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Cheesemaking Workshops - Digital
Want to make cheese at home and have fun with your friends
Do it the digital way –
Using the advice given below as well as watching the cheesemaking demonstration video clips you will quickly find that you too can make your own cheese
Cheesemaking is an ancient art which takes time but with quality milk, the correct culture and rennet you will be delighted with your results
Starting with your ingredients – milk – use full cream milk – not homogenised. So if you are buying milk in a supermarket be careful about which milk you purchase
If you would like to use raw milk then check out http://www.facebook.com/FindRawMilk. Or you can contact the Weston A Price Foundation at www.frot.co.nz/wapf/wellington.htm. Weston A Price maintains eleven chapters in NZ and through one of their local chapters it is quite possible that you will find a local source of milk. This keeps your costs down and the milk is delicious
The cheesemaking tutors in the demonstration videos tend not to use the double water bath principle ie one pot inside another. That is fine but it is very easy to scald and taint milk and our advice would be use the two pot principle for tastier cheese
Our Cultures and Rennets have a long shelf life and cover a high milk litreage so when you have made your cheese put them back in the fridge or deepfreeze for use the next time
As you will see from the video demonstrations you can use kitchen equipment to start off with. Our Cheesemolds and Presses are imported from specialty manufacturers in Holland, France and Italy and are the genuine article and using them does make cheesemaking easier and more professional. But initially use what you have in the kitchen
Ready to Start?
Everyone will tell you – hygiene is essential. Yes it is. So equipment and hands should be sterilised. All the DVD presenters have a slightly different approach to this and so will you – but remember it is important
It is also sensible to wear an apron, (a net for your hair – optional) and shoes that cover your feet. There is nothing worse than being scalded by milk. When making a hard cheese eg mozzarella or parmesan it is quite sensible to use rubber gloves to avoid burning your hands
The short video clip below on Home Cheesemaking by Elizabeth Fekonia (Australia) shows just how relaxed the cheesemaking process is and her eco-film Home Cheesemaking and all things Dairy is a must for the home cheesemaker see Books & DVD. Home Cheesemaking lasts approximately 45 minutes plus and takes you through:
- Tips on natural animal health
- How to make a hard cheese - in this case Cheddar
- How to make a soft cheese - in this case Brie
- How to make Cottage Cheese
- How to make Sour Cream
- How to make Yoghurt
- How to make Butter
- How to make Ghee
- How to make Kefir
To make a one kg hard cheese you need ten litres milk. A ¼ teaspoon of our culture or eight particles will be sufficient for this quantity of milk. Rennet approximately ½ teaspoon to 10 litres milk. You can use a long bladed kitchen knife or even a metal ruler to cut your curd
If you are making a cheddar, gouda or any other hard cheese you can decide either to leave it to rind or wax it.. Elizabeth uses beeswax to wax her cheddar. You could try this but this method of waxing makes the cheese taste sweet so look under Consumables and pick your colour of kosher wax – a high quality reusable wax coating. Making cheese with Mike Rowe, although more of an artisan operation (and very humerous) shows clearly how to wax cheese
Our wax is very safe to use as you can set it in a bowl of hot water and it will melt down. No need to go near the stove. If you get bubbles in your wax, get out a small bristle brush, brush over and redip your cheese
Before you wax a cheese make sure that it is dry otherwise you will trap moisture between the cheese rind and the wax. Pop it in a dry, cool place eg fridge for a short while to dry off – then wax
Talking about temperature control – this is an important part of cheesemaking and often very overlooked. Under Thermometers there is a wide range of simple-to-use thermometers that will really help not only when making cheese but with the equally important area of ripening or affinage of cheese. This lessens one’s frustration level and produces a better cheese!
So you are learning from the demonstrators but want to know how to flip curd Be careful! Get yourself two breadboards, scrubbed. Place one of them down near the sink. Place a sushi mat on top, then your mold. Fill with curd. Another sushi mat and board on top. Let the whey go away! Then to flip your curd hold both top and bottom securely and turn. Don’t get upset if you have not held securely enough and curd flies out at you. It is resilient so merely scoop it up and reinsert
In Elizabeth’s Home Cheesemaking dvd she shows how to make Brie using goats milk although the principle is the same using any type of milk. Brie is a rinded cheese. For a rind cheese such as camembert or brie you need a specialty culture called Pencilium Candidum and if you want a blue cheese you should use Penicilium Roqueforti. Originally copper needles were used to obtain blue mold growth but now it is much easier to use the modern equivalent see Cultures & Molds If your Brie or Camembert starts to grow mold other than the white mold growth and this can happen then scrape it off. However black mold growth is not acceptable. Your cheese will be tainted – so don’t eat it!
Hard cheese is fun to make as well and the culture to use is called a Thermophilic culture. This simply means that the culture can be heated to a much higher “cooking” temperature which you need to do with cheeses such as Mozzarella and Parmesan
How to make Mozzarella has an excellent demonstration on how to stretch and cut mozzarella. Two other video clips on Parmesan and Caerphilly are equally interesting and something you can easily master at home
Tips on Blue Cheese Making - Have a look at Rick Stein’s Making Stilton which demonstrates how proudly Stilton continues to be made and look at the blue mold growth in its various stages of ageing. Please remember that when storing and affinaging a normal white cheese and a blue cheese that you keep them well apart. Although invisible to the eye blue spores fly through the air and attach to other cheese
The video clip "Where does the mold come from?" has some useful information in it that will also help you
As well as the Elizabeth’s Home Cheesemaking DVD check out the excellent range of cheesemaking books that you can purchase from us. These have the advantage of giving a variety of different cheese recipes so that you can increase your repertoire
We hope you enjoy learning about “All Things Dairy”
Beginner Cheesemaker – Artisan Cheesemaker or Commercial Cheesemaker, Curds & Whey are here to help so do not hesitate to contact us if you require any further information
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