This is a great cheese beginner video but I make a lot of cheddar and there is a relatively small extra process to make a "true" cheddar if anyone is interested. After you stir your curds and whey after the curds shrink to the size of small beans, pour into a large colander. Press it to get as much whey out as possible in a reasonable amount of time. Pretty quick. Go entertain yourself for a half hour and come back and cut into the cheese, cutting it in half. Take one side and flip it turning it. And stack it on the other side. Every half hour for two hours cut into the whole stacked mess and stack on top of the other side. You'll end with a rather tall stack of cheese if you get my drift. This process is called " cheddaring" and it allows the culture and cheese to begin developing the acidity that leads to that sharp flavor in a good chedda. After the two hours rip up the now firm and "knitted" block of cheese curd into small half inch chunks. You can add around a tablespoon of salt per gallon used and mix well with chunks. Our right in that colander mold with that follower for pressing and that's a great simple cheddar. Age as long as you can and brine the surface every once in a while. Six months is good but I've accidentally done a couple years. So yummy and sharp!
@@flumyxx it takes me 6 or so hours to do. I do it every Sunday though so maybe someday. Not a bad idea. I just made a Cheddar today! Definitely consider it.
Once upon a time i made cheese for a living and you have a good base plan there. I noticed A few things you may find helpful. 1 since you are using yogurt/kefir as a starter you should give it some growth time prior to mixing in. warm up and feed it some fresh milk for 15 min or so to get the culture moving fast. this makes flavor growth and acid growth much faster early. reduce the risk of spoilage as well. 2 you hinted at it, but homogenized milk is an absolute no no in cheese. That process wrecks the protein used for curds. 3 cutting the curd. after the verticals are done use a spatula to very slowly rotate the curd then finish the cubes. this is the most critical point in making a good cheese. the more clear the whey is after the cuts are done the better the final results are. Also rewarming to 92-94 in the boiler after cut will improve whey release a slow stir is a must. 4 salt i know its more difficult but if you can drain without pressing using the cheese cloth to shake the salt into the curd works better. goal for salt amount is 1 to 1.5% by weight. figuring out how much cheese you got is the tricky part. optimal results are about 10 to 1 milk to cheese.. Last and most important when doing raw milk cheese. for food safety store the block 30 days minimum. if you want to eat same day with raw. heat to 145f for 30min prior to start. This is min level for pasteurizing. once back to 90f you can start the process. happy curding!
Loved your video but since I live in Scotland we have loads of lovely hard cheddar and soft cheese and it doesn’t cost a fortune I can get it from all of the shops and supermarkets and sometimes driving by a farm they sell it and eggs etc plus I never seem to have the time as I am always out fly fishing it’s funny when you’re young and bringing up a family you seem to have plenty of time but now I am retired for many years I never have any time atoll sorry about this but I still love your video so love from Scotland and stay safe 👍🏴🥃❤️
You really should try using the whey to make Norwegian brown whey-cheese. What you do is simply to boil the whey with some sugar added, until it is reduced to a caramel paste. Depending on how much you reduce the caramel paste will either solidify into nice blocks like butter or will stay a nice spreadable paste that can be used as a bread topping like Nutella. The solidified brown cheese is delicious in thin thin slices with a dollop of jam on a slice of bread. And it makes for a wonderful added something to game casseroles.
Gjetost/Brunost is amazing! It's like a burnt chocolate/caramel sweet flavour with a sheeps milk after taste. Super happy to be able to get it in Australia at my local cheese shop.
Cool! We make a sweet milk spread in Argentina like that, but we use the whole milk instead of just the whey, with a little of vanillin, and a tsbp or two of sodium bicarbonate, since it stops sugar from crystallizing, and we like it soft and spreadable.
Whey is good for your pets. We put a couple tablespoons in our dogs water now and then. As a result, they stopped eating grass and poop. Its also good for spraying on chicken poop to keep the smell down.
You can also use the whey in baking and to make beverages. Adding some sugar syrup to the whey makes a drink vaguely like lemonade. You can also make blaand with it. Blaand is a mildly alcoholic beverage that was very common in northern Europe during the medieval and Renaissance periods, and before whisky it was considered the national drink of Scotland. To make it you just add honey to whey, put it in your fermentation vessel, pitch in your yeast (I just use Red Star since it's actually a baker's and brewer's yeast) and let it ferment for 5-10 days depending on the temperature and weather, then bottle it up. A couple warnings about it. First make certain it's actually stopped fermenting before bottling since it seems prone to stuck fermentation then kicking off again in the bottle. It's the only thing I've made that has exploded bottles. The second warning is that for a lot of people it causes voluminous quantities of nearly lethal flatulence.
Sweet, thanks for laying that out! And appreciate tips on the process and after effect 🤣. Sounds like something I need to try making soon. Thanks for watching!
I've made a few blaands, and if you add a lactase tablet it will more completely ferment (yeast is lactose intolerant), and alleviate the intestinal distress issue. Make sure you pasteurize the whey first if you added a culture, or the lactobacillus may survive and make it quite sour. Like all meads, blaand really benefits from a bit of aging. I don't touch mine until it conditions for at least 3 months. At its best it tastes like a Parmesan scented Chardonnay.
@@dexterne thinking about it "parmesan scented Chardonnay" pretty accurately describes the second blaand I made. I always used whey from making mozzarella so there was lactobacillus culture added. But seeing as I'm a fan of Belgian sour ale, and before I moved to a state where I can't buy raw milk I used to make airag (Mongolian style cultured and fermented milk) pretty regularly I might actually enjoy a cultured, sour blaand. I might have to give that a shot next time.
Thank you for showing us how to make cheese without going broke! My neighbor is a dairy farmer and will let me have raw milk so I will be making this thanks again!!!
never realized hard cheese was so easy to make and so FAST with things that you may already have in your home without having to purchase more items...amazing! Thank you so much! Stay blessed!
This is the first video of yours that I've come across. I IMMEDIATELY subscribed. It is pretty rare to come across such a well done and concise video. This is a keeper.
Yes! It really is amazing in cheesemaking how just differences in techniques and methods can produce very different end results! In this case, the big difference is the mozzarella is acidified first and the farmhouse cheddar is cultured with yogurt or kefir. But aside from that, much of the process is the same. Thanks for watching!
Thank you for sharing this recipe and by the way you can use about 1/3 cup of white vinegar to curd your milk. It doesn't change the flavor at all as it separates as it is drained off with the brine liquid.
As a child who grew up on a farm in Wisconsin, I would go with my dad to the local cheese factory to get whey. He would put 55 gallon drums in the back of the pickup truck and the cheese factory would fill them up for us for free. Dad would clamp the lids on and we drove home. The whey was fed to our pigs and they LOVED it. We always had delicious pork and my dad always said it was thanks to the whey. The smell isn't pleasant, so I'm surprised people here have said they drink it. I would prefer to let the pigs have it. 😂
This was awesome! Simple, easy, and straight to the point. I was afraid to try making my own cheese for my family, because it seems so hard to do, but after watching this I think I can give it a try. This was especially awesome because you really don't need any special tools or machinery you can really make cheese yourself! thanks so much for sharing!
watched the video threw em, you can make your own Rennet from Stinging Nettles, Its an easey proces just pick what you need take home wash the Nettles finally chop place in a small pot add Nettles and water to the volume you need simmer for 10 to 15 minutes the juice stock from the Nettles is your Rennet,,now once you have the Rennet you can bottle,,,before bottling you can add one table spoon of salt this helps keep the product stable you can refrigerate and use as you go it will last about 3 to 6 weeks. You can fined stinging Nettles in your back garden always choose fresh suculant leaves❤
So good, and I really like your calm voice sound which makes this information easy to listen to, comphrehend well, and retain to feel confident enough to really give this a try. Seems like you covered all the ins and outs of what to do and what might happen along the way and what to do about those things. Great photography too, so we can see every detail, and all at good speed to keep up interest and inspiration to keenly watch all the way through. Im definately trying this. Thanks !
Thank you very much for this tutorial! I had followed homesteading families cheese tutorial and wow! my cheese got too dry and took forever. Lots of things to buy. I had pretty much given up. Now this looks like something I can do. And to have cheese ready in one month's time would be terrific rather than waiting three to six months. Thank you for your wonderful explanations and photography. Thank you, thank you, thank you ☺️
That was a beautifully done tutorial presentation! I feel like a friend or grandparent was hanging out with me and teaching me a new skill. Excellent. Relaxed. Thorough. Thank you so much for sharing, I feel enriched. Only gratification left is to taste my own first effort. smile
Great video.Three quick comments: to prevent scorching the milk as you heat it, you might want to use your double boiler for heating as well as maintaining the heat. Me? I sanitize my knife and spoons , cheese cloth and colander by filling one kettle with water and then boiling that with the equipment, then removing the tools , placing them on a on a clean towel and then carefully pouring the boiling water into the larger kettle to use as the boiler. The kettle I boiled the water in, now empty but hot is the one I pour the milk into. The other thought is that while any thermometer is good, if you plan to make cheese regularly, a thermometer with an alarm that tells you when you have exceeded your desired temperature and when that temperature drops below the temp. you want is an even better tool. Last point: You may want to cover the cheese with the cloth before you place the follower on the mold. I am not sure that every surface that comes into contact with the cheese won't leach out chemicals into the cheese or the acids in the cheese won't affect the material of the follower, but in addition, the surface of the follower may not be so sterile that it does not infect the cheese with mold and bacteria that you don't want. Simply covering the cheese so that there is cloth between the cheese and the surfaces of clean but not always sanitized containers is, in my opinion, good practice. That cloth also helps wick the whey away...
@@FromScratchFarmstead are the 90 degrees, Fahrenheit or Celsius? I guess it's Celsius because going beyond that would actually cook your milk, but I lose nothing by asking and it's better to be sure. Nice recipe!
Hi there, whey is great instead of milk on cereal, or as a warm drink with some hot water in it. Also fermented into white wine whey is fabulous, or use it to make fluffy scones.
the smaller you cut the chunks of curd, the faster it releases the whey and it is better to salt the cheese using a brine bath after pressing the cheese, makes it much easier to prevent making the cheese too salty. Also, instead of using butter to coat your cheese, it would be much better to use a purpose-made cheese coating with anti-fungal properties. These are specially designed to control the aging process and helps prevent the cheese from drying out too much/too fast.
@@FromScratchFarmstead The reaction is pretty much identical. I'm not aware of any noticeable difference in the texture of the curds. In the end you'll still have a farmer's/cottage cheese with that foamy, egg-like texture, and the rate of separation is controlled by how much volume of acid you apply.
@@FromScratchFarmstead I've been using vinegar for a while. A little extra salt and a lot of squeezing gives you something close to Feta, which is really good in wraps and on salads.
14:50 You can drink it or use it for bread making too. I actually like to drink whey. 17:40 Some people use brandy. There's a special cheese in England that does that every day--a rinse or a wipe down with brandy.
This showed up in my feed. What a fun video to watch. Having a homestead gives you the chance to be self sufficient, especially in this day and age with the economies being so uncertain. Look at Putin invading Ukraine. Those people can't run to a grocery store like we can in the USA These old craftsmen skills are lost to most people. My favorite store cheese is Sargento. I have never had a bad package and it is excellent flavor. Basically, on sale, I can get a lb of cheese for $4 or less. With store brands you can get an 8 ounce cheese for a $1 on sale. That's $2 for a pound of cheddar, italian, mozerella, etc. But this video shows that anyone could make this at home following your video, thanks. I've always been fascinated at how they get all those different flavors of cheese when it all starts with white milk. Making this from home saves you an untold list of chemicals companies add to their cheese.
Good stuff! Plus the skills are just fun to learn! Anything that brings us closer to our food and makes us more resilient as a people is a good thing. Thanks so much for the comment and for watching!!
Thank you so much for this! I want our family to be more self-sufficient and recently I got the thought of wanting to learn how to make cheese? I am super excited to trybout your recipe! Thanks again!
You can also feed the whey to any livestock you have. The pigs that become prosciutto are traditionally feed on a diet high in the whey from making Parmigiano Reggiano cheese.
“International production. The "cheddar cheese" name is used internationally; its name does not have a protected designation of origin, but the use of the name "West Country Farmhouse Cheddar" does.”…Careful, you nearly said it! When I retire, in a few years, this is what I’m going to do- watch these videos and make cheese, easy to follow instructions, no drama, no fancy gadgets. Thank you.
If you like the orange and vanilla flavor of Creamcicle ice cream then here is a great use for all that whey. Thaw a can of orange juice concentrate and use the whey in place of the required amount of water you would normally use to reconstitute the orange juice. No need to add any sugar. But add a little vanilla extract and chill it for a couple of hours. Whey whey better than Sunny Delight or Tang. Much healthier too, whey is really good for you.
What a great video !!!! Extremely detailed and easy to understand. I am a cheese FREAK but so far all i can make is homemade ricotta, cottage cheese, and cream cheese lol. Thanks for the awesome video. Subscribing right now.
Great tips! Bookmarked for when I finally try this. PS - THANK YOU for pronouncing kefir correctly! I'm always surprised at how many people say, "KEE-fer" instead of "keh-FEER" (the correct way).
This is a wonderful video. I’ve been looking at others feeling that they’re just make it too complicated with too many tools needed to be purchased. I love your practical method probably similar to how our ancestors may made it. I can’t wait to use this recipe. Thanks so much.
Thanks for sharing this recipe, I did visit your website to get the printable version! I do have some questions: 1. When using the raw milk, does the milk need to include raw butter fat at top or should I use 2.5 gallons of raw skimmed milk? 2. If using kefir instead of yogurt, how much kefir do you recommemd? 3. For the butter at the end of recipe to coat over cheese, can the fresh butter have salt in it or does it need to be without salt? Thank you again for sharing this recipe, looking forward to making my first batch of cheddar, I'll let you know how it turns out!
You bet! For the first question, milk can be skimmed but the cream content will correlate to the amount of curd you get. More cream = more curd. So full cream is recommended. 2. I’d just use the same amount of kefir or yogurt. Stick to around 1/8 cup per gallon of either, but a little extra won’t hurt. 3. Butter for coating can definitely have salt. The extra salt might even help with aging and drying. Hope that helps! Thanks for checking out the recipe and let us know how it turns out!
I like to take my milk and cream add sausage and bacon bits take Bacon fat heat it up in a pan text self-rising flour sprinkling over the fat and stir it until it becomes almost a paste as you add the flour as soon as you have enough take your hot milk and cream that has your bacon and your sausage already in on a low simmer while you stir make sure to continually scrape the sides in the bottom that's why I use a spatula in between stirring give it a rest and allow it time to raise the temperature back up and then stir enough to solidify the sides as they start to get thick shut it off and then go through the process that you just did
Love your content! I just wanted to let you know that because of this video, I decided to start making cheese. I've just made some mozzarella so far, but this is going to be next for sure!
thank you very much for your very clear video ..I’ve been making cheese for several months but never tried hard cheese because of so many equipment required according to the videos on the net ….
It's my first time coming by one of your videos today, while looking for some cheese recipes, and i have to say i'm in love with this video 🤩😍 I have been into organic and natural culture for some years so far, and i have willing to try making some cheese ( i really love cheese 🧀 😋), but sadly all i could find was recipes that uses tons of chemicals that made me worried of trying them 😐😐 But i really loved how basic and natural your recipe is, and i'm definitely gonna try it soon, and also i will enjoy watching some more of your videos 😄😄
Awesome, so happy to read this and glad you found it helpful! It is definitely so hard to sift through the world of synthetic ingredients and foods so I'm honored to share what I've learned. Thanks for watching and happy cheesemaking! 🧀
@@elsie9649 I'm sure by now you can order and get it shipped. If not that's too bad.. But having a milk cow is kind of obvious in this context and didn't bear mentioning
How interesting I didn't know pink was back in Vogue again after the 1960s. My favorite color from the 1960s for fixtures is a porcelain lavender ..... The color was absolutely amazing.
I LOVE your collection of cast iron! And the good condition it’s kept in! Im working on expanding mine, one day it’ll rival yours, in the meantime - thanks for the vids :)
Thank you for the feedback! I will mention that a true cheddar undergoes some extra steps, mainly a process that’s actually called cheddaring. This farmhouse cheddar is more the simplified version that still creates a delicious hard cheese. Thanks for watching!
It is crazy to think about, isn't it! And this process if pretty simplified compared to a lot of cheeses out there. Creativity looks a lot different today when put towards technology and other modern inventions, but back in the day these were the inventions that mattered and sustained generations. Thanks for watching!
Watching form Liberia. My thanks and appreciation to you for teaching and sharing with me anther way of making cheese. God bless you and your family's More Grace.
By heating the whey at 185-194F (85-90C), new curds separate. The result is a soft cheese: Ricotta (It) or Urda (Ro). As usually with cheese, the fatter the milk, better the cheese. This type of cheese can be salted or sweetened for eating and lasts only a week or so in the fridge. In my experience, fresh fat urda (with the right additions) is to die for and never in danger of spoiling in the fridge.
Add a few tablespoons of whey to a flavored carbonated water (I like blackberry), add 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar and a squirt of liquid stevia sweetener. A much healthier and delicious alternative to Soda! One of my favorite refreshing drinks!
It's been awhile since I've seen someone shake the milk! When I went away to school, I'd take milk from me from the family farm. New friends saw that and asked, "Why are you shaking milk?!" ☺️ Thanks for the video, I can do this! 👍
Thank you for this easy recipe. I'll be trying it soon. I purchased that book (2/3 of the way through) over a year ago and very basic supplies. I cannot afford a cheese press or even better equipment, nor could I afford any classes. My first experience with hard cheese was a 3 day disaster. Two gallons of purchased raw milk ruined because I didn't know what I was doing and worst part, I live in a decrepit mobil home with no even / level surfaces at all inside. (But we own it!) Nothing would stay on top of my cheese as a press, not even flat books. Too many things went wrong. My precious fridge space (crisper bin) was holding my wheel of cheese being turned daily for 3 months. It was horrible. My cat wouldn't eat it. Our 3 chickens loved it though! I will let you know how it goes. 😁
You got this Nancy! That sounds like a rough first go at it. At least the chickens enjoyed it 🤣. Yes, I’d love to hear how it goes. Thanks for watching and happy cheesemaking!
Well, I didn't expect to see this video. Now I'm like... Could I make my own cheese, my own pepperoni and dough and Viola! Pizza!!? I think that's what's going to happen. Now I need to find your mozzarella vid Thank you for the very informative video, it's obvious that you spent a lot of effort processing and documenting your process. Nice!
Ha, love it! You totally can make cheese at home! And thanks so much for the kind words. I’m in awe of the overall response to this video. Thanks so much for watching!! And here’s the mozzarella link: The Perfect Mozzarella After Years of Experimenting | Step by Step Guide to make NATURAL Mozzarella ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-m-ljuE1h26s.html
6:09 As a VERY newbie when it comes to cheese-making, I was thrilled to watch this video and try my hand at using our dairy cow’s fresh raw milk to make cheddar. Your video was very thorough and easy to follow. So thank you! This may tmi, but when I placed my finished product cheddar in our basement, complete with the butter coating you suggest and a light cloth draped over it, I noticed maggots in it, after about the 3rd day of being in basement!! Ew!! Is this normal? Do you think it’s because of the higher temperature right (summertime in South Georgia)? Would recommend I put mine in a fridge, next time, to prevent this? Thanks so much, and blessings to you!
Thanks for the feedback and so glad you're making cheese from your own cow 🙌 I'm so sorry to hear this happened to you and it's not the first I've heard of it. Somehow, it has never happened in our home, but I could see how it could happen easily. Yes, I think moving to the fridge for aging is the best move. I've been doing that with my own cheese wheels recently in the summer heat and they still great after a month of aging. Hope that helps and thanks for watching!
What a true blessing you are! Thank you sooo much! ❤❤❤❤ Greatful to have you show up in my feed for me. I will definitely send friends. Community = Common Unity ❤❤❤❤
I'm a volunteer at Pipe Spring National Monument in extreme northern Arizona. I used your recipe to make cheese as a demonstration for visitors, since a dairy was a historic business here. For someone who has never had anything to do with cheese making I really appreciate your recipe and video. It was easy to follow and easy to do. The cheese actually turned out, it is a bit dry and gritty, but tastes like cheese! Is it okay to reference your video for visitors?
