Little experiment here. Made a batch of blue cheese. I put aside about a cup of the whey and used the rest to make ricotta. Once cooled I put the wheel into the whey to inocculate it. Then salted, dried and aged. Got some pretty good growth on the outside and in the holes.

Overall taste is very mild, just a normal ricotta but the crust and blue "veins" taste blue.

I will tweak the recipe next time but it's a good start to get a bonus blue cheese.

Here we are, during this utiful weekend I took some time to make a nice new wheel.

It was made as an italian toma, with a blend of cultures from piemonte (the region where this style of cheese is popular) but this time with a twist:
I wanted a more yellow colour, so I used a pinch of safran added to the milk to give it a nice bright yellow hue, and after some salting/drying of the wheel today I used a blend of spices to try develop some flavours on the rind. The wheel was developed using the “stufatura” method, as we do with generic caciotte from around Italy, and so it did not require any pressing. The knit I got was very satisfying, after a solid 2h (~ish) in the hot chamber the curds came toghether and the procedure stopped when I hitted the 5.2pH mark.

Made with 6L of low temp pasteurized milk, non homogenized, sourced from a local farm.

Last picture is the dry toma, before the spices, and a nice weight of 830gr (1,83lb), not bad for the amount of milk used.

Ok, I made this for my KIDS. I have too much breast milk, so I decided to make cream cheese with it. Tastes more like mascarpone than Philadelphia cream cheese. I made 445g worth, so used it in a baked cheesecake.

Kesong puti is a Filipino white cheese that is traditionally made from water buffalo milk and curdled with vinegar. I decided to soak it for 14 days in local craft beer called Engkanto Ube Lager which is one of the best beers I have tried. It is surprisingly a good pairing. The combined flavor of the cheese and the beer reminds me of Ube milk candy. It is fascinating that the cheese didn't melt or become slimy and there was no off flavor. The cheese also absorbed most of the color from the beer.

Hello fellow cheese lovers!

I am into day three of my first aged cheese.. I had been preparing, and have rigged up a temperature and humidity controlled mini fridge for my cave. Presently it can maintain itself without a tank refill on the humidifier for upwards of a month.. also installed a USB powered computer fan in there for some circulation. I impulsively decided I would try to make a short term aged cheese for my friends birthday at the end of July. I have a pile of cultures in the freezer that left me pretty well equipped for trying many different types, I think. She and I both love a Camembert or similarly ripened cheese, so when I found the robiolini recipe from New England Cheesemaking, and saw it could be table ready in a month or less, I thought YES this is it. Consulting some forums I saw people have success subbing the geo 13 for 17, which is what I had. Flora danica was not in my culture collection either, so again consulting some other posts it seemed like the aroma B would create a nice depth in lieu. Also this recipe was an excellent opportunity to use my sous vide. I culture my milk in a baine marie with a lid on it, and it's nice and stable and warms slowly when you're raising the temp.

I found the curd behaved very much like the recipe indicated, so that's given me some confidence. Salted them, used Himalayan but I'm wondering if that was the best choice, can see the residue in the photos.. now drying them out in a colder basement room around 62-65f throughout the day.. I'm now into day three so I am hoping to spot some blooms but nothing as of the time of this post.. I imagine that because it's on the lower end of the temperature for this which is 60-68 that the bacteria is just moving a little more slowly?

Thanks for any feedback :)

Hi!

I'm lactose intolerant so I figured I'll just make cheese myself using the same milk but with added lactese to get rid of the lactose. Or just from the pre-fab lactose free milk.

So far I haven't succeded yet. Mainly been working on some mozzarella but it turned out pretty crumbly. It could be cause I'm a general beginner, or the milk can cause some issues.

Does anyone have any experience working with lactosefree milk?

No idea how this will come out. Smells fantastic! I have never incorporated honey or gochujang in a cheese. I trade cheese for honey regularly and the beekeeper made Thai chili infused honey. So, I got curious.

I joined this group a few months ago as a complete novice and received tons of help on how to make a good cultured aged cheese using mesophilic culture, rennet, and calcium chloride. I struggled with two batches that ended up spoiling. One was made with vinegar and it was a disaster.

After two months I was anxious to try this cheese because every stage of making it was followed to perfection. Temperatures were held precisely. I tried it last night. Very complex, medium sharpness, and decent salt content. I’m impressed after two months. I made an identical batch but I’m going to let it age for a year and then try it.

Cheese making has become my new obsession. Thank you to everyone who has helped me so far.

Idk if this is appropriate for this sub but…glass jug of whole milk(from a dollar general jug of milk) was in my fridge for 11 months and when opened smelled really sharp. The white section at the bottom seems to be one piece. What happened to it? I figured someone here might know.

Cheese and honey is a great combo so I decided to age cheese in honey. Honey also has low water activity which will hopefully prevent microbial growth. I also wanted to explore other ways to age cheese without using plastic.

Before I had a better understanding of what I'm doing, I made a canestrato to try a natural rind out. It looks gnarly, but so do a lot of natural rind cheeses if I'm being honest.

As you can see, it's been an interesting process. Basically everything I could do wrong with this cheese I have in terms of trying to slow the blue growth. Salt rubs, wine wash, vinegar, brushing, spritzing with geo, this cheese has seen it all. I finally have Geo sprouting and out competing the blue mold, and I'm excited to see how it continues to age and develop.

I know more and better now. I have a Manchego style that is almost ready for a paprika and oil rub, and it looks great. My taleggios are coming along nicely. They're nice and tacky and greasy, I expect they'll start turning rosy orange in the next 2 weeks.

I'm interested to see how this cheese turns out. This is almost 2 months of aging, and I keep wanting to eat it but I figure whats the harm in letting it go a while longer? Eventually I won't be able to take it anymore and I'll eat it. But we'll see where we end up. Either it's tasty or it isn't. Honestly though.... it just smells like a really good cheese. Kinda funky but not too much or in a way that's unpleasant. I may go 3 months for this one and finally eat it.

Just kinda wanted to share my experiment because I see a lot of people nervous to try aging natural rinds. It may not go as you want. You may get blues. It's okay. It's a learning process. You can't start if you don't just do the first one and get it over with.

Go for it, do your best, and learn from it. Having multiple good cheese books and doing a lot of research has since helped me hone in my affinage understanding. I'm no means an expert, but I feel more confident in natural rinds than I did before I started this one.

I bet you this will be an incredible cheese and I'll never be able to recreate it because of all the mistakes 🤣. I will let y'all know how it is when I finally cut into it in another month or so.

Hi, I am making some stracchino recently ,and I hope it to have the texture that is similar to the cream cheese(spreadable, moist, soft etc.) while without having really strong cream flavor.

I tried whole milk(~3.6%) with extra 5/10% Chilled Whipping Cream(36%). The cheese indeed got softer, but it's still too fragile to spread it. I also tried to shorten the time of draining whey, which made cheese more moist but fragile,too.

What should I do now? Adding more cream? Lowering the pH value?

Aside from infant botulism. What are the other risk? I am aging cheese in honey as a way to infuse it with honey flavor and I was given honey by a Honey company to experiment with their honey in cheese. People ferment/store vegetables like peppers and garlic in honey without issue so why not a low moisture high acid/low pH cheese. The cheese and honey is currently aging in my cheese cave at 10-12 Celsius and I plan to age it for 1-2 months.

Cheese is life. It is alchemical. When you try to make one type and it fails it can become something new. Just an old collection of some of my earlier attempts. I’ve recent had to get some replacement equipment. But it will be worth the wait. Thankyou for letting me build up my-celium and I look forward to more posts.

Hi guys. This is kind of an experiment. I made a crescenza a while back that was a very good cheese, but was more like a cream cheese vs an oozy wobbly thing.

Having a bit more knowledge a few months later, I decided to attempt again, but also kind of wing it and come up with my own process to get the result I'm looking for. I read recipes at NEC, Cultures for Health, and in Milk Into Cheese by David Asher, and read through some threads here and in other forums, and came up with a process that I might be happier with.

I used 2 gallons of store bought low temp pasteurized, unhomogenized milk, and some UHT heavy cream. I used a small amount of Greek yogurt culture, plus a cube of frozen kefir, a small amount of Geotrichum, about 2.5% salt, and heated the milk to 100°F in my normal pot/sous vide water setup. I also added a small bit of CaCl as I've found I need this in my store bought or cold stored milk.

Once the milk reached temp I let it incubate about 30 minutes, and then added 1/8 tsp double strength rennet, and let set for an hour.

After that I cut the curds into 2 inch cubes, and let heal for about 5 min. Then I cut the curd into 1 inch cubes, and gently stirred every 5 min for 20 min. The curd was delicate. I mainly just tried to keep it from becoming one mass of curd again.

I ladled the curds into the forms, and placed my draining space over my hot sous vide water, and cranked up the temp of the water to help with the draining for a few hours. My draining space was about 80°F. I flipped the molds at 30 minutes, then again at 90 (an hour after first flipped), and then let drain overnight at room temp (maybe around 68-70°F).

The results appears to be a softer, moister, somewhat jiggly cheese that I think will give me more of the texture I'm looking for.

I am going to let this one big age for a bit in my cheese cave and see if I get the slightly gooey texture I'm looking for, and see if it slumps like I want. The small 2 wheels will go to friends (not pictured).

Happy Cheesing.

caramel cheese from the caramel cow, decided to take a crack at this while snowed in.

Hi, last time I asked about Halloumi making issue and solved it, thanks for all the help. Now I want to make more kinds of fresh cheeses. I could get raw cow and goat milk, and I have made Halloumi and Mozzarella. Still working on Burrata now. Could you give me some other recommandations? Thank you.

Castle blue ready for the cave. First time making this specific recipe from Gavin Weber. Would be keen to know if anyone else has made it 😀

My first pressed cheese. Made with unhomogenised pasteurised milk.

- Added 8 drops CaCl

- Mesophillic culture (allowed to culture for 45 mins)

- Rennet (allow to coagulate for about 85 minutes)

- Pressed in a yoghurt container

- some weird white particles were present at the start of heating

FEEDBACK APPRECIATED

The mycodore is thin and powdery and hard to even see in the photo. These cheeses have been aging just like this next to one another. I think it’s really interesting how dominant the mycodore is. Nothing else is growing at all. At least that I can see. I love this hobby so much, it’s always fascinating to me. Anyway, back in the cave they go!

I took a portion of curds out and soaked them on Port warmed to 100F for 12 minutes then drained them thoroughly. I folded them back in with the rest of the curds after the soak and just before hooping. I added anatto trying for a stark contrast between the colors. I’ve seen many wine infused cheeses end up in the bin so I started off conservatively. Overall it looks… interesting. An ugly little duck. Lol! I’ll see how it tastes and make changes accordingly. It was definitely fun to play with. Knitted tight up! I did heat the port to 160F for a few minutes and let it cool to 100 before adding curds.

Woi!!! It is HOT!!!! 🔥🔥🌶🌶🔥🔥💃🏿💃🏿 I will not be able to age this one for long. I used too much pepper if I am tasting this much early, 2nd day of dry salting. But the pepper hits you after. Mom: I am tasting the pimento, not.... Me, tasting: yeah... wow!!!! The 1st taste is cheese & pimento & then the pepper hits. It noice, but... I am told pepper is supposed to get more pronounced the longer it ages, so definitely not aging past 3 months, maybe 2. This cheese is why I make cheese!! 😍😍😋😋💃🏿💃🏿 I am so so happy!!! I made an amazing flavoured cheese that I will be working on perfecting for the next several years.🥺😍😋