Farmhouse Cheddar Part 2: Ripening & Cutting the Curd

Farmhouse cheddar is our first hard cheese. It takes a month to age, so it ought to be ready for Thanksgiving!

We used Ricki Carroll's recipe (ours is a half batch), she seems to be the the most used by home cheese makers (and also runs cheesemaking.com, the site we ordered wax from).

First and most important: buy the right milk. Ultra-Pasteurized can only make ricotta, and its not always clearly marked (we tried whole foods milk last week and ended up with a mess). Luckily, C-Town, of all places sells local milk, for $1 more per gallon then regular, and it's worked for us twice. Be careful. 

Begin by warming the milk to 90 degrees, add the 1/2 packet/tab mesophilic starter and let ripen for 45 minutes. We bought our starter at the Brooklyn Kitchen, down the block, you might have to order it. The good news is that you can keep it alive and really only need to order it once if you are diligent, we are planning to buy a new one for each batch (there are enough things growing in our apartment already).

Warming the milk and letting it ripen.

After the milk has ripened, add 1/4 teaspoon of the rennet (already diluted in cold un-chlorinated water), stir for a minute, then let sit for 45 more minutes. Lots of waiting.

Next, cut the curd into small cubes. This is cool, the trick is to cut at a 45 degrees angle, in both directions, then rotate the curd (so you are cutting perpendicularly to the last cuts) and repeat. If you did it right you'll end up with small cubes all balancing one one point, it's a fun geometry project.

Cutting the curd, it's completely solid like jello.