Making your own specialty cheese at home is a craft whose time has come. Compared to making beer or wine at home, the simplicity becomes apparent. The art of cheese making is now in the stage where home brewing was 20 years ago.
Simple cheeses, such as cottage cheese can be easily made without the requirements of specialty equipment or raw materials. A home cook probably has all the ingredients and equipment needed to get started on making some of the finest cheeses they have ever tasted.
More advanced cheeses require some additional equipment and raw materials but it can all be learned by anyone willing to make the effort. I would put it at about the same level of complexity as making beer or wine at home.Making cheese at home is just another of life's learning processes.
Still haven't gotten around to making cheese at home? Here's a little bit of encouragement to get at it!
Basic Principles
The basic principle involved in making all natural cheese is to coagulate or curdle the milk so that it forms into curds and whey. As anyone knows who has left milk un-refrigerated for a period, milk will curdle quite naturally. The milk sours and forms into an acid curd.
Today's methods help the curdling process by the addition of a starter (a bacterial culture which produces lactic acid) and rennet the coagulating enzyme which speeds the separation of liquids (whey) and solids (curds). There are two basic categories of starter cultures. Mesophilic starter cultures have microbes that can not survive at high temperatures and thrive at room temperatures. Examples of cheeses made with these bacteria are Cheddar and Gouda. Thermophilic starter cultures are heat-loving bacteria. They are used when the curd is cooked to as high as 132oF. Examples of cheeses made from these bacteria are Swiss and Italian cheeses.
The least sophisticated cheeses are the fresh, unripened varieties typified by Cottage Cheese. These are made by warming the milk and letting it stand, treating it with a lactic starter to help the acid development and then cutting and draining the whey from the cheese. The cheese can then be salted and eaten fresh. This is the simplest, most basic form of cheese.
Acidification
Generally, cheesemaking starts with acidification. This is the lowering of the pH (increasing acid content) of the milk, making it more acidic. Classically, this process is performed by bacteria. Bacteria feed on the lactose in milk and produce lactic acid as a waste product. With time, increasing amounts of lactic acid lower the pH of the milk. Acid is essential to the production of good cheese. However, if there is too much acid in the milk the cheese will be crumbly. If not enough acid is present the curd will be pasty.
Rennet
After acidification, coagulation begins. Coagulation is converting milk into curds and whey. As the pH of the milk changes, the structural nature of the casein proteins changes, leading to curd formation. Essentially, the casein proteins in the milk form a curd that entraps fat and water. Although acid alone is capable of causing coagulation, the most common method is enzyme coagulation. The physical properties of enzyme-coagulated milk are better than that coagulated purely with acid. Curds produced by enzyme coagulation achieve a lower moisture content without excessive hardening.
Enzymes used to coagulate milk come from a number of sources: animals, plants, and fungi. The traditional source of enzyme is rennet. Rennet is a preparation made from the lining of the fourth stomach of calves. The most important enzyme in rennet is chymosin. Today, most chymosin is a recombinant product made possible by genetic engineering. Until 1990, the only source of rennin was calves. Around 1990, scientists created a system to make chymosin that doesn't require calves. Using genetic engineering, the gene for chymosin was cut from a calf cell and inserted into the genomes of bacteria and yeast. The microbes make an exact copy of the calf chymosin. Microbes replicate and grow rapidly, and can be grown continuously. Thus, the supply of rennet is assured. Approximately 70% of the cheese made in the U.S. is coagulated using chymosin. The chymosin made by the yeast cells is the same as that made by the calf cells.
Cutting and Pressing the Curd
After the coagulation sets the curd, the curd is cut. This step is usually accompanied with heating the curd. Cutting the curd allows whey to escape, while heating increases the rate at which the curd contracts and squeezes out the whey. The purpose of this stage of the process is to make a hard curd. The term hard curd is relative; the cheese at this stage is still quite pliable. The main difference between a soft curd and a hard curd is the amount of water remaining in the curd. Hard curds have very little water left in them.
Once the curds have sufficiently hardened, salting and shaping begins. In this part of the process, salt is added to the cheese. Salt is added for flavor and to inhibit the growth of undesirable microbes. Large curds are formed as smaller curds are pressed together. This will often involve the use of a cheese press.
Ripening
The shaped cheese is allowed to ripen or age for various periods of time. During this time, bacteria continue to grow in the cheese and change its chemical composition, resulting in flavor and texture changes in the cheese. The type of bacteria active at this stage in the cheesemaking process and the length of time the cheese is aged determine the type and quality of cheese being made.
Sometimes an additional microbe is added to a cheese. Blue veined cheeses are inoculated with a Penicillium spore which creates their aroma, flavor and bluish or greenish veining. Such cheeses are internally moulded and ripen from the inside out. On the other hand, cheeses such as Camembert and Brie have their surfaces treated with a different type of Penicillium spore which creates a downy white mould (known as a bloomy or flowery rind): this makes them surface ripened cheeses.
Many surface ripened cheeses have their surfaces smeared with a bacterial broth. With others the bacteria is in the atmosphere of the curing chambers. These cheeses are called washed rind varieties as they must be washed regularly during their ripening period (longer than for Camembert or Brie) to prevent their interiors drying out. The washings also help promote an even bacterial growth across the surfaces of the cheeses. As this washing can be done with liquids as diverse as salt water and brandy, it also plays a part in the final flavor of the cheese.
There are kits available for making your own cheese. These kits are specifically for making the variety of cheese you desire. They will provide the user with the proper starter culture that the cheese variety requires.
There are two types of starter culture used in the cheese making process. The Mesophilic starter culture if used when you don't require alot of heat, or non cooked cheese. These cheeses include Cheddar, Colby, Mozzarella, and Gouda.
Thermophilic starter cultures thrive when a heating process is used when making cheese. Use this type of starter culture when you'd like to make some Swiss cheese. Some Italian and German Cheeses use a thermophilic starter culture.
Inexpensive kit for the beginner. Everything needed to start making your own cheese is included. At the linked website the consumer will find everything needed to make cheese at home.
Years ago I we had a kit to start cheese but seems like it didn't turn out and we never tried it again. Think this is something I would rather just buy at a store then make it.
Here is a recipe for Janu Siers, sometimes referred to as Latvian St. John's Day cheese. It is a soft cheese and fairly easy to make.
Jānis' Cheese (Jāņu siers)
This cheese is traditionally prepared for eating on the most important of all Latvian festivals: Jāņi. However, it can be made and eaten at any time. It goes great with rye bread, and would feel right at home as part of a cold buffet (i.e. a Latvian smorgasbord.
5 - 6 ounces butter
6 eggs
1 tablespoon caraway seeds (or more if you like caraway seeds!)
1 tablespoon salt
Drain off any liquid in the cottage cheese. Put it through a Cuisinart or blender to make sure it is finely ground. Use a large Dutch oven or stock pot. Put oil in pot, add milk (and yellow food coloring, if desired). Heat to boiling. Then add cottage cheese and keep stirring.
If milk mixture doesn't curdle within about 5 minutes, add the lemon juice. When curdled, strain off all liquid. Place cheese mass in cheese cloth (gauze) and wring out any remaining moisture.
Melt the butter in the pot, put in the cheese mass and heat until hot. Meanwhile beat eggs together with salt and caraway seeds. Gradually add beaten egg mixture to heated cheese mass.
Mix well and keep on stirring until it all balls up and becomes a bit stretchy. Remove from heat and pack into a number of small round-bottomed bowls. (Alternately, shape into small cheese wheels, and wrap in cheese cloth.) Cover, and keep cool.
I love certain kinds of cheese but how does this stack up, cost-wise, versus just buying it at the deli? Cheaper or more expensive?
You know, making your own always has more flavor, and just tastes better. Making your own gives you control over the quality of the product. You really don't know what goes into anything that comes out of a food manufacturing factory, unless you are the one in the factory that is mixing the ingredients, and then you really aren't sure if you should consume the product.
I didn't look into the cost difference...too many variables.
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