Product Description

The classic home cheese making primer has been updated and revised to reflect the increased interest in artisanal-quality cheeses and the availability of cheese making supplies and equipment.

Here are 85 recipes for cheeses and other dairy products that require basic cheese making techniques and the freshest of ingredients, offering the satisfaction of turning out a coveted delicacy. Among the step-by-step tested recipes for cheese varieties are farmhouse cheddar, gouda, fromage blanc, queso blanco, marscarpone, ricotta, and 30-minute mozzarella. Recipes for dairy products include crème fraíche, sour cream, yogurt, keifer, buttermilk, and clotted cream. There are also 60 recipes for cooking with cheese, including such treats as Ricotta Pancakes with Banana Pecan Syrup, Cream Cheese Muffins, Broiled Pears and Vermont Shepherd Cheese, Prosciutto and Cheese Calzones, and Grilled Vegetable Stacks with Roasted Red Pepper Sauce. Profiles of home cheese makers and artisan cheese makers scattered throughout the text share the stories of people who love to make and eat good cheese. Plus information on how to enjoy homemade cheeses, how to serve a cheese course at home, cheese tips, lore, quotes, cheese making glossary, and more.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1171 in Books
• Published on: 2002-10-14
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781580174640
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Review

“[Ricki Carroll] has inspired artisans from Lorie to Las Vagas. She’s the Billy Graham of Cheese.” – Barbara Kingsolver, from Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.

“This book covers everything the novice cheesemaker needs to know about making delicious cheese on the first try” – San Francisco Examiner

“A thorough and practical guide.” – Bon Appetit

“A must-read for anyone interested in cheese making!…offering abled cheese makers knowledge to excel at their craft and novices a world of information…” – Jodi Wische, Old Chatham Sheepherding Co.

About the Author
The co-founder and owner of New England Cheesemaking Supply in Ashfield, Massachusetts, RICKI CARROLL learned cheesemaking in England. Her company has been supplying home cheese makers since 1978, with the goal of providing people with all the equipment and information needed to enjoy this most delicious of hobbies. Ricki teaches cheese making workshops around the country for beginners and advanced hobbyists alike, leads cheese making tours to Europe, and is a member of the American Cheese Society. Her book has become a classic reference.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Chapter 1- Ingredients

In the beginning, God created goats, they produced milk, and that was good. Then he was so excited that there came sheep, cows, and other milk-producing mammals. Then came human beings, who used this wondrous,wholesome product to feed their families. When they realized that milk in stomach pouches coagulated, it was their first miracle. They had discovered cheese! And that was VERY good! Stomach linings became their source for rennet, soured milk and whey became their source for cultures, and fingers were turned into instant thermometers (but that we'll save for the equipment chapter). The miracle of cheese solved an age-old question of how to save milk. After a while, naturally occurring molds added vim and vigor to cheeses and introduced variety to the palate.

Today, we use the same ingredients but obtain them in more sophisticated ways. Cultures and rennets are now made and standardized in factories and can be obtained from cheese-making supply houses. Milk comes in bottles and is bought at the grocery store. But hark! I hear the artists calling, because in the right hands, these ingredients can be turned into gastronomic delights. Read on, and happy cheese making.

Milk

Milk means different things to different people. For the shopper in a grocery store, milk is the white liquid found in plastic jugs in the dairy case. For the owner of a dairy animal, milk is obtained in the course of a day's chores. Milk is a complicated substance. About seven eighths of it is water. The rest is made up of proteins, minerals, milk sugar (lactose), milk fat (butterfat), vitamins, and trace elements. Those substances are called milk solids.

When we make cheese, we cause the protein part of the milk solids, called casein, to coagulate (curdle) and produce curd. At first the curd is a soft, solid gel, because it still contains all the water along with the solids. But as it is heated, and as time passes, the curd releases liquid (whey), condensing more and more until it becomes cheese. Most of the butterfat remains in the curd and very little passes into the whey. Time, temperature, and a variety of friendly bacteria determine the flavor and texture of each type of cheese.

Throughout history, people have used milk from many animals. The familiar cow, goat, and sheep have fed people for centuries, along with less common animals such as the yak, camel, water buffalo, llama, ass, elk, mare, caribou, zebu, and reindeer. When making the cheeses in this book, you may use whatever milk you have available in your area. Cow's and goat's milks are the most readily available in the United States; you may find some sheep's and water buffalo's milks, if you are very lucky. You may make the cheeses in this book with store-bought milk, as long as it is not Ultra-Heat Treated (UHT), and you can use dried milk powder for the all the recipes in chapter 4, "Soft Cheese," and in chapter 10, "Other Dairy Products."

No matter what type of milk you use for cheese making, it must be of the highest quality. Always use the freshest milk possible. If it comes from the supermarket, do not open the container until you are ready to start. This will prevent possible contamination from bacteria in the air. Above all, if the milk tastes sour or "off," throw it away -- the cheese-making process will not make your milk taste better! When purchasing milk, remember that 1 gallon yields 1 pound for hard cheeses or 2 pounds for soft cheeses. This varies from milk to milk. Yields from goat's milk and nonfat milk are lower, and the yield from sheep's milk is higher. The following list includes the many types of milk used in the cheese-making process.

Cow's Milk

In the United States today, cow's milk is the most popular for use in cheese making. This is not the case in the rest of the world, however, as goats and sheep feed the majority of the globe's population. Cows are large animals that are more difficult to raise; they eat more and therefore take up much more grazing land and natural resources. Yet cow's milk is abundant, the curd is firm and easy to work with, and it produces many wonderful cheeses. If you are considering buying your own cow, start with a Jersey -- its rich milk will produce a high cheese yield because it has a high butterfat content, and Jerseys are very sweet animals.

Goat's Milk

Goat's (doe's) milk has smaller butterfat globules than cow's milk, making it more easily digested. It is more acidic than cow's milk, so it ripens faster, and it has no carotene, so it produces a whiter cheese. Because of its natural homogenization, goat's milk makes a slightly softer cheese than that from cow's milk, though the butterfat content is about the same. Cheese made from raw goat's milk has a distinct peppery hot pungency caused by naturally occurring lipase enzymes and fatty acids. During the renneting process, you may lower the temperature five degrees, because goat's- milk curd tends to be more delicate. Remember to treat these softer curds very gently.

If you are looking for your own goats, Nubians and Alpines are good producers and tend to have the sweetest milk. Saanens often produce more milk, but it has a stronger flavor. Toggenburgs produce a slightly lower yield, but also a strong flavor.

Sheep's Milk

Sheep's (ewe's) milk is one of the most nutritionally valuable foods available. It is high in protein and vitamins, which so often have to be artificially added to our diet. Sheep's milk contains almost 10 percent less water than cow's or goat's milk and is almost twice as high in solids as cow's milk; therefore, it produces a very high cheese yield -- almost 2H times what you would expect from cow's or goat's milk.

Milking sheep are now making an appearance in the United States, and there are some differences to note if you use sheep's milk for cheese making. When adding rennet, use three to five times less than that used for cow's milk, and top-stir carefully. When cutting the curd, make larger cubes; when ladling, take thicker slices, or you will lose too much butterfat and the cheese will be too dry. Use half the amount of salt called for and exert only light pressure when pressing.

Water Buffalo's Milk

This milk has three times as much butterfat as cow's milk and is traditionally used to make mozzarella. Unless you have your own herd, using water buffalo's milk is not a possibility in the United States at this time.

Raw Milk

Several terms need to be defined, so that you know what I am talking about when I use the word milk. Raw milk comes directly from a farm animal and is filtered and cooled before use. It is not pasteurized, so it has a higher vitamin content than heat-treated milk. Raw milk brings out the fullness and richness of flavors, and it has the added advantage of bringing the subtleties of pasturing and the diet of the animal into your final cheese.

Raw milk contains natural flora, many of which are very useful in cheese making. It may also contain harmful bacteria, known as pathogens, that can produce disease in humans. Pathogens that may be found in milk include Mycobacterium, which causes tuberculosis; Brucella, which cause brucellosis, and Salmonella, which causes salmonellosis.

A few salmonella outbreaks in recent decades, however, all have occurred in pasteurized milk. Typically, salmonella outbreaks are caused by a lack of cleanliness in factories, where the thinking is that "pasteurization will take care of it." Taking precautions to avoid foodborne illness is important for everyone, but especially for those most vulnerable to disease -- children, the elederly, and people with weakened immune systems.

If you consume raw milk or use raw milk to produce cheese that is aged fewer than 60 days (this includes almost all fresh cheeses), you must be absolutely certain that there are no pathogens in the milk. To ensure that your raw milk is pathogen-free, consult a local veterinarian for advice. A good rule to follow is: If in doubt, pasteurize.

When using raw milk, never use milk from an animal that is suffering from mastitis (inflammation of the udder) or receiving antibiotics, which will destroy the helpful bacteria that are essential in making cheese. (If you make raw-milk cheese for sale, U.S. federal law dictates that it must be aged longer than 60 days to prevent the development of pathogenic bacteria.) That said, raw-milk cheeses are some of the best in the world.

Homogenized Milk

This milk has been heat-treated and pressurized to break up the butterfat globules into very small particles so that they are distributed evenly throughout the milk and do not rise to the top. Homogenized milk produces a curd that is smoother and less firm than that of raw milk, so I recommend adding calcium chloride during cheese making. Homogenized milk may require up to twice as much rennet as does raw milk. Although store-bought milk is usually both pasteurized and homogenized, farm-fresh milk does not need to be homogenized.

Cream-Line Milk

This milk has not been homogenized and has a "line" that separates the cream on the top from the milk on the bottom. (This is delicious! If you're my age, you remember the glass bottles on the porch -- that was cream-line milk.)

Pasteurized Milk

This type of milk has been heat-treated to destroy pathogens. In effect, it kills all bacteria, which is why you need to add bacterial starter to most cheese recipes. Pasteurization makes proteins, vitamins, and milk sugars less available, and it also destroys the enzymes that help the body assimilate them. How to Pasteurize Milk. If you acquire milk directly from a cow or a goat and need to pasteurize it, follow this simple procedure:

1. Pour the raw milk into a stainless-steel or glass pot (do not use aluminum) and place the pot into another, larger pot containing hot water. Put the double boiler on the stovetop and bring the water to a boil.

2. Heat the milk to 163ªF, stirring occasionally to ensure even heating. Hold the temperature at 163ªF for exactly 30 minutes. The temperature and time are ...

Customer Reviews

Cheese Gromit!
I had tried to make cheese from recipies I had found online with little success. I was rather frustrated and decided to buy this book and see what I was doing wrong. My first batch was a chedder cheese which came out exactly as the book promiced first time. My second batch was a gouda cheese which I upsized to a 3 gallon batch from the 2 gallon recipie using the instructions in the book and once again it came out perfect.

For the money it has to be the best aid to a home cheesemaker that one can buy. I highly recomend this book to anyone who wants to start out making cheese.

Not bad, but there's better out there.
After much experience with wine and beermaking, I decided to try making my own cheese. Well, it is defiantely not a trivial matter. We are not making pasta here... This book was not bad, and helped me understand the process of making cheese but the actual recipes were confusing and hard to follow. If you have never made cheese before, try another book. There are better ones out there by Shane Sokol & Barbara Ciletti for beginners. In summary: a nice book if you want some insight into the cheesemaking process, but on the "how-to" side, the book is of limited use once you have gone past your first steps.

Excellent Foodie Background Reading. Good cheese too
`Home Cheese Making', 3rd Edition, formerly `Cheesemaking Made Easy' by cheesemaking equipment supplier, Ricki Carroll is one of those books like Sandor Ellix Katz's book `Wild Fermentation' and Sally Fallon's Nourishing Traditions' which a dedicated foodie should read, if only to appreciate exactly how cheese is made and to thereby appreciate the differences between hard and soft cheeses as well as cheeses made from cow, goat, buffalo, and sheep milk. The procedures for cheesemaking can give us a much closer connection between everyday cooking and the transformations which turn milk into cheese than can be achieved by even a close reading of Harold McGee's chapter on milk in `On Food and Cooking'.

Aside from dedicated foodies and the armchair foodies whose experience is largely from Food Network travelogues, there is the hard core cheese hobbyist and unregenerated counterculture `Whole Earth Catalogue Hippie' who grows a lot of their own food and makes their own wine or beer to foster an independence from commercial products. This book is really for you.

The first thing which both pleased and surprised me about the book is that it does not limit itself to soft, fresh cheeses such as queso blanco, mozzarella, cream cheese, mascarpone and mozzarella. It doesn't even stop at cured mozzarella, giving provolone. It goes all the way to the hard grana cheeses such as Romano and Parmesan, plus cheddar, blue cheeses, and the soft cured cheeses (Brie, Camembert, Limburger) along the way.

One thing I should not minimize is that while the learning curve from conventional cooking to cheesemaking is not very steep, the investment in time, equipment, and special techniques for cleaning and sterilization may be a bit more than you will encounter when you get into some new culinary fields such as bread baking, souffles, and preserves. While buttermilk and crème fraiche may be pretty easy, even a product as simple as cottage cheese requires at least two specialized ingredients not carried by your local megamart.

In fact, if you are already familiar with the techniques involved in home beer brewing, canning, pickling, or wine making, you are probably already halfway to having the necessary skills and space needed to do serious cheesemaking. Unfortunately, this does not give you a leg up to access to the best raw materials. I suspect that serious cheesemaking for most types of cheeses may be beyond the resources of a typical city apartment or condo dweller, unless you have the time to take regular trips to farms to obtain the right kinds of milk. While I have not looked for them in New York City, I suspect that even Zabars doesn't have a lot of the raw materials you will need for recipes in this book.

While my favorite megamart does have only conventionally pasteurized cow's milk, it has no goat's milk, sheep's milk, unpasteurized milk, or single pasteurized cream. The very best location for getting into serious cheesemaking is probably in a standalone house and garage located close to goodly supply of dairy farmers. Living close to people like the Amish or Mennonites who just may do this on a regular basis, not to mention have a handy supply of raw cow's milk may be the very best venue for mastering cheesemaking.

It occurs to me that I have not given this book enough credit. In addition to many recipes for some very, very serious long-term cheese making, there are a number of recipes for things such as buttermilk, crème fraiche, sour cream, kefir, yogurt, butter, ghee, paskha and clotted cream. Unlike recipes you may find in most general cookbooks, the recipes for buttermilk, sour cream, and crème fraiche are not `approximations' or close substitutes. They are the real deal, which means that the recipes call for the kind of starter culture that can only be bought from a speciality mail order source.

Note that while the book does cover some simple yogurt recipes, I would not push it as a book on yogurt making. If that is your real interest, look for a title specializing in yogurt.

The general utility of the book is further enhanced by Chapter 11 that includes a quick course on the proper techniques for cutting and serving cheese. This same chapter contains several recipes for staple products using buttermilk, ricotta, fromage blanc, and yogurt. These are mostly breads, muffins and biscuits. It also has several recipes for dairy-based dips, spreads, dressings, appetizers, salads, pizzas, and veggie dishes. Personally, if I ever wanted to go beyond the fringe with foodie mania, I would much sooner go in the direction of cheese making and artisinal breads than towards the raw food doctrines. Those ancient Greeks and Romans knew a good thing when they saw it!

It will probably not be lost on you that the book's author happens to be in the business (New England Cheesemaking Supply Company) of selling equipment for making cheese in small batches, so the book is pretty self serving, but it is still an excellent introduction to the craft with several references to sources other than the author's own company. The end of the book also gives a generous number of references to artisinal cheesemakers, cheesemaking journals, and a very nice bibliography with some more advanced texts.