{"id":6193,"date":"2015-10-08T12:05:06","date_gmt":"2015-10-08T12:05:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chesmar.com\/?p=6193"},"modified":"2015-10-08T12:05:06","modified_gmt":"2015-10-08T12:05:06","slug":"introducing-cheese-mar-homes-cheese-making-series","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chesmar.com\/blog\/2015\/10\/08\/introducing-cheese-mar-homes-cheese-making-series\/","title":{"rendered":"Introducing the Cheese-mar Homes Cheese-Making Series"},"content":{"rendered":"

Everybody is into some kind of artisan craftwork these days, it seems. Between the guys brewing beer in their garage, to their wives knitting sweaters on the couch, to that couple you know who restores old furniture, people like to\u00a0do it themselves<\/a>\u00a0in 2015.<\/p>\n

What you don\u2019t run across much is people who are making their own cheese. This is a shame, because cheese-making is just complex enough to be interesting, but simple enough that anyone can do it. Imagine the satisfaction that would come with culturing, pressing, aging, maybe smoking, and eventually eating cheese that you made, that won\u2019t taste like anybody else\u2019s. Imagine the experience of getting better at it, honing your craft, discovering new techniques and flavor profiles. And then branding it, packaging it, selling it and becoming the Cheese King.<\/p>\n

Dream a little. Make some cheese with us.<\/p>\n

To get started today, we\u2019re going to cover the basics of cheese-making, because an understanding of the concept is essential to becoming a master cheese craftsman.<\/p>\n

What is Cheese, Exactly?<\/h2>\n

Cheese is curdled milk which has been separated from its whey. In most cases it tastes a lot better if it is then salted, pressed and aged, and most cheese recipes will call for this. But the fundamental task of making cheese is causing the whey to separate from the curds. This is accomplished by using a culture, which is bacteria. You kinda just mix it in there, heat it up and watch it to its thing, but we\u2019ll get to that later. The extent to which you draw out the moisture of the curds \u2014 usually with some combination of a cheese press, salt, and aging \u2014 has a lot to do with whether you\u2019re making a soft cheese like mozarella, a hard cheese like parmesan or something in between like cheddar.<\/p>\n

Ok, So What Do I Need?<\/h2>\n

A cheese-making kit, plus some\u00a0kitchen items<\/a>\u00a0you may already have. Here\u2019s a list:<\/p>\n

Large stock pot<\/p>\n

Thermometer<\/p>\n

Measuring utensils<\/p>\n

Lond-handled spoon<\/p>\n

Large bowl<\/p>\n

Cheesecloth<\/p>\n

Colander<\/p>\n

This is the bare minimum, but just trust us that you\u2019ll want to acquire a cheese press before you get started. Also, if you intend to age your cheese (and you should), you\u2019ll also need a climate-controlled place to store it. An ideal place for this is a wine fridge, but there are a lot of creative ways to do this. We\u2019ll talk abou this in a later entry, but for now just know that you can\u2019t age cheese in your attic or anything like that. Well, you\u00a0can,\u00a0<\/em>but you\u2019ll wish you hadn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

What About Ingredients?<\/h2>\n

Glad you asked. You\u2019ll need milk, cultures, salt. The specific kinds vary by recipe, but you should be in pretty good shape if you have these:<\/p>\n

Whole milk<\/p>\n

Calcium chloride<\/p>\n

Direct-set mesophilic culture<\/p>\n

Rennet (vegetable or animal)<\/p>\n

Sea salt<\/p>\n

Just Any Kind of Milk?<\/h2>\n

Pretty much, yeah. Get whole milk, obviously, but the Vitamin D stuff at your grocery store will work just fine as long as it\u2019s not ultra-pasteurized (it will be labeled as such if it is). Now, you\u2019ll make more complex, interesting cheese if you use raw milk. The trouble with raw milk is that you have to buy it from a farm. In the Houston area,\u00a0Gramen Farm<\/a>\u00a0has a nice operation going, but if you find your own place, we\u2019d love to hear about it.<\/p>\n

Also, we\u2019ve been talking about cow\u2019s milk here, but goat\u2019s milk and sheep\u2019s milk are also popular choices. Just know that they aren\u2019t necessarily interchangeable \u2014 a cheddar made with goat\u2019s milk will not taste very much like cheddar cheese. This isn\u2019t to say you shouldn\u2019t experiment. That\u2019s at least 50 percent of the point.<\/p>\n

So Now What?<\/h2>\n

Now you\u2019re ready to make cheese. Your next step will be deciding what kind of cheese to make, and following a recipe, which we\u2019ll be including in our next installment.<\/p>\n

So start thinking about it, and we\u2019l be back.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Everybody is into some kind of artisan craftwork these days, it seems. Between the guys brewing beer in their garage, to their wives knitting sweaters on the couch, to that couple you know who restores old furniture, people like to\u00a0do it themselves\u00a0in 2015. What you don\u2019t run across much is people who are making their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chesmar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chesmar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chesmar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chesmar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chesmar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.chesmar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6193\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chesmar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chesmar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chesmar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}