A collection of morsels from three years of making cheese at home: a work in progress that I update as I gather more information and that I hope is useful1.
Books I use:
- Home Cheese Making by Ricki Carroll [my first cheese-making book, which I still use regularly]
- 200 Easy Homemade Cheese Recipes by Debra Amrein-Boyes [my second book and another resource for cheese-making recipes I use regularly]
- Mastering Artisan Cheesemaking by Gianaclis Caldwell [my most recent acquisition]
- On Food and Cooking by Harold McGee (Chapter 1: Milk and Dairy Products provides a wealth of useful information and it is a pleasant read)
Websites with cheese-making recipes and other information:
- New England Cheesemaking Supply Company: website, the recipe page [a fundamental resource for my current cheese-making adventures], monthly newsletter, and blog
- Dr. Fankhauser's Cheese page
- Fias Co Farm Home Dairying & Cheesemaking
- Cheese Chick (in particular, the Cheese in Depth Series, which describes the cheese-making process and the different categories of cheese)
- Rhonda's step-by-step instructions for making a small batch of mother culture, fresh cultured cheese, cultured butter and buttermilk
- Mary Karlin's Artisan Cheesemaking at Home companion website, which includes a set of useful forms and charts
Where to get supplies:
– in store (Bay Area and the North Coast):
- The Beverage People (Santa Rosa, CA): pretty much anything you may need
- The Food Mill (Oakland, CA): liquid (vegetable) rennet
- Rainbow Grocery (San Francisco, CA): liquid (vegetable) rennet
- Mollie Stone's (San Francisco, CA, Twin Peaks location): rennet tablets
- North Coast Co-op (Arcata and Eureka, CA): a wide selection of products, including rennet, cultures, salt, wax, calcium chloride
– online:
- New England Cheesemaking Supply Company: everything you may need
- The Beverage People (Santa Rosa, CA): a wide selection of products, including rennet, cheese cultures, molds
- Hoegger Goat supply: everything you may need
- Cheesypress: my cheese press
- Urban Cheesecraft (Portland, OR): cheese-making kits and refills
- The Cheesemaker: everything you may need
- The Grape and Granary: everything you may need
- Dairy Connection, Inc.: everything you may need
- elsewhere:
- if you live in France or Italy, ask for rennet at the pharmacy
Online forum dedicated to making cheese. It includes both articles and a number of forums on a wide variety of topics:
About milk in relation to cheese making:
- From the New England Cheesemaking Supply Company web site: All About Milk, Milk, FAQ about Milk
My adventures in cheese making:
- my posts on making cheese at home (from mascarpone to fromage blanc to Caerphilly to Jarlsberg and more)
- my article Making Cheese with Lao Tzu published on Edible East Bay [download pdf file from the Contents page]
- my articles Say (Homemade) Cheese and Say Cheese — Again published on The North Coast Journal
Other interesting sites that talk about cheese:
- Il portale del formaggio (cheese portal): site includes information in English about Italian PDO cheeses and also European cheeses
Do you have useful information to share?
Leave a comment on this page or email me at simosite AT mac DOT com
1 I do not have a business relationship with any of the stores or companies listed on this page. This is not an advertisement.
