What ingredients do I need to make cheese?
The most important ingredient you will need to make cheese is milk. For cheesemaking, the milk you use should be unhomogenised for best results. If you have a house cow or access to milk straight from a dairy farm, the fresh milk is not homogenised and as such is suitable for cheesemaking. If you are in the city, you can buy Pauls’ unhomogenised milk at most supermarkets.
Depending on the type of cheese you want to make, there are a number of other ingredients that you may require, such as starters, rennet, mould spores, lipase or cheese wax. Choose from our selection of Cheesemaking Kits or if you want to customise your order, you can decide which cheeses you want to make from our list of cheeses and ingredients, and then place an order for the individual items.
But don’t I need special equipment for cheesemaking?
When think of cheesemaking, most people imagine huge factories looking something like this:
So how is is possible to make cheese at home when the average kitchen has nothing like any of that equipment?
The answer is that we improvise, using things that are found in most people’s home already. Any equipment you need can either be purchased at a standard homeware or department store! The more specialist items that are not available at the local supermaket can all be purchased from us here at Cheeselinks!
So what sorts of things do I need in my kitchen to make cheese?
Different sorts of equipment is required for different cheeses. However, an extensive cheesemaker’s kitchen would include the following items:
- Two large saucepans that sit inside one another for heating and pasteurising milk (this is like a double boiler system!)
- Hot plate or stove top
- Spatula or long bladed knife for cutting the curd
- Thermometer for accurately measuring the temperature
- Timer to make sure you stick to the timing instructions in the recipes
- Sanitising agent (any household-grade sanitiser)
- Slotted spoon for draining the curd
- Container for the milk (approximately 8-10 litre container is a good size to make about 1kg of cheese, depending on the type of cheese being made)
- Paintbrush (that hasn’t been used for painting!) for painting plastic cheese coating onto the outside of hard cheeses before waxing.
- A colander and unused chux cloth can be used to drain soft-curd cheeses
- Container with a plastic cake rack in the bottom is ideal for storing cheeses.
- Small syringes to measure small quantities of rennet and calcium solution.
- A range of measuring cups and jugs, ranging from 50ml medicine cups, to 1 litre measuring jugs.
- Rectangular metal cake rack can be used to cut the curd horizontally!
Download: Supplies List in PDF File
