Farm House Cheddar

This Saturday Jeremy and I experimented with making a hard cheese for the first time. We have made mozzarella and ricotta multiple times, but until now didn't have the correct equipment to do a hard cheese. Enter the Cheesy Press, it applies up to 50 pounds of pressure, to remove remaining whey and harden the cheese into shape.

First, we took our milk, 1 and a half gallons, and put it in our double boiler system. We added calcium chloride, which makes the curds firmer, and we heated the milk to 90 degrees.

At 90 we added our mesophilic culture, which inoculates the milk with friendly bacteria, gave it a quick stir and let it sit for 45 minutes.

It was time for the rennet, which causes the curds to form. I stirred it for a minute, and then we let it sit again for 45 minutes.

45 minutes later and the curds had formed into a nice solid block. We cut them in to small squares like shapes.

Then gave it a very gentle stir.

At this point, it was getting so close! We had been at it for over 2 hours. Now we just had to increase the heat slowly so that the temperature is 100, about half an hour. We needed to drain off all the excess whey that we could.

After an hour of cheese hanging it was time for us to mill and salt the curds.

Then It was time to load up the cheesy press and start pressing! First at 10 pounds of pressure, then 20 then 50 and after that, we had a pretty solid piece of cheese.

Now we let it sit out and get a rind, wax it, and let it age. Thankfully for only a month!

The cheese maker: And The Helper: