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Home Cheese Making

A method for making cheese from milk using rennet, salt, and pressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Home Cheese Making

Ingredients

Directions

Make the curd

  1. Warm the milk slightly above fresh from the cow and strain it into a tin can or boiler.

  2. Add the rennet and stir well.

  3. Let the mixture stand until a firm curd forms.

  4. If whey separates slowly, heat some whey and pour it over the curd, stirring gently.

  5. Once the whey separates, dip it off.

  6. Add coarse sea salt to taste, stirring well.

Press the cheese

  1. Spread a thin cloth over a hoop.

  2. Place the curd inside the hoop.

  3. Cover the curd with a round board.

  4. Press lightly at first.

  5. Increase pressure to about 40 pounds using a lever.

  6. Remove the cheese.

  7. Turn the cheese twice in 24 hours, removing the cloth each time.

Band and ripen

  1. After pressing, cut two round pieces of cloth.

  2. Band the cheese with the cloth.

  3. Sew the ends to keep flies away.

  4. Place the cheese on a shelf in a sunny spot with some shade.

  5. Turn the cheese daily.

  6. It will be ready to use in about ten days.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

What each ingredient does

Milk
Forms the body of the cheese once it is set into curd.
Rennet
Causes the milk to coagulate into a firm curd that separates from the whey.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the curd and helps draw out moisture from the cheese.

The step that matters

Let the mixture stand until a firm curd forms. If the curd is not fully set, it will not hold together or separate cleanly from the whey. Pressing weak curd gives a crumbly or misshapen cheese, so wait for a firm set before cutting or draining.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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