Say Cheese

A shameful amount of time has passed since I first announced the arrival of my cheesemaking kit and plans to use it to branch beyond the simple panir I've made in the past.

But then I got pregnant and couldn't eat soft cheeses and then I had a baby and didn't have the energy, and it was only a few weeks ago that I finally dug it out and had a go at making a farmhouse cheddar.

As the post I've linked to above details, I used a kit from Green Living Australia.  I also discovered Mad Millie stocked in our local homebrew shop and you can buy kits online there too.

Anyway, onto the cheese. Ok, issue number one. The recipe calls for eight litres of full cream milk (not a cheap way to get a block of cheese!).

You then put that in a pot which has to go into a bigger pot to act as a double boiler.

Eight litres is a lot of milk and our largest pot was nowhere near big enough, let alone finding another one even bigger for water.

So, I settled for about six litres and then had to divide all the other amounts accordingly.

Issue number two... a press. We don't have one. The recipe calls for pressing the cheese with 10kgs of weight for 12 hours. The mould, however, is quite small so it was hard to find anything heavy enough that would fit into it. We settled for a complex rig of a mortar and pot of water.

When I came out the next morning, the rig had pressed the cheese too far down in the mould and the weight was no longer reaching it, so I'm not sure how long it had weight on it for.

Anyway, the cheese that eventually came out looked like this:

I dried it at room temperature for three days and then covered it in wax and popped it in the bar fridge, where it now has to age for a month. 

I did a bit of a messy job with the waxing, but I hope it will serve its purpose and keep the air out.

I can't wait to try the finished product and I'll be sure to update this review with the verdict then.