Who wants to make some cheese? (ARE YOU GOODA WITH GOUDA?)

[peteyfoozer]

I need to know how to make buttermilk first!

That tickled me!

It's so great to see people regaining the skills that used to be common. I love 'meeting' people with this in common.

I buy a small thing of commercial live culture buttermilk and use it to make mother cultures which I renew every month with the prior month's culture. Just pour some milk in a sterile jar, simmer it for about 30 min. then add some cultured buttermilk and seal it up. I use a couple TBL per cup of milk to make more. This way you can have cultured buttermilk indefinitely, from just buying it the first time.

An easy way to use it, if you have access to milk and cream, is innoculate your cream with some of it before making butter. (It sits out for a couple of days to culture) Then the resulting buttermilk is thick and cultured and I can use that. The buttermilk from sweet cream butter isn't cultured.

That's how "I" do it! Hope it helps

 

[WhiteMountainsRanch]

Thank you, that sounds easy enough!

I made yogurt for the first time last week. Took me three tries to get it right, but the third one turned out amazing! Bet I can do buttermilk too!

 

[autumnprairie]

I'm in I'm in I'm in!!!



I need to start with the simpler ones though. That cheddar looks hard... I need to know how to make buttermilk first!

www.cheesemaking.com is a great site and QM refers to it a lot I have made the Robiola so far, but I get QM live to help

 

[Queen Mum]

Buttermilk can be made with the same culture that cheese is made with. It is mesophillic or low temperature. Petefoozer is right. It's simple to make. You can use the same culture to make sour cream. Lactobacillis cremoris.

Cheddar cheese is not a difficult cheese to make. In fact, I am going to make some tomorrow. It is one of the easiest "hard" cheeses to make. It just takes patience to wait for it to age.

I buy my basic mesophillic culture. And since I have goats I usually buy some calcium chloride, because the goats milk can be a little "soft". In other words it will make a softer curd.

BTW, you can print out the instructions for these cheeses by highlighting each recipe and pasting it to a word document.

I have a booklet of each recipe that I keep in my kitchen for making my cheese. I also have it on my computer so I can just print out a new recipe each time I make cheese.

If you sign up at www.cheesemaking.com they have a monthly newsletter that features a new recipe for cheese each month with step by step directions. newsletter

Another good website is www.gourmetsleuth.com. They have a TON of great cheese recipesright here .

Another good source is Fankhauser's cheese page. It's right here.

 

[Cricket]

And, Queen Mum, one of the best tips you've given me: cultures freeze! I get out my canner and put my 2 qt canning jars in filled with milk. I make 5 qts yogurt (2 from greek-tart, 3 from mellow), 1 with buttermilk culture, and 1 qt cream with the sour cream. Fill canner with water, heat milk to 170, take rack out and cool to 115. Add 1 heaping T powdered milk and a couple T of culture and put in cooler. Then when the other 2 jars cool to room temp, I stir in their cultures. When everything is done, I fill 3 muffin cups with each kind of culture and freeze just in case I end up short sometime. It's wonderful!

 

[Vickir73]

I love goat cheese and this is something I want to learn - but oh my. All this seems over whelming! I'll start easy (sour cream) and work my way up. Y'all "old timers" (I hope no one takes offense - 'cause I'm using it as a form of respect) impress the hell out of me. I think my job is beginning to get in the way of my "farm life." My grandmother has begun teaching me how to can and now I want to learn how to make cheese - I want everything now, now, now!!! Queen Mum, I'm going now to sign up for the websites. Thanks so much and I will post how my stuff turns out (as soon as my kids get old enough for me to begin milking)

 

[RainySunday]

Attempting Gouda today!

*Edit/update....
Well that was a flop. I went to unmold it ad the curds were all stuck to the cheese cloth, and then broke up into a billion curds. It didn't solidify into one round at all. The sticking to the cloth may have been because I didn't re-wrap it when i flipped it, but no clue what happened with it not forming into a solid round.

To save it, I did the brine soak for an hour anyhow, then drained the curds and stuck them in the fridge. Still tastes good, just isn't gouda.