Click picture to enlarge - Original hosted at Flickr

Along with all the other cheese jokes, it's been a good time. Cheese is a fun word.

The cheese is out of the press. I got up at 3AM to flip it in the press and then hurried home from work to take it out. I tasted a bit that fell off and it was very nice. It seemed to be the right consistency and actually tasted like cheddar, albeit very mild. It needs to dry for a few days on the counter before waxing.

Once concern I have is that the cheesecloth created a narrow seam around the edges of the block. The wax might not be able get inside to seal the cheese and I may get mold. This recipe calls for aging the cheese 2-6 months, but I'm not sure I can wait that long. It's a learner's cheese anyways, so I might as well sample.

I just discoverd IMakeCheese.com, which is a blog about a guy who also learned to make cheese from the New England Cheesemaking Supply. He gave me the idea to include the recipes I used here at the blog. They will be a handy reference in the future or when we taste the cheeses in two, six, or twelve months.

Here's the recipe I used to make my first cheese, Farmhouse Cheddar (from http://www.cheesemaking.com/):

• 15 pints Farmland Dairies Pasteurized skim milk
• 1/4 teaspoon calcium chloride, diluted in a quarter cup of water
• 1 pint Farmland Dairies Ultra Pasteurized heavy cream
• 1 packet mesophilic direct set culture
• 1/2 1 tablet rennet - I used the whole tab because I was not getting a clean break in my curd. I had to stir the second half in and it left me with some ugly curds to cut, but they were firmer.
• 1 tablespoon cheese salt kosher salt