Home made cheese

[lez]

I am considering having ago at making my own cheese after my success with butter. has any else made their own and do you have a recipe? is it as complicated as the book I bought makes it sound? any helpful advice would be most welcome thankyou.

[stella]

I usually make goats chees in Italy. Milk the goat, strain the milk add a few drops of rennet, leave for a day add salt/herbs to taste. Leave to dry out, eat. Very soft creamy cheese probably all wrong but it works for us, my OH loves it

[Nicos]

Where do you buy rennet?
(It's baby calf vomit isn't it???)

[stella]

I but it from the village shop, they have a big bottle of it on the shelf and I just take in whatever container I have and tell them to stop pouring when I think I have enough, it usually last me the whole summer and costs very little

[lesleygl]

Can't you use lemon juice?

[Hilary B]

Drastic oversimplification coming up!
Rennet turns the lactose into acid, which curdles the milk to make cheese. A little rennet will curdle any amount of milk (if there is TOO much, it will be slow).
Adding lemon juice, well lemon juice is acid, but it will only curdle a certain amount of milk, so for larger batches you need LOTS of lemon juice.
Milk will go sour (under the right conditions), that will also produce the necessary acid, but only for a 'cream-type' cheese.
There are vegetable based rennet substitutes.
I've made 'sour milk' cheese, it can be pretty good, only keeps about a week in the fridge (2 weeks if you add anough salt). If you use yoghurt culture to curdle the milk (not sure how well it works, but should be reasonable; I've only done this from shop yoghurt that separated) the cheese has an interestingly different flavour, but doesn't keep any better.
The simpler the cheese recipe, the less well it tends to keep. My only 'proper' attempts were meant to produce a camembert type, and ended up with something close to white stilton, but goaty.

[PAULW]

Recipes
American site but some useful info.

[SarzWix]

Ascott Smallholding Supplies sell quite a few different cheese-making kits, for both soft and hard cheese which we're quite tempted to try out. Might be worth a look?

[Snadger]

Drastic oversimplification coming up!
Rennet turns the lactose into acid, which curdles the milk to make cheese. A little rennet will curdle any amount of milk (if there is TOO much, it will be slow).
Adding lemon juice, well lemon juice is acid, but it will only curdle a certain amount of milk, so for larger batches you need LOTS of lemon juice.
Milk will go sour (under the right conditions), that will also produce the necessary acid, but only for a 'cream-type' cheese.
There are vegetable based rennet substitutes.
I've made 'sour milk' cheese, it can be pretty good, only keeps about a week in the fridge (2 weeks if you add anough salt). If you use yoghurt culture to curdle the milk (not sure how well it works, but should be reasonable; I've only done this from shop yoghurt that separated) the cheese has an interestingly different flavour, but doesn't keep any better.
The simpler the cheese recipe, the less well it tends to keep. My only 'proper' attempts were meant to produce a camembert type, and ended up with something close to white stilton, but goaty.

Or you could just move in next to a witch!

[stella]

We never keep ours for more than a few days as OH loves it. Home made bread a few toms still with the warmth of the sun on them and a red Italian onion (speciality of the are) with olive oil and goats cheese.

[northepaul]

Oh I found some rennet in Sainsburys!

[Liza]

We never keep ours for more than a few days as OH loves it. Home made bread a few toms still with the warmth of the sun on them and a red Italian onion (speciality of the are) with olive oil and goats cheese.

Drrrroooooolllling now ! And sun what more could you want ?