Blessed are the Cheesemakers

Food, Nutrition and Agriculture
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oldman
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Blessed are the Cheesemakers

Post by oldman »

Hi All,

Is anyone else on here making cheese or am I the only one?

Oldman
"Just when one least expects it, the unexpected always happens" - Dr. Rance
gamekeeper752
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Re: Blessed are the Cheesemakers

Post by gamekeeper752 »

We make our own butter ,but have yet to expand to cheese although it is on the to do list
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Brambles
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Re: Blessed are the Cheesemakers

Post by Brambles »

I used to make cheese when I kept Goats. Even though I say so myself, I made a wicked cheddar type cheese. These days, I just make a bit of paneer when the mood takes me.
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shocker
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Re: Blessed are the Cheesemakers

Post by shocker »

I too made cheese back when we kept dairy goats, well, my mother did most of the tricky bits with rennit and so on. We never had much success with hard cheeses and since none of us liked soft cheeses much in those days, we didnt pursue it too far. Strange really, we were milk recording and had good butterfats...made good enough yoghurt to sell too. Never got the hang of cheese, shame, all of us love a bit of cheese in my family. :(

Oldy - how do you go about your cheese making, are you keeping dairy stock? What sort of cheeses are you making now? Its a very interesting subject and a great skill to have. I for one would be very interested to hear about it, theres a good number of people on here with small holding/farming backgrounds and a good few country folk, too...
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Deeps
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Re: Blessed are the Cheesemakers

Post by Deeps »

Like Brambles, we make a bit of paneer from time to time although we haven't done it for a while. We've also got a butter churn but its been ages since we used that too. I love the idea of doing something more 'cheesy' though, fair play to you Oldman.
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ukpreppergrrl
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Re: Blessed are the Cheesemakers

Post by ukpreppergrrl »

Don't mention the rice! :shock:
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Deeps
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Re: Blessed are the Cheesemakers

Post by Deeps »

ukpreppergrrl wrote:Don't mention the rice! :shock:
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shocker
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Re: Blessed are the Cheesemakers

Post by shocker »

CheeseGate lives ! :lol:
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oldman
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Re: Blessed are the Cheesemakers

Post by oldman »

shocker wrote:Oldy - how do you go about your cheese making, are you keeping dairy stock? What sort of cheeses are you making now? Its a very interesting subject and a great skill to have. I for one would be very interested to hear about it, theres a good number of people on here with small holding/farming backgrounds and a good few country folk, too...
I started cheese making when I was up in Scotland as I would be paid in produce for odd jobs I did for the farmers (it's hard to tax a sack of potatoes). Sometimes I'd be paid in milk, and there is only so much you can use on your corn flakes. Any extra milk would become cottage cheese or mozzarella rather than letting it go to waste. As it was always quite bland I found it would mature (or go rancid) if I hung it in the wood shed for a week or two. As long as the weather was not too warm I'd get something like a strong blue cheese although it did stink to high heaven.

Now I'm down south I can get milk from an independent dairy farm that are happy to let me have "out of date" milk in bulk for next to nothing (They have to sell the milk on the same day it's squeezed out of the cow) Twelve pints will make a kilo of cheddar. Unlike shop bought cheddar it does not split when you cook with it :)

I have a round of cheddar I made back in June 2015 in the back of the fridge and I'm waiting to try it in a couple of months time. Last June I opened one I had made at the same time and It was fine, softer than the normal cheddar I make, although that could just be a higher moisture content rather than any "maturing", strong and sweet. Best thing was, after a year it was edible and did not kill me. :D I'm hoping that this one has survived, I'll find out when I peel the wax off in June.

As a prepper thing, cheese making can be a useful tool for preserving milk and supplementing your diet.

One thing to remember, if you have a septic tank DON'T dump the whey down the drain, apparently it's quite bad for the ecosystem.

If anyone wants I can try and get all my notes together and somewhere I have a program I wrote for calculating the quantities of salt, rennet, etc for the amount of milk you have to make cheese.

Oldman
"Just when one least expects it, the unexpected always happens" - Dr. Rance
Arzosah
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Re: Blessed are the Cheesemakers

Post by Arzosah »

I've made paneer to be sure I *could*, but making it regularly isn't on my to-do list. I can't eat cow's dairy regularly anyway, and goat and sheep feta cheese is much cheaper than the same in milk.