had a more STABLE situation with my previous rig of course.

Question about sharpness-

This is my first attempt at cheesemaking, detailed process in above post. Almost at 9 weeks since vacuum sealing and keeping in home fridge. Upon opening, normal cheesy smell, no visible mold or any red flags.

Surprisingly soft to cut into, very nice bite, but so much sharper than we were expecting. I suppose acidic seems like too harsh of a word, but it is definitely not mild! Also very crumbly when attempting to shred.

My understanding is generally the sharpness is attributed to the aging process, however this cheese is only 9weeks old?

Having trouble navigating other reading to identify the cause. Any tips for my next wheel? Should we be concerned about eating it?

I made brie and havarti. The brie is quite bitter and hard, more like Camembert and the havarti is a bit crumbly and not very nice either. I used the recommended amount of rennet on the bottle per litre. Any ideas on what went wrong?

For anyone who in my last post about this experiment said to hold on to it…THANK YOU 🫱🏻‍🫲🏼

Thank you in particular to [u/mikekchar](u/mikekchar) as always for his great encouragement and the knowledge he always provides.

This was again an experiment, I followed all my best practices I learnt while making brie wheels in the last months, but applied them to an uncharted territory using fresh goats milk. The experiment started badly since I was not used to the curds made with this type of milk. Second the scooping was kind of poor and surely my end yeald was sub optimal, but since I only used 2liters of milk I will not complain too much, it was ment to be a small one to begin with.

Than came the second brutal part, I had to leave my only 1 week old wheel on its own for 3 weeks straight, no supervision, and when I came back I made my previous post asking for opinions since the mould on the rind looked nice and white but very fuzzy, way more than usual, but this was due the lack of interactions with the wheel on my side. Instead of pulling the plug immediately and try it right away, I hold on to it for an extra week and this is when it really transformed to the gooey treasure we had for lunch today 🥲

It was absolutely insane, I did my best brie so far completely based only on the experience gathered so far, we were completely blown away. No added cream, only simple fresh milk, the right cultures and the appropriate amount of time needed. Feeling it from the outside, gently poking with my fingers, was enough to determine that today it was ready, and oh boy it was.

I wonder if it would even work. What it would taste like? Would it curdle?

Thoughts?

Finally bought a proper milk thermometer along with my fresh cheesemaking supplies! :)

I noticed it has a third pasteurisation temperature range, marked at 85–95°C. The Polish label says it's for pasteurising milk for twaróg/quark. Should I be doing that?!

I've been making quark and Lithuanian "white cheese" (basically quark pressed in a wedge-shaped bag) almost every week for years and years. I've always used cheap, pasteurised, homogenised 2.5% supermarket milk, with no special treatment. Just add culture, leave it for a day or two, then gently heat the pot in the oven and drain the curds in a colander.

Could I improve my results by heating the milk to such high temperatures first, as if I were making yogurt?

And that got me thinking about another problem...

My usual quark-making method no longer works with the fresh milk I'm getting from a local farmer. I've tried both long and short pasteurisation, but the results just aren't the same. The milk seems too fatty, the curd is much softer and wetter, and a distinct layer of cream separates and floats on top of the clabber, seemingly making it harder for the oven heat to penetrate evenly.

I'm using the same starter (buttermilk culture). I was beginning to suspect the starter had drifted, but no — switching back to the crappy supermarket milk produced exactly the results I expected.

Has anyone experienced this when switching from supermarket milk to fresh, non-homogenised milk? I'm wondering what I should change in my process. Maybe this high-temperature treatment is the answer?

I assume that many of you are often looking for ways to use up leftover whey, so I thought I’d share what I did with my last batch: Whey Limeaide! I had whey leftover from making cottage cheese from a gallon of milk. I made an oleo saccharum from around ten limes (zest plus sugar plus juice, let sit to infuse the oils into the resulting syrup, then strain), then combined that with the whey to make a whey Limeaide. The whey really gives it a key lime pie flavor in my opinion. It probably won’t be to everyone’s taste, but it certainly used up a lot of whey so I thought I’d share! I will probably try it with a different citrus next time

Hello all! I have a bit of an unusual request.

I recently accepted a position as the Production Lead at a cheese aging facility owned by my company. While my background isn't in cheesemaking or aging, I spent 10 years working as a brewer and distiller before moving into my current role in commercial sourdough production.

I was originally brought into the sourdough department as a subject matter expert in yeast propagation and management, with the goal of helping the team scale up production while reducing our process timeline by 50%, effectively doubling our daily output. We've successfully accomplished that goal, and my company is now moving me over to our Cheese Caves to help address some of the production challenges they've been experiencing.

That brings me to my request. While I have a fairly extensive background in fermentation science and production process management, I have very little direct knowledge of cheesemaking or affinage. I'm hoping to find some solid reference materials that will give me a foundational understanding of the science, processes, and technical considerations involved before I start my new role after the new year.

We do have an in house affineur whom I'll be working alongside, so I certainly won't be flying solo when it comes to the actual cheesemaking and aging expertise. I'm simply hoping to build a reasonable knowledge base beforehand so I can hit the ground running and better understand the processes I'll be helping manage. I have asked him for recommendations, but I figured that it wouldn't hurt to ask you all as well.

Coming from the brewing industry, I'm thinking of resources along the lines of "The Practical Brewer" or the "Brewing Elements" series. Something that provides a well rounded understanding of the industry while also getting into the technical details of production, microbiology, process control, and best practices.

Are there any industry standard textbooks, technical manuals, or other reference materials that you would recommend? I'm particularly interested in resources that go beyond hobbyist cheesemaking and approach the subject from a commercial production and scientific perspective.

Thanks in advance for any recommendations!