First Preparations
A soft cheese kit has been ordered which should let me make all the cows, sheep and goats soft cheeses i can imagine. The kit will here in a few days, in the mean time i will be cleaning out the cheese...
View ArticleCheese Supplies
The cheese kit can be seen here (soft cheese kit) and is quite cheap compared to other places. http://www.ascott-dairy.co.uk/acatalog/Cheeseamking_Kits.htmlIf all works out well with the soft cheeses i...
View ArticleThe maturing cupboard is ready
I have prepared the cupboard in which the cheeses will mature to their full delicious cheesy ripeness, a space has been cleared and the fermenting bin has been sterilised. I have also hung a wee...
View ArticleMaturing Cupboards
Left: This is the cupboard where the cheese will be matured, here you can see the maturing barrel and the thermometer haninging from the ceiling.
View ArticleMaturing Barrel
The maturing barrell, the finished wrapped cheeses will be placed in this beer fermenting barrel. This has a very strong tight seal that will stop it absorbing any moisture and taste from the cupboard...
View ArticleCheese Labelling
I need to label my cheeses, mainly so I know what they are when I have quite a few maturing at one time. The kind of information I want to record is the name of the cheese, the milk type...
View ArticleA sad day in Cheeseland
Despite placing my order a week ago my cheesekit has still not arrived, I'm quite disappointed because I am quite eager to start my first cheese. I have emailed Ascott to see what has happened to my...
View ArticleA happier day in Cheeseland
Ascott have called me back and have 'found' my order, I have been told it will be sent out first class today and will be with me tomorrow. Would have been nice if they had thrown ina free goat for my...
View ArticleIt's Cheese Day!
The Cheese kit has arrived, pictured above you can see the cheesemat, cheesecloth, curd skimmer, thermometer, cheese culture, rennet, a variety of cheese moulds, a wooden cheese presentation block and...
View ArticleThe Milk
Due to an unexpectedly long two and a half hour lunch and a bottle of wine each myself and Mrs Cheese have been unable to make the cheese starter today. I did manage to buy the milk - 3 litres of...
View ArticleCheese Starter
The Starter solution has been made up, this is a mixture of the freeze dried starter culture and milk. Step 1: Heat the milk to 90 degrees C and hold for ten minutes (or have Mrs Cheese do it).Step 2:...
View ArticleA few more hours
We will be making our first cheese today, the starter needs a few more hours until it is ready. We should leave it until it smells "sharp and clean" but I don't know how that smell differs from...
View ArticleNot quite curdy enough yet
The milk didn't seem to coagulate as we expected, it's been standing for around 3 hours, twice as long as it should have done. It does seem to be changing slowly, I think there may have been something...
View ArticleThe first three cheeses
All turned out well with the curds and whey, the first three cheeses have been produced and are standing for 24 hours to allow all the liquid whey to drain. In the picture above, left to right are...
View ArticleFirst set of cheeses
Here are the final cheeses, they have been turned 4 times over the last 24 hours and are ready to be stored in the fridge until we eat them. The official tasting ceremony is taking place tomorrow when...
View ArticleThe results are in
The cheeses have been tasted and overall the results were fairly good. In order of merit we have the Garlic and parsley cheese, the black pepper cheese and finally the plain cheese. Out of the five...
View ArticleGoats Cheese
The new batch of starter culture will be made this evening for the Goats Cheese. Hopefully this starter will work better than the last batch.
View ArticleCheese updates
It's been a while since i produced a batch of cheese but a new batch of goats cheese is on the way. i've been doing some research and talking to some people to work out what went wrong last time and...
View ArticleCheese tips from the experts
I went to the Great British Cheese Festival in Cardiff yesterday and tasted a huge range of cheeses, some amazing, some awful. I discovered some new ingredient combinations to try out with my cheeses...
View ArticleChief Cheesemonger is back
Hello Cheese Fans,I've been extremely lazy and gave up on my cheesing after the first attempt. Expect more cheese antics this year - im armed with a new book on cheesemaking and am going to order soem...
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