We recently heard from two beginner cheese makers on opposite coasts who made their first cheddars with supplies they received as gifts. We would love for you to join us in welcoming them to our cheese making community, so, if you have any tips, please share them in the comments section.
Loretta Olito-Thompson in Prunedale, California
My first cheese was a real success! I served it with home grown tomatoes and olives. The olive trees had lots of olives on them and I did a Mediterranean brine on them during the summer.
We love growing avocados, lemons, limes, oranges and vegetables. I once mentioned to my daughter-in-law, Kelsey that if I could find a way to grow cheese on trees, my life would be perfect. We laughed and that Christmas, she and John gave me a cheese making kit. They live in Oregon and I had sent Kelsey a cheese making kit as a joke.
The olives were a perfect complement to serve with the cheddar and some homegrown tomatoes.
In June of last year, I had read the instructions several times and decided to make the farmhouse cheddar. I was very careful to follow the directions exactly. Timing the 45 minutes and keeping the water temp at 90F was tough.
I am the one usually taking pictures, so I had to ask my husband to take one. I am in front of an echium and the avocado in the background has been producing like crazy these last months.
I used raw milk. The bottles were glass and old-fashioned, I wanted to keep them, but they got recycled. The milk looked so much healthier than the 1% we use for coffee.
My husband wanted to help and I told him the hardest part was keeping the water temp just right. He suggested we use the sous vide machine that our other son gave us for Christmas. That machine worked so well, we went and took a soak in the hot tub while the cheese was setting. It was ready to be waxed and set aside.
I washed the weights before I weighted down the cheese.
When I read the instructions that came with the wax, I called my husband and said I was scared to wax the cheese. He offered to wax it for me. Hooray!! We decided to let it sit until our 39th wedding anniversary on Sept. 10th. That is why there is champagne next to the cheese in the picture.
I took some with me to the university where I teach accounting and shared it with my colleagues. They loved the cheese and the olives and the tomatoes.
As I approach retirement this summer, I want to make more cheese. My study is being cleared of books to be replaced with cheeses-in-waiting.
I am retiring in four weeks and just looking forward to working in my garden instead of grading papers. Can you imagine receiving a gift of a cheese with a sprig of thyme or a spray of rosemary in it and on it? Just thinking of Christmas gifts. Lots to explore and try out.
Leslie Durr in Charlottsville, Virginia
Why have I wanted to make cheese?
First, I love cheese. Although I stop somewhere before the middle of the “ripe” continuum, cheese is wonderful and versatile.
As a child, I was a picky eater and now cannot believe I mostly craved “American cheese food” on white bread with mayo. My palette has expanded, but cheese is still a major element in my diet.
Once, my doctor asked me when I was going to become vegan and I answered, “That would be never. I could give up meat but not cheese or eggs.”
Second, I have long thought of cheese making as a very contemplative activity. My work as a psych nurse, either in an inpatient setting or in my own private practice of psychotherapy, is very people-intensive. The thought of slowly stirring milk as it gets progressively warmer and then morphs into cheese is strangely calming. Even the act of waxing the pressed cheese feels calming.
During the many years I was single after a divorce, I joked that I wanted to enter a cheese-making monastery and leave the world behind. (We have a Trappist monastery of nuns in our area who make Gouda cheese.) My friends who know me KNOW just how long I could go without talking. Instead, nearly 8 years ago, I got married late in life.
Before recently getting cheese making supplies as a Christmas present, I had made paneer but wanted to broaden my repertoire. My husband made a basket with rennet, thermo- and mesophilic starters, cheese salt, butter muslin (so much better than the cheese cloth I had), a mold and follower, and two colors of cheese wax, all from your website which I had given to him as a gift hint! Pretty random selection but I’ll get to them all.
I eat mozzarella cheese almost daily – the part skim kind. We buy it in a 5 lb block, cut it into 1 pound pieces and freeze the blocks until use. I figured if I could make it, it would be more fun and economical, too.
I didn’t have a very good way to press it then so it was more like a fresh mozzarella with a lot more “wetness” to it, but it tasted yummy. Alas, I found out that the leftover whey was not usable either.
After receiving my Christmas presents of cheese making supplies, I attempted the cheddar cheese using mesophilic starter. Still didn’t have a cheese press, so we improvised with containers I’d saved and water filled gallon milk jugs for weights.
Her cheddar before waxing
BUT, while that was draining, I added some milk to the left over whey and heated it and got ricotta! YAY! A TWOFER!
Aged the cheddar for a few days, turning it several times a day until it had a bit of a rind and no longer “wept.” Then I melted some cheese wax (more Christmas presents) in a little pot that is now dedicated to wax, put inside a larger pot filled with water.
It should have aged for at least two months, but Easter dinner was a month later and I wanted to share this wonderful (still pretty young) cheese with my family.
So, I’ve made several mozzarellas and one cheddar cheese to date. I went to your blog (A Better Whey) and started reading the article about the pediatrician (Vera Bennett). I liked her herb cheese. That will be my next attempt.
