Making cheese at home is something that we've been wanting to try for years. Now that we've gotten our feet wet with homemade paneer, we think we're finally ready to take the plunge. Who wants to join us?!
Click through for a round-up of the cheese-making kits we've been shopping...
We're thinking that mozzarella is the place to start. If all goes well, we can always work our way up to harder cheeses!
Ricki's Cheesemaking Kit: This kit is from the Cheese Queen Ricki Carroll in Ashfield, Massachusetts. Her workshops and small business have receive numerous recommendations from both bloggers and national magazines, and she was also featured in Barbara Kingsolver's book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. The kit includes a thermometer, butter muslin, citric acid, vegetable rennet tables (enough for 30 recipes), flake salt, and a recipe booklet.
• Ricki's Cheesemaking Kit is $24.95 from the New England Cheesemaking Supply Company.
Mozzarella Cheese Kit from Leener's: We've blogged about Leener's before--it's one of our new favorite supply stores for lots of foodie DIY projects. Their kit includes thermometer, cheese cloth, vegetable rennet, mild lipase powder, citric acid, cheese salt, calcium chloride and instructions. The product blurb says that this one only makes about 7 batches of mozzarella for a total of 7 pounds.
• This mozzarella cheese kit is $24.95 from Leener's.
Mozzarella and Ricotta Cheese Kit from the Cheese Supply: This is one that kept coming up at the top of our internet searches. The kit includes a dairy thermometer, butter muslin, citric acid, vegetable rennet tablets, flake salt, and a 4-page Recipe Booklet.
• This mozzarella cheese kit is $37.45 from the Cheese Supply.
Honestly, all our searching led us to believe that most cheese making kits are pretty comparable, both in terms of kit contents and the price. Most kits included vegetable (rather than animal) rennet tablets; if this is something that is important to you, definitely double check the kind of rennet before buying.
We're off to order ours today! We'll see you in a few weeks to share our results.
Any advice on kits to buy or things to be prepared for?
Related: 360-Degrees of Cheese: Virtual Creamery Tour
(Image: Flickr member smcgee licensed under Creative Commons)
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I made sheep's milk ricotta without the use of rennet. It's pretty simple.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/art_chel/sets/72157606337667093/
view art's profile
I'm excited to see your results. This would be a great birthday idea for my boyfriend.
view skreinking's profile
I have Ricki's cheese making kit, and it works pretty well - I've only tried the monzorella though, not the ricotta. The kit includes a recipe booklet that not only tells you how to make the cheese, but also gives some good recipes for using up the way (is that how it's spelled?), including bread and pizza dough.
view Rosie's profile
whey... I believe.
view burrda2000's profile
I think Ricki's instructions are not thorough or clear. After doing it once, I get it, but it was really poorly written directions.
view Tazer's profile
I got Ricki's kit a few weeks ago and have to agree with Tazer. The mozzarella came out fine but there was a bit of trial-and-error. The instructions on her website (which include pictures) are a little easier to follow.
view Noodler's profile
We started with the kits from Cheesemaking.com which I gave my husband for Christmas and today have made our 20th 2 gallon batch of hard cheeses. This month we started to eat the first batch ready from Christmas, and we are hooked. Its such fun, and we built a cheese press this weekend that cost only $25 and it works great.
What a fun way to get back into producing food for ourselves.
view Hobocreek's profile