My cheesy birthday

So it's been a while since I have wrote in the blog.  But that doesn't mean I have stopped making cheese or not much has happened.  First I had my birthday and I got a lot of good stuff for my birthday to help my my cheese making hobby. 

So for my birthday I got many good things.  I will try to describe them starting from the lower left hand corner.  First I have a new cheese book that I am really enjoying.  It is called Artisan Cheese Making at Home by Mary Karlin  it is a great book that it a little more intermediate but has a lot of good recipes in it.  I hope to eventually do every single recipe (or variation) that is in the book.  Next you can see a a zip lock bag that has some ingredients. It contains some bacteria one is penicilliam and the other is Geotrichum   next I have cheese cloth and above that I have a food scale so I can see how much my cheese weighs, going right from that I have some cultures the two there are thermophyllic and proprionic gas.  Next I have a cheese board with 4 cheese knives/forks so I can make some good cheese plates.  Then in the back you have my cheese press. The press came with two cylinders.  Depending on how much cheese I am making at the time.  2 gallons of milk or 4 gallons of milk.  On either side of the press you can see some cheese mats that are good to use when drying out the cheese or when aging it in your fridge.  With these supplies I will be able to make cheeses from Brie, to Cheddar, to Parmesan.

All in all you can see I got a lot of good stuff.  I was very happy with what I got, hopefully for Christmas I will get a few more things, like maybe a cheese slicer, or a good thermometer/barometer that I can put downstairs to make sure I keep my cheese at the right temp and humidity.

Cheesemaking Book Review: The Joy of Cheesemaking

Before I get to the review, take a look at this beautiful caprese salad that my wife arranged from some of my fresh mozzarella.  It was a really good salad and I was very happy with the mozzarella.  I made it to take to a party at a friends house and I made it very quickly will little guidance from a recipe.  I guess I have made mozzarella enough times now to know how to make it.  One nice thing is that it turned out almost as good as when I used the Snowville dairy milk.  Not sure what made it turn out good.  I did have to open a new bottle of rennett since I used up all of my first bottle. The salad is made up of tomatoes, mozzarella, basil, olive oil, salt, pepper, and some homemade balsamic syrup my wife made.

 

This is the 2nd book on cheesemaking I have read.  I will do a review on the first at a later date. First I will tell you what I liked about the book, then what I thought could be better.  Keep in mind I am writing this from the perspective as a relatively new cheesemaker. 

I really like the color pictures in the book.  It showed some nice pictures and had some nice stories of small operation cheesemakers.   Also at the end of the book it had some very good information regarding how to cut different shapes of cheese and how to have a balanced cheese board.  By making sure to put different types of textures, flavors, and milk on the board.  All in all I would recommend this book to people who want to learn more about cheese and how to eat it.  A good book for those who plan on buying the cheese at the store and then bringing it home and having a cheese tasting.

Now some of the things I did not like.  The recipes were really lacking for a "home" cheesemaker.  A lot of the recipes called for 5 gallons of milk.  This can be hard unless you have a big enough pot.  Even if you have a big enough pot (I do) I would not want to commit 5 gallons of milk to a cheese I had never made before.  The book goes into a lot of detail on calculations on how much culture to use and how long after you get the right PH number before you should get a clean break.  They also required some more advance equipment like a PH tester.  While this book might be good for a commercial cheesemaker I would not recommend it for someone who is new or even intermediate in the cheesemaking field. 

So if you are looking for a book to help you appreciate cheese then this might be your book but if you are looking for some guidance in your new found hobby I would not recommend this book.