Many people who are interested in the subject of home-made cheese making do not realize how easy it is to make such cheese. Without this awareness, they often give up even the first attempt to make their own cheese, explaining this by lack of access to milk straight from the cow, lack of time, or simply lack of faith in success.

I would like to show you that every cheese can be made from milk bought in a regular grocery store! Of course, not from every milk, because to form a proper curd, the milk only needs to be gently pasteurized at a temperature no higher than 75-80 degrees C. Under the influence of higher temperatures, the structure of proteins in milk changes, which will result in poor rennet effect and no curd formation. Therefore, use milk sold from refrigerators with a short shelf life; and if it is possible - fresh milk from the farmer.

 

I invite you to watch an instructional video on the basics of cheese making and the production of simple rennet cheese:

 

 

For production, I use "Mleczna Dolina" brand milk from a popular supermarket in Poland called Biedronka - it is ideal for cheese production because it is pasteurized at low temperature. It is worth buying the freshest one, i.e. the one with the longest shelf life.

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

I poured the cooled milk into a pot. Then I heated it on a gentle fire to about 33 degrees C. It should be heated slowly so as not to burn the protein. The milk must "come back to life", that is, recover the bacteria lost in the pasteurization process, which are necessary for the acidification to take place. So after heating, I add a starter culture - e.g. MSE.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bacteria must "move" and work a little. After adding them, mix the milk thoroughly and wait about half an hour.

The milk loses calcium during pasteurization, and it is needed for rennet to work well. Therefore, calcium deficiencies should be supplemented by adding calcium chloride - it is also a naturally occurring salt.

A small note here - there are dishonest sellers on the market who offer other versions of calcium chloride for making cheese, for example technical calcium chloride, thst is used, for example, in winter to de-icing roads. If calcium chloride is suspiciously cheap - please be suspicious. Only calcium chloride 99% - purified, should be used for cheese making. It's best to buy everything in professional stores like ours. We guarantee the highest quality and freshness of products, supported by appropriate certificates and approvals.

 

 

 

 

Okay ... calcium chloride has been poured into the milk. Now we can add rennet. For beginners, the easiest dosage is the liquid, sold in dropper bottles. You can use both traditional rennet obtained from calf stomachs and a more modern version - microbiological - produced from special strains of fungi. Both rennets are 100% natural. In the case of milk from the store, it is worth increasing the dose of rennet indicated on the package by half, or even twice.

 

 

 

 

After adding rennet, stir the milk and leave it to form a curd - for about an hour.

 

 

 

 

After this time a curd forms. We check its quality and we can start cutting.

 

 

 

 

The cut curd (or more precisely, the grain) looks like this:

 

 

 

 

I turn on a light fire on the stove and heat the grain a little to about 38 ° C, stirring often. During this time, the whey flows out of the grains, and they shrink. This is not a necessity. Everything depends on the cheese we want to achieve.

 

 

 

 

Before putting it into the molds, I wait about 10 minutes for the grain to fall to the bottom of the pot.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the meantime, I wash the cheese forms thoroughly...

 

 

 

 

...they are ready.

I put cheese grain into them...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After putting the cheese into the mold, it is necessary to turn it around several times every 15 minutes and then leave it at room temperature. This formation should last about 12 hours. During this time, the cheese "sticks together", excess whey flows out, and the bacteria slightly acidify the environment, preserving the cheese and giving it a preliminary flavor.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After removing the cheese grain from the pot, I turn on the gas under it to start heating the remaining whey. There is still some protein left in it - globulins and albumin, which it's a shame to spill. You can turn it into a delicious, delicate cheese - ricotta.

 

 

 

 

In the meantime, in the second pot, I prepare brine by adding salt to boiling water in a 1: 5 ratio (20% concentration).

 

 

 

 

I am going back to whey, which is already hot. Its optimal temperature is around 92 degrees C.

 

 

 

 

After reaching this temperature, I acidify it by adding apple cider vinegar.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And here's what ricotta looks like, which in the blink of an eye after adding vinegar, precipitates from cloudy whey:

 

 

 

 

That's it for today. I leave the brine and ricotta in whey until they cool down.

In the morning our ricotta looks like this:

 

 

 

 

Pour the entire contents of the pot through a cheese cloth or a thick strainer. Ricotta stays on the strainer - it's ready! It can be mixed with herbs, salt, or it can be sweet - you can add jam, for example. Ricotta is ideally suited for spreading on sandwiches, but this protein is much easier for the human body to absorb than casein, and thus - very healthy!

 

 

 

 

And now I return to the main characters:

 

 

 

 

I soak the cheese formed overnight in brine, cooled to room temperature, for several hours. For cheeses weighing about one kilogram, 3 hours are enough.

 

 

 

 

After this time, the cheese is transferred to the refrigerator or a cool basement. It is ready to eat, although its taste will change over time - I recommend trying it for a few weeks and watching how its character changes.

Before putting the curd into the molds, you can also add spices to it - such as Herbes de Provence, dried garlic, smoked paprika - whatever comes to your mind!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ready!

Almost 1.5 kg of cheese came out of 10 liters of "store" milk! Pretty good! Financially decent too - this gives a price of PLN 13.33 per kilogram ... but this is not entirely true, because ...

 

 

 

 

I still have almost 0.6 kg of ricotta, which gives a total of over 2 kg of home-made homemade cheese for PLN 20, i.e. about PLN 10 per kilo. Of course, you should add the cost of rennet, calcium chloride, or starter culture, but these are large packages that are sufficient for the production of many cheeses.

Taste, satisfaction and health are much more important than costs! We are sure that there is no dirtyness or chemistry in our cheese.
As you can see, making home-made cheese is nothing difficult!

The above cheese can be colloquially called "Koryciński" because it is similar to it. Koryciński cheese is a traditional cheese produced in Podlasie. In fact, however, it is the simplest rennet cheese, called differently in each country.

Making cheese is amazing fun, and hand-made cheeses delight the eyes and taste buds much more than even the most expensive and the most exquisite cheese from the store!

Have the courage to try - I guarantee it's nothing difficult! ;-)