Mastering Basic Cheesemaking: The Fun and Fundamentals of Making Cheese at Home - Gianaclis Caldwell (2015)

INTRODUCTION

WHEN I BEGAN LEARNING how to make cheese late in 2002, there were just two cheesemaking books on the market — I bought both. I had been making yogurt, paneer, and butter since I was a young girl helping my mom in our farm kitchen, but cheese — real sliceable, meltable, grillable cheese — was a mystery to me. My desire to uncover the secrets of this tasty food came not simply from a passion for eating it (that was supplied in excess by my husband and youngest daughter), but from an ingrained mantra of “make and grow your own food — and do not waste.” I knew that my family would have too much milk from our newly acquired, handful-size herd of goats, and I imagined that by turning the excess into a useful variety of products we could strike these items off the weekly grocery list and reduce the waste created by commercial packaging — a win-win.

The first batches I made, using Ricki Carroll’s venerable Home Cheese Making (my favorite of those two initial tomes), made me feel as if I had performed magic — the alchemy of transforming humble milk into something entirely new and exciting. The sentiment was sustained and the pride of creation boosted by the passion with which my family and neighbors, who I had gathered for an impromptu cheese party, enjoyed the results. There is nothing quite as gratifying as pleasing others with food, especially a food steeped in tradition, mystery, and complexity.

Making cheese proved to be such a seductive and satisfying craft that in 2005 my husband and I began building our own farmstead cheese business, Pholia Farm Creamery (the name combines letters from the names of our daughters, Phoebe and Amelia). We relocated to a part of the old family farm where I was raised — twenty-four acres of woodland, mountains, and meadow — in my hometown of Rogue River, Oregon. Those were still the somewhat early days of farmstead cheesemaking, both as a skill and as a vocation. Friends and relatives were either reluctantly supportive or downright skeptical of our new venture. Even the local dairy inspector advised us that we would be better off to bury what little money we had in a tin can in the backyard. Fortunately for us, Americans’ palate for fine artisan cheeses has continued to grow, along with the desire to eat locally and support small farms. My cheeses quickly achieved wide critical acclaim and we have always techincally been sold out.

In 2010 my first book The Farmstead Creamery Advisor (recently retitled The Small-Scale Cheese Business), was released by Chelsea Green Publishing. My second book Mastering Artisan Cheesemaking followed in 2012, and The Small-Scale Dairy appeared in the spring of 2014 (both also published by Chelsea Green). Each of these books is meant to fill a gap in an industry of which I adore being a part. While it isn’t easy to find time to write — now that our daughters have left home, our farm is run by just me, my husband, and when we are lucky, an intern or two — it is something that I find deeply fulfilling and well worth the effort of piecing together snippets of writing time. And I’ve happily found that milking goats and stirring milk in the cheese vat are useful times to ponder such things as chapter outlines and new book ideas.

Mastering Artisan Cheesemaking is a rather hefty volume, one meant to address the most complex of cheesemaking topics, and consequently not necessarily the best place for people to begin their cheese journey. Over the years, I have watched as the number of beginning cheese making books increased and waited for the perfect introductory guide. Unfortunately, the popularity of a topic does not always guarantee the quality of information available, and it has been with frustration and exasperation that I have reviewed most of these new publications.

While I love tackling advanced cheesemaking topics, when I teach beginning cheesemaking, I feel tremendous pleasure and joy. It reconnects me to my own first enchanting experiences with transforming milk into curd and curd into cheese. In this book I hope to share that magic, reveal its secrets, and guide you through the process in a way that no other book has done. You will be my private student, and I will be your personal trainer. Now let’s get started and make some magic together!

The first part of this book contains many details about the history, ingredients, and equipment of cheesemaking. You can read it first, last, or in between the lessons in the second part.

I structured the recipes, which I call “lessons,” differently than in any other cheesemaking book. To get the most out of our lessons together, you should do them one at a time and in the order that they appear. If you decide to skip a lesson, you should at least read over it before moving on to the next one. Pay special attention to the Recap section following each recipe where we will compare what we just did with what we have learned so far. By working in this way, we will build knowledge and skills organically.