Peter Dixon, a cheese consultant in Vermont, offers some great free recipes for the serious cheesemaker.
Posts under ‘Cheesemaking’
Now Available: Organic Rennet
Steve at The Cheesemaker informs me that he now stocks organic rennet. For those concerned about sodium benzoate, even in tiny quantities, this is the coagulant of choice. But don’t over-order– it’s only good for 4-5 months. We’ll be switching over as soon as we’ve used up what we’ve got in stock.
Why Sodium Benzoate?
Several customers have asked us recently why our cheese contains sodium benzoate, a preservative. Sodium benzoate generally considered safe, and is permitted in small quantities not only in the U.S., but also in the E.U. which generally is more strict with food purity. But there are some scientists who suggest that sodium benzoate may be [...]
Introducing our Solar Hot Water System
Our new facility houses a 150-gallon vat pasteurizer with which we have begun to make cheese. Fresh cheeses must be pasteurized, which means raising the temperarture of the milk to 145 degrees and holding it there for 30 minutes. Heating 150 gallons of milk by 110 degrees requires a lot of energy.
In order to cut our heating costs, as well as our environmental impact, we installed a solar hot water system. The system incorporated used solar panels that someone gave us for free. Instead of spending thousands on a commercial heat exchanger and storage tank, we elected to build our own using the principles (if not exactly the plans) we found on BuildItSolar.com.
Things we learned from our first batch of cheese
Yesterday we used our new equipment to make its first batch of cheese. It was an educational experience. We did end up with cheese– time will tell whether it comes out like it should. And we learned a few things: Our minimum batch size is 50 gallons. We tried to make a 30 gallon batch, [...]
What cheese should we make?
Now that our pasteurizer is licensed, it’s time to make some cheese. And there are so many varieties to choose from! Shall we make Gouda today? Chevre? Cheddar? Tome? We finally settled on Brie for our first cheese in the new equipment. That’s in part thanks to the persistent requests of our friend Chris. With [...]
We’re ready to make cheese!
The dairy inspector tested our pasteurizer yesterday. There was a moment of uncertainty, as he told us we needed a mercury “indicator” thermometer that we didn’t have. We called the company that sold us the instrumentation, and they explained– first to me and then to the inspector– that the digital thermometers they provided actually contain [...]
Seeing Double
You’re not seeing double. One tankless water heater didn’t give us enough throughput, so we installed a second one just like it. We chose tankless for two reasons: first, because it’s more efficient than a boiler. And second, in the summer we’ll heat with solar and the inline design of the tankless makes it easy [...]
YouTube: How to Make Paneer
ShowMeTheCurry.com offers this video (via YouTube) showing how to make paneer, a fresh Indian-style cheese that’s much like ricotta. It’s easy! For a cloth, we use “flour sack cloth” that they sell at the local 99 Cent store. They also suggest using the leftover whey as a vegetarian stock instead of chicken or beef. We [...]
A big cheese
I took this photo at a Bristol Farms in Los Angeles: a huge imported Swiss cheese. For reference, the blocks of cheese are about a pound– this half wheel must have weighed fifty pounds easily!
