After a lot of tinkering, I had four major breakthroughs:

• I finally found a nice farm, close by, that sells directly to me fresh raw milk;
• I tested a nice recipe for provolone making (you can find it HERE), my very first pasta filata cheese;
• I gave it a try to a Goat Rennet Paste I got recently that should give the cheese a nice piquant flavour this cheese is sometimes famous for;
• I gave it a shot to the website RINDR from u/ArmRevolutionary3314 to try to keep a better track of my makes, I think it is a great tool;

It was a little more than 2 gallons of milk (9L) so I had to acquire a bigger pot also, way bigger than my usual one. A lot of first timers!

Eveything went very smoothly I have to say, I even took a video of the stretching process XD

I've done some other cooking, so I'm not an idiot, hopefully, but I've never done cheese.

Hi! I am investing all my savings in building a dairy plant! I will build it in a dairy farm in Colombia. Looking for advice i would like to make tilsit, Gouda, Provolone and maybe Brie! Any advice or suggestions for not repeating silly or rookie mistakes. Greatly appreciated

Hi - it’s my first time attempting to age a cheese. This is my Camembert around 1 week into ageing. I understand some mold is normal but how much fuzziness is too much?
I am attaching a picture of my DIY ageing set up as well since I don’t have a cave or anything.

I was stuck using a Tomme mold. But hopefully ot ages out alright!

Brief question for my fellow cheesemakers. 4 weeks ago I made a very quick and dirty “brie” using goats milk instead of cows milk.

I followed more or less the same steps I usually do, and after a week it was dry to the touch and the usual white mould was just starting to appear (picture 3).

I had to leave for 3 weeks for work and everything just followed its path with no intervention, closed container, aging fridge at roughly 10*C..I was skeptical on the outcome but today I came back and I’d like to know what you all think about it. I never had unsupervised brie for 3 weeks straight so I don’t know what I am experiencing:

The outer rind where the moulds thrived was very fluffy, incredibly so, just visible in picture 2 where I didn’t squash it with my fingers.
What you see in picture 1 is after touching it all over and patting it with a dry towel. It looks like a more or less regular brie, it smells very “earthy”, if I had my eyes close it reminds me a lot of brie, like a mushroomy smell, it is not strong either, seems fine, very white no dark spots, it simply was extremely puffy and fluffy before touching it.

Tomorrow I’d like to taste it.

I just got this out of the mold to dry.

Hello, I have a few questions that I was hoping some of you experienced cheese makers could answer for me. I found a recipe for making feta style white cheese but the recipe calls for making a separate brine with water, salt, white wine vinegar, and calcium chloride rather than making it from it's own whey. If it matters, I'm going to be using pasteurized whole cow's milk.

1.) Are there pros and cons to using the whey to make the brine vs water? Any flavor difference?

2.) If I use the whey to make the brine, do I still need to add calcium chloride to the brine? If not, would adding some for safe measure cause any issues?

3.) The recipe calls for using cultured buttermilk for the culture. If I use store bought cultured buttermilk, should I leave it out at room temperature for a few hours to raise the bio count first before adding it to the milk?

4.) Would using cultured buttermilk instead of the commercially available powdered cultures potentially cause issues with contamination or inconsistencies?

5.) This might be subjective but what's the ideal salt content in a water brine and in a whey brine?

Thank you very much and if you have any good feta style cheese recipes you can share I would appreciate that too.

Since my last smoked cheese was such a success indecided to give it a bigger go. From left to right cheddar (6 months), Gouda 3 months, fermented and pressed ricotta, and pressed ricotta. The Gouda has a very toasted sesame flavor and obviously has some gas production which was a nice surprise. I resealed the rest of the wheel to continue aging. The fermented ricotta wheel took about 2 days to drain enough to press and is still a little damp/creamy so I'll dry it out more in the fridge. The smoking imparted a nice color too!

I am studying for my Wisconsin cheesemaker exam. Does anyone have any advice for me? What equations do I need to know, and what do I need to know for bulk intake sampling, and just what stumped you when you took it?

This wheel is about two weeks old, and I’ve kept it at a medium humidity to hopefully try and get more mycodore growth. I keep it on a wood board with two mesh screens between them to allow for a tiny bit of airflow. There are some grey and even pink looking spots which I’m unsure about, though. The pink wouldn’t make sense for it being B linens since the humidity has been lower, and my box has been cracked slightly every day. The grey I’m assuming is a blue mold that has died quickly but again I’m unsure. I’ve ironed a sample and it tasted fine to me. No post acidification. Any advice or thoughts is greatly appreciated

EDIT: I’ve realized I failed to mention this cheese is heavily coated in a layer of lard. I think it’s possible the lard has been trapping moisture between the layers and is resulting in this uneven surface mold. There are red blemishes under the dark spots.

I did a thing...💃🏿💃🏿

First time making halloumi.

Did a batch, split in 2 just before pressing. Added chilli flakes to one.

I haven't tasted yet, but I was so excited and scared when I was doing the cook.

I couldn't wait to share.

Will keep you posted on the taste later.😊

I was thinking about making aged cheese for a pretty long time now and finally committed to it, but I don't have a cheese cave or similar. Could you suggest any methods of making it at home with whats given or is a cave or ager non negotiable?
I love young aged cheeses most as a side note but also some stronger ones sometimes.

Hey all, Second time making cheese and both times now I've struggled getting the curds to knit well. I did a cheddar and now a Jack/Pepper Jack wheel, and using 40lb for 4+ hours (after slower initial ramp), and still get loose binding and a fragile wheel. Curds kept ~75F during process, and the pressure applied evenly, but diminishing returns. Any ideas or am I better off starting over with adjustments?

I make Pecorino Sardo from our own cow's milk. I know it's a sheep's milk cheese by origin. *Sardo* is the hard, aged version, three months minimum, so the set should be slow and the gel soft at the cut, with fine grain.

What I do:

- Rennet dosed so flocculation lands around **22 minutes**. I time it with a bottle cap floating on the milk and blow on it; when it stops sliding and the surface moves with it, that's flocculation.

- The book says cut at **×1.3**, which is 28–29 minutes from rennet.

- I can't make myself do it. At ×1.3 the gel always looks too soft, like it'll shatter, so I wait. I usually end up at **×1.4–1.5**, around 31–33 minutes.

Last one was batch #16, the one that blew in the warm room (I posted it here): 85 L, 36 °C, pH 6.42 at renneting, 15 ml Hansen NATUREN Extra 220. It flocculated at 18 min, faster than the 22 I wanted, and I cut at ×1.4. Since then I've switched to Clerici 96/04, which is noticeably more active, so I'm re-finding the dose anyway.

I haven't made enough Sardo to know whether my hand or the book is right. That's the real question.

**Questions**

1. **If you cut a hard pecorino-style curd at ×1.3:** what does the gel look like at that point? Does it really pass a clean-break test, or do you cut on the clock and trust it?

2. **What changes in the cheese** between a cut at ×1.3 and ×1.5? Moisture, yield, texture at three months?

3. **Cow's milk instead of sheep's:** do you change the multiplier at all, given the weaker gel?

I made what was supposed to be a soft, gorgonzola-esque blue about 6 weeks ago. The curds were too soft when I cut them and I know there arent enough air pockets within the wheel. Anyway, saw a good coverage of blue turn up right on schedule, pierced and left it to do its thing. After the blue, I noticed some white mould turn up so I upped the humidity a little but also moved half into my main fridge, wondering if that would slow the white. It seemed too and given i'm very new to this cheesemaking and I was experimenting, I decided to try the one thats been aging in my main fridge. The blue has turned very grey and the outer mould is very unpleasant and bitter, while the blue inside and the paste is lovely. Its too young for me to think its spoiled, and the bitter taste is just the "rind" not throughout.

Whats going on with my cheese!?

I am back at cheesemaking. I started, like many, during the pandemic lockdowns... first with the help of Gavin Webber's videos, later with the help of the book Mastering Artisan Cheesemaking bei G. Caldwell. It was an intense year with many fails and many successes.

Then our two kids were born. Then we moved continents, from Canada back to Europe. Then I was busy.

But now I am back. I got a cave, tools and the kids are old enough to be busy on their own. We have a farm close by where I can get fresh cows milk. I pasteurize it myself by keeping the milk at +63 °C for +30 minutes.

The last weeks I started with three cheeses. First a couple of Robiolini (pic 1, recipe by cheesemaking.com). They are in the aging phase and will need a week or two more of ripening. Second a washed rind cheese, a recipe I did a couple of times already, loosely following G. Cadwells recipe with some minor changes. I washed it a couple of times already and Geo starts to show up nicely, hopefully soon to be followed by B. linens (pic 2). And third, a lactic set cheese, somewhat following a mix of recipes for St. Marcellin and Cabécou (pic 3). As usual, I am not patient enough to wait until it is fully ripe, but it is already very smooth and next time I will wait longer... :)

Well, it is nice to be back...

It didn't grow the expected Geotrichium Candidum probably because of the heat or maybe the honey (probably mostly the later).

Instead green mold grew.

I will wash it with salt brine and Geotrichium spores later today.