Customer Reviews

Home Cheese Making: Recipes for 75 Delicious Cheeses

5 star:		(52)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I had tried to make cheese from recipies I had found online with little success. I was rather frustrated and decided to buy this book and see what I was doing wrong. My first batch was a chedder cheese which came out exactly as the book promiced first time. My second batch was a gouda cheese which I upsized to a 3 gallon batch from the 2 gallon recipie using the instructions in the book and once again it came out perfect.

For the money it has to be the best aid to a home cheesemaker that one can buy. I highly recomend this book to anyone who wants to start out making cheese.

`Home Cheese Making', 3rd Edition, formerly `Cheesemaking Made Easy' by cheesemaking equipment supplier, Ricki Carroll is one of those books like Sandor Ellix Katz's book `Wild Fermentation' and Sally Fallon's Nourishing Traditions' which a dedicated foodie should read, if only to appreciate exactly how cheese is made and to thereby appreciate the differences between hard and soft cheeses as well as cheeses made from cow, goat, buffalo, and sheep milk. The procedures for cheesemaking can give us a much closer connection between everyday cooking and the transformations which turn milk into cheese than can be achieved by even a close reading of Harold McGee's chapter on milk in `On Food and Cooking'.

Aside from dedicated foodies and the armchair foodies whose experience is largely from Food Network travelogues, there is the hard core cheese hobbyist and unregenerated counterculture `Whole Earth Catalogue Hippie' who grows a lot of their own food and makes their own wine or beer to foster an independence from commercial products. This book is really for you.

The first thing which both pleased and surprised me about the book is that it does not limit itself to soft, fresh cheeses such as queso blanco, mozzarella, cream cheese, mascarpone and mozzarella. It doesn't even stop at cured mozzarella, giving provolone. It goes all the way to the hard grana cheeses such as Romano and Parmesan, plus cheddar, blue cheeses, and the soft cured cheeses (Brie, Camembert, Limburger) along the way.

One thing I should not minimize is that while the learning curve from conventional cooking to cheesemaking is not very steep, the investment in time, equipment, and special techniques for cleaning and sterilization may be a bit more than you will encounter when you get into some new culinary fields such as bread baking, souffles, and preserves. While buttermilk and crème fraiche may be pretty easy, even a product as simple as cottage cheese requires at least two specialized ingredients not carried by your local megamart.

In fact, if you are already familiar with the techniques involved in home beer brewing, canning, pickling, or wine making, you are probably already halfway to having the necessary skills and space needed to do serious cheesemaking. Unfortunately, this does not give you a leg up to access to the best raw materials. I suspect that serious cheesemaking for most types of cheeses may be beyond the resources of a typical city apartment or condo dweller, unless you have the time to take regular trips to farms to obtain the right kinds of milk. While I have not looked for them in New York City, I suspect that even Zabars doesn't have a lot of the raw materials you will need for recipes in this book.

While my favorite megamart does have only conventionally pasteurized cow's milk, it has no goat's milk, sheep's milk, unpasteurized milk, or single pasteurized cream. The very best location for getting into serious cheesemaking is probably in a standalone house and garage located close to goodly supply of dairy farmers. Living close to people like the Amish or Mennonites who just may do this on a regular basis, not to mention have a handy supply of raw cow's milk may be the very best venue for mastering cheesemaking.

It occurs to me that I have not given this book enough credit. In addition to many recipes for some very, very serious long-term cheese making, there are a number of recipes for things such as buttermilk, crème fraiche, sour cream, kefir, yogurt, butter, ghee, paskha and clotted cream. Unlike recipes you may find in most general cookbooks, the recipes for buttermilk, sour cream, and crème fraiche are not `approximations' or close substitutes. They are the real deal, which means that the recipes call for the kind of starter culture that can only be bought from a speciality mail order source.

Note that while the book does cover some simple yogurt recipes, I would not push it as a book on yogurt making. If that is your real interest, look for a title specializing in yogurt.

The general utility of the book is further enhanced by Chapter 11 that includes a quick course on the proper techniques for cutting and serving cheese. This same chapter contains several recipes for staple products using buttermilk, ricotta, fromage blanc, and yogurt. These are mostly breads, muffins and biscuits. It also has several recipes for dairy-based dips, spreads, dressings, appetizers, salads, pizzas, and veggie dishes. Personally, if I ever wanted to go beyond the fringe with foodie mania, I would much sooner go in the direction of cheese making and artisinal breads than towards the raw food doctrines. Those ancient Greeks and Romans knew a good thing when they saw it!

It will probably not be lost on you that the book's author happens to be in the business (New England Cheesemaking Supply Company) of selling equipment for making cheese in small batches, so the book is pretty self serving, but it is still an excellent introduction to the craft with several references to sources other than the author's own company. The end of the book also gives a generous number of references to artisinal cheesemakers, cheesemaking journals, and a very nice bibliography with some more advanced texts.

After much experience with wine and beermaking, I decided to try making my own cheese. Well, it is defiantely not a trivial matter. We are not making pasta here... This book was not bad, and helped me understand the process of making cheese but the actual recipes were confusing and hard to follow. If you have never made cheese before, try another book. There are better ones out there by Shane Sokol & Barbara Ciletti for beginners. In summary: a nice book if you want some insight into the cheesemaking process, but on the "how-to" side, the book is of limited use once you have gone past your first steps.

I bought this book after having purchased starter, lipase and rennet from another cheese supply company. Ricki owns and operates New England Cheesemaking and sells everything one needs to make cheese including starter in pre-measured packets. I was terribly disappointed to find that in her book, every recipe gives the measurement for starter in packets!

I wrote in to her website only to receive no answer. My next step is a phone call. I have the book and unless I find out how much starter is in each package, it's useless.

The recipes look nice, the book is well laid out and easy to understand, but I take issue with her attempting to get me to buy supplies only from her. There is more than one kind of lipase available, she only discusses the one she sells. What about us folks who have already purchased starter from someone else? How about a measurement in teaspoons? Or a conversion chart - not too difficult to do.

My advice? If you are planning to buy this book, plan to buy starter from Ricki. It's more expensive, but you won't have the headache of trying to figure out the conversions.

As a beginner cheese-maker, I bought this book to learn how to make cheese. Also bought Ricki's 30-min mozzarella kit. Figured I'd start with a basic mozzarella cheese, and it might be tasty with all the tomatoes in my garden. Well, things got a bit complicated.

While there was a lot of useful and interesting info in the book, the directions on how to make this 30-min mozz did not jive with her kit directions, nor did they even jive with the directions offered on her website (and there are two sets of slightly diffeent directions on the site!!). So, four sets of directions, each a little different (including target temperatures!!!), this beginner was frustrated from moment 1.

First batch failed entirely, probably due to the milk used. Bought another brand, dug around in the bin for the freshest one...this time things went better, BUT the curds did NOT form in the time she tells you....nor a half-hr later. Nearly an hour later, got soft curds and was never sure if they were "right"....they seemed too soft. Did manage to make 2 balls of cheese, but they tasted a little cooked.

I wrote to her website asking for help understanding what happened and for process clarification. No response a week later. I also wrote to this guy Steve who has his own cheese making website. He promptly answered, explaining that when he sells the Ricki kit he actually includes HIS OWN DIRECTIONS. Apparently the curd will often take up to an hour to set and tablet rennet (in the kit) can take a bit longer than liquid rennet. He offered a few other notes that very effectively explained what I was experiencing.

I am hesitant to make other cheeses from this book. I will probably compare the recipes/directions in the book vs online just for better understanding before starting the next trial. Part of me regrets this purchase because who needs to do all this homework? Ok, ok, it was just one recipe, but I bought the book thinking it would offer everything I'd need to just get started...and it failed to deliver on the first cheese!

I got interested in making cheese after I meet the artisan cheesemaker at a local winery near Herman, Missouri. She told me that she had started in her kitchen and had developed the hobby into a professional culinary skill, after further education in Europe and Israel on the fine art of cheesemaking. She enthusiastically recommended this book, and I received it for Christmas. It is very well written, with logical chapter layout for ingredients, equipment, and techniques, followed by lots of recipes for the different families of cheeses (hard, soft, Italian, etc.) The beginning establishes the cheese makers vocabulary, which is then used throughout the book. A great book for a beginning cheese maker.

I am very disapointed to read a negative comment about this book of Ricki Carroll, because being myself a dairy microbiologist and working everyday with cheeses, as Mrs. Carroll, I really find her book a great reference for anyone who wants to start making cheese from home from the very begining, or even for proffesionals to clarify some general concepts. You will find in this book good and precise explanations about a difficult topic, not always easy to explain, what she masters well. Is an affordable book for anyone interested in making our own cheese.

I have read this book very carefully from cover to cover and find the information very accurate and easy to follow. It takes you in a very easy step by step manner through this most ancient art. Start small by trying the easiest recipes and making the cheeses you like and then as you start to become better, you can slowly try your own little variations.

Using this book, I have made Cheddars, Goudas and even Blue cheese that has won my Bed and Breakfast quite a reputation.

Find out a little bit about the cheeses I make by visiting
www.geocities.com/cinnabarfarm

This book is interesting and it does get you excited about what you can make with the moo juice in the grocery store, but as other people mention, it does not give the best instructions. I wouldn't classify this as a beginner's cheese making book at all. One problem is that, well, you're going to have problems and other than a brief troubleshooting guide there is really no help. It's as if the author just expects that if you follow her steps all will turn out perfect. It doesn't

She also barely mentions the need to add calcium chloride to store bought milk (needed due to processing of the milk) and doesn't include it in her recipes. If you forget her mention of this in the beginning of the book your cheese is not going to turn out. Other books have the calcium chloride in the ingredient list for each recipe and tell you when to add it.

It would be nice to have an explanation of the whys and hows and what can be adjusted. Other books mention that you can let a certain step go for longer if needed or the temperature can be within a range instead of exactly X degrees. Other books also mention HOW to raise your pot of curds by 2 degrees every 5 minutes, she just tells you to do it. I was lost the first time I read this until I found another book that told me what setting to put my stove at. I just feel alot is missing from this books that should be there if you are going to market it as a beginning cheese making book.

The recipes? Well there aren't really 75 cheeses. There's several recipes for cream cheese, ricotta, mozarella, cheddar and I felt several cheeses I would have wanted weren't in here - feta is pretty basic, why isn't it in here. I like how other books rank the recipes from easiest to hardest and also tell you a total time the whole process will take.

All in all I refer to this book when I make my cheese but I will no longer use it as my sole source for a recipe. Even her famous 30 minute mozarella is a hit or miss affair but when I used another company's recipe it came out perfect the first time. Buy this book, but plan on needing others to get a clear idea of the process and to have success in cheese making.

Quite a few recipes, many good, but as a prior reviewer stated, this book is confusing, especially with the hard cheeses. If you have never done this before, try a beginner's book like the one by Shane Sokol. That one has fewer recipes, but is wonderful for the beginner.