When we told our friends that we were making our own cheese, one of the first responses was that there was a perfectly good selection of specialty cheeses at the super market. Their second comment was, how do you make cheese?
Another thing they say is that I am lactose or casein intolerant and cannot consume milk or any dairy product. Unfortunately, most of the milk and milk products in the US come from cows with what is called the a1 protein. Most milk and milk products throughout the rest of the world ahs the a2 protein which is generally digestable by all people. To learn more about this issue, click here.
We had already been canning jams, pickles, vegetables and even meat so it was a very short venture into curing meat and making cheese for a meat and cheese board.
To learn about curing meat, click here.
When it came to making cheese, I started with the Homesteading Family website and signed up to get a cheese making class. I made some cheese using this class, but really wanted some hands on instruction to really know what to do. Following YouTube classes does work, but having an instructor at your side is always better. Especially finding one where you really get hands on experience, not just someone in front of the class showing you how to do it like you see at a demo at the state or county fair.
When I started looking for more info on making cheese at home I found Gavin Weber who is in Australia. He has more online cheese making videos on YouTube than any other home cheese maker and over 350,000 followers for his videos. He may be a little tedious for some viewers, but for a newcomer, slow and tedious was the right answer for me.
My wife got into the effort and located a woman about 10 miles from our home who had a website and a few videos about making cheese. But better than that, she had a list of in-person classes which is just what we were looking for. In November 2024 we signed up for a couple of classes, then more in January 2025 and more in March and April. We went to as many classes as we could fit into our schedule. We gained enough confidence, that even though we may have signed up for a class, we even gave a shot at making the cheese before the class. So, if you live anywhere withing an hour or so from Sacramento, check out Kim Mack at Scratch Made Life.
After making cheese about 20-25 times, we decided that we really want to serve our home cured meat and home made cheese at our parties or when we go visit family. It was time to do some calculations so that I could determine the perfect production date to have the cheese ready a few days before the party. Another consideration was the need to turn the cheese daily or other production activities so that vacations or work schedules would not interfere with the cheese making.
A good example is that when I make Brie, I am checking and turning the cheese daily, looking for the bloom. That will determine when I can wrap the cheese, how long to continue aging and when to move the wrapped cheese to the regular refrigerator to hold the cheese until the big day. Fortunately, a cheese like Brie can hold in the refrigerator for a few weeks and still be good to eat. With that in mind, even after using the calculator to discover the correct production date, we can make the cheese a little earlier if needed to make sure we are home to turn the cheese daily during the aging process.
Also some cheeses, like Parmesan will age for quite a while with only need to be turned weekly during the aging process. We could even go on a vacation for a month while the Parmesan is aging and have our kids come by and turn the cheese each week while we are gone.
One additional consideration has to do with the size of the wheel of cheese that you are making. The larger the wheel of cheese, the longer it needs to be aged. Commercially made Parmesan is often in 60 kilo wheels and is aged for years, not months. We made an 8 ounce Parmesan in a 3″ mold in the Scratch Made Life class, and at home in 4.5″ wheels and 8″ wheels. Many of the soft cheeses like Brie & Camembert that I make at home are generally in 4.5 inch molds. With those thoughts in mind, I created a cheese calculator page that generally has only one link for each cheese that we make, except for Parmesan. There are two links for Parmesan since I have made different size wheels of this cheese. We like to make the smaller ones to give as gifts at Christmas, or if we need some Parmesan and don’t want to wait 6-12 months for a larger wheel to age. If you take a Scratch Made Life class, the handout will tell you how long to age or if you are doing it on your own, you can easily calculate a start date for your next batch of cheese using my calculator.
With that in mind, here is the link for my cheese calculator page.