[Jullienne]

I hope that it works out for you [member=8989]Bionic[/member]  I made fresh cheese once, complete disaster. However I am thinking of trying again.....

[TheGirlsMum]

What shop bought milk would you recommend Dan?

[Dan]

What shop bought milk would you recommend Dan?

For decent cheese you need a decent butterfat content. 'Whole' milk in the supermarket has to have a minimum fat content of 3.5%, which will make acceptable cheese but nothing special.

Channel Island milk has a fat content around 5%, but it's more expensive. It'll make creamier and more yellow cheese. We just saw it in Asda at £1 per litre.

From my limited experience you'll get about a 10% yield, so a 1kg Cheddar will cost £10 in Channel Island milk, which isn't bad - about the same cost as generic label mature cheddar in the supermarket.

Useful yield table here: http://cheeseforum.org/articles/wiki-milk-cheese-yield/

A long-winded way of saying I'll probably use a mix of whole milk and Channel Island milk. 

[Womble]

Interesting! What's special about Channel Island milk then, and where do you buy it from? 

Do Jersey cows give a higher cream %?

[waterbuffalofarmer]

Interesting! What's special about Channel Island milk then, and where do you buy it from? 

Do Jersey cows give a higher cream %?

According to stats guersey cattle give a butterfat % of 5, whereas in the US they only give 4%. Could be to do with the fact the guersey cattle over here give A2 Milk whereas the ones in America are A1, could be a factor? Jersey milk on the other hand is 4.9 %.  Have a read of this, quite conflicting info though
http://www.raw-milk-facts.com/dairy_cow_breeds.html
The best milks for cheesemaking are buffalo and sheep though, as buffalo having 8% butterfat gives a lot of cheese, the more butterfat the more cheese you will have.  Again with sheep the different breeds will give higher and lower than each other, friesland being the lowest % and the more traditional breeds having a higher %. Not sure what % dorsets have of butterfat in milk, but I hear they're cracking milkers

[Bionic]

I have recently seen a farm near me advertising milk. The sign isn't very enlightening just MILK and an arrow but someone has told me that they might have a Jersey herd. I will have to go and investigate

[Backinwellies]

It is a jersey herd Sally .... I've only just seen their milk sign today.  At college we just used blue top supermarket stuff but jersey milk is great.

[Dan]

The best milks for cheesemaking are buffalo and sheep though, as buffalo having 8% butterfat gives a lot of cheese, the more butterfat the more cheese you will have.

Ah, high butterfat is the better for yield. For flavour it depends on many factors, primarily species (of course), breed and diet.

[SallyintNorth]

From my 'book larning' stage, I picked up that another factor is the size of the fat globules.  Apparently, Jersey milk is *not* ideal for hard cheese from this point of view - although plenty of folks make good hard cheese from Jersey milk

The figures for butterfat by breed are intriguing.  As a hand milker of pedigree (and purebred but not pedigree) house Jerseys, I can say that the apparent butterfat content varies wildly according to stage of lactation, the weather, the season, how the grass has been growing that year, what forage is being fed, what cake is being fed, etc etc etc.  The figures are perhaps normalised in some way, perhaps an average from all the milk recordings of all the cattle of that breed, or something.

However, when buying shop milk, you presumeably get an averaged product.

And on that topic, I would personally say that you want to avoid homogenised milk, which has messed around with the fat globules.  It's not always easy to find unhomogenised milk these days, so seeking out a local producer is probably a good place to start.  And at least one of the Channel Islands milk products is unhomogenised - called Gold Top or something, I think - still has the cream on top

[SallyintNorth]

Actually, I don't *know* that homogenised milk won't make good cheese.  It might even be better, you might get less whey (more yield)!

[Dan]

Actually, I don't *know* that homogenised milk won't make good cheese.  It might even be better, you might get less whey (more yield)!

The addition of calcium chloride helps address the calcium-depleting effects of homogenisation. If you use pasteurised, homogenised milk without it you're likely to have a slow coagulation and weak curd. Raw is best though. 

[Jullienne]

I did hear that  you shouldn't use homogenised milk for cheesemaking, by a lot of people, I am not sure whether this is to do with texture or taste. Here may be something useful
http://curd-nerd.com/milk-for-cheese-making/

[farmers wife]

What I see the biggest challenge with hard cheese is having the correct fridge ie high temp high humidity unless you have a cave.  My next step is to buy a cheese fridge.

[Dan]

What I see the biggest challenge with hard cheese is having the correct fridge ie high temp high humidity unless you have a cave.  My next step is to buy a cheese fridge.

I converted an old fridge using an STC-1000 controller - can be bought cheaply from eBay and other places, and if I can wire it up anyone can! A pic here:

http://www.accidentalsmallholder.net/diary/winnie-royal-highland-show-cheese-cave/

HTH.

[Anke]

Been making cheese for the last 5 years now regularly making soft cheeses, brie type ones and also a variety of hard cheeses. Some of the hard one are more of an acquired taste than others, but in general all edible - Gouda is quite easy, if laborious nd long recipe with lots of stirring.

My cheese press is just a stand with two upright (ex-Ikea towel holders) bars screwed into a wooden base plate, and another wooden top plate/plank comes down and then I am using gym weights (the ones that have to be added to weight lifting bars). You will however need a couple of moulds/followers and have found that the site advertised is not always the size that fits the curds...

I am still on the lookout for a good cheesemaking course, that is not just the basic one-day course and is on at a time of year I can actually be away for a few days... not found one yet. Until then, my newest (and so far best) book is Gianaclis Caldwell's "Mastering Artisan Cheesemaking" - a rare US book that can be read and understood by Europeans (it has metric measurements/deg C in all the recipes!!!!).

Cheesemaking is kind of addictive...