So you’ve tried a simple Queso Blanco, and you’ve made Ricki Carroll’s 30-Minute Mozzerella. You’ve realized that you really can make cheese at home.
What’s next?
There are a lot of resources online. Check out Fankhauser’s cheese page, which has a number of recipes to keep you busy, as well as basic tips for beginning cheesemakers. Fias Co Farm also has some great online resources. Ricki Carroll’s New England Cheesemaking website has some great recipes also.
If you prefer a book, start with Ricki Carroll’s Home Cheese , which gives you the basics without deluging you with chemistry– and includes 75 recipes. It’s available from her website, or from Amazon.com. Amazon is cheaper, but you can order supplies with the book from Ricki’s site. (You’re going to need some supplies– at the very least, culture and rennet.)
My advice is, start simple. Ricotta and Neufchatel are easy. Gouda and Cheddar are a little more complex.
Brie and Camembert are fairly advanced. Get a few simple cheeses under your belt before you move on.
And if you like making cheese, consider a class. A two-day workshop made a huge difference in my understanding of the cheesemaking process.
Above all, have fun– and enjoy what you make!
what did people do with cheese before refrigerators?
do you encase it in wax?
Cheese stores very nicely at almost any temp between 35 and 60, so ice boxes, root cellars, and even cool basements are good for storage. They get moldy in such environments, but you just brush the mold off as it forms. The bigger danger is drying out if there’s insufficient humidity– once dry, there’s little you can do with it. (I doubt such storage would be acceptable for the industrial-type cheese sold in stores today, because it has no rind to protect the insides. Pasteurization and vacuum-packing give us a product far removed from traditional cheeses.)
As for waxing cheese, I’ve tried it, but I find that mold grows underneath, and can’t be controlled without removing the wax. This year, I’ve been working with “natural rinds,” in which the mold is brushed off as it forms. This seems to result in a more consistent and appetizing cheese– as long as humidity is kept high enough that the cheese doesn’t crack. Another method is “washed rind,” in which desirable molds (P. candidum, B. linens, P. roqueferti, etc.) are intentionally introduced for flavor using a light brine solution.