Making hard cheese at home can be quite a lot of work but in the end not only do you get a great cheese, you get the satisfaction that you just made it from scratch. I will be eating this cheese after the 25 day aging period to see how it turned out. If its good I will be making another block and aging it longer then smoking it for the Macaroni & Cheese from scratch challenge in the works.

So for now here is the recipe I used and photos of the steps I’ve taken so far, the finished product will be revealed in 23 days from today.

What you need:

1 Gallon whole milk

4 oz Mesophilic starter culture (for this you need fresh cultured buttermilk from your local grocery store)

1/2 tab rennet

a large fine, strong cheesecloth

1 quart water

1.5 cups salt

The Process:

The night before: pour 4 ounces of buttermilk into a sanitized mason jar then cap and let sit at room temperature on your counter for 8 hours. After 8 hours if you don’t get around to making the cheese right away you can freeze this in ice cube trays then transfer to a Ziploc bag for later use.

The Day of:

1. 

   Fresh Cheese Curds

   Start by filling a large pot that can hold 2 gallons of liquid with hot water, and bring to a boil (this is just to sanitize the pot you’ll be using)

2. Now pour out the water and pour your gallon of milk into the pot, bring the milk slowly up to 85 degrees Fahrenheit.
3. Once the milk has reached 85 degrees Fahrenheit whisk in your Mesophilic Starter Now dissolve your half tab of rennet in 4 TBL of cold water (hot water will kill the enzymes) then whisk into your milk mixture, while maintaining a temperature of 85 degrees Fahrenheit.
4. Continue gently whisking for 5 minutes, then cover and keep in a warm place for 1-2 hours occasionally checking the temperature and heating slightly if needed to keep it at 85 degrees Fahrenheit until a solid thick curd forms( I kept the covered pot in my oven with the light on).
5. Once the curd can be cleanly broken with a knife, while the curd is in the pot cut into half inch squares then make a few 45 degree angle slices through it (your doing this to mainly divide the curd).
6. Now let the curds sit for 10 minutes to firm up a bit.
7. Slowly bring the temperature of the milk up to 102 degrees Fahrenheit while occasionally giving the curds a gentle stir so they don’t stick together.
8. 

   Now thats a cheese press!

   Once the milk reaches 102 degrees Fahrenheit, gently remove three cups of the whey from the surface, and replace with 3 cups of 102 degree Fahrenheit water.

9. Continue cooking the curds for a total of 45 minutes while replacing 3 cups of whey with 3 cups of water every 15 minutes. In the end you will have replaced the whey with water 3 times.
10. Now line a colander with your cheesecloth and slowly pour your curds and whey from the pot into the cheesecloth, let the curds sit for 10 minutes.
11. Pull the cheesecloth containing the curds together and give it a gentle twist to drain out any trapped whey.
12. Here is the part that I’ll leave to your creativity, you need to press the curds in some sort of a form for 45 minutes under 20 pounds of weight, flip then press under 40 pounds of weight for 3 hours. I used a medium size circular Pyrex Tupperware, and cut a sturdy piece of cardboard to the shape of the Pyrex making it just small enough to fit flat in the bottom of the Pyrex and allow some whey to escape up through the sides, then I wrapped this piece of cardboard with heavy duty foil. I then put the foil wrapped cardboard aside transferred the cheesecloth with curds into the Pyrex, topped with the foil wrapped cardboard, then a 2 pound can of tomatoes, a big pot that contained 3 x 5 pound bags of flour and hung 2 x 2 pound cans of tomatoes over the side (sounds dangerous but this is what i had). Now flip and repeat this step with 40 pounds of weight for 3 hours (sounds easy).
13. 

    Gouda fresh out of the press

    Now you make your brine, mix together 1.5 cups of salt with 1 quart of warm water, add a little bit of water at a time until all the salt dissolves, then throw 1 cup of ice cubes in.

14. Remove your Gouda from the press and cheesecloth then place in your brine solution, turn a couple of times to coat, then surround with 1 more cup of ice cubes. Now you will be leaving the cheese in the brine solution for a total of 3 hours flipping every 45 minutes to make sure you get an even skin on the cheese.
15. After the 3 hour brine remove your cheese, pat dry with paper towels, and place in a clean spot in your fridge ( I mean clean, your cheese will be aging in this space for at least 25 days, I have an arm and hammer baking soda fridge fresh box sitting beside mine to catch any bad odors before they hit my cheese).
16. Age in your fridge for 25 days flipping over each day to allow equal drying. If you happen to see a little mold you can clean it off with a paper towel dipped in some white vinegar.
17. After 25 days you can eat, smoke, or age longer its up to you.

Notes: the brine solution can be used multiple times you just might have to add some fresh salt to it when you plan on using it again (only add salt until it wont dissolve anymore, at this point the water is saturated).

And that’s it, you definitely have to plan a day for cheese making because there is a lot of waiting and a lot of steps involved. But again in the end it is well worth it.