Just a century ago, cheese was still a relatively regional and European phenomenon, and cheese making techniques were limited by climate, geography, and equipment. But modern technology along with the recent artisanal renaissance has opened up the diverse, time-honored, and dynamic world of cheese to enthusiasts willing to take its humble fundamentals—milk, starters, coagulants, and salt—and transform them into complex edibles. Artisan Cheese Making at Home is the most ambitious and comprehensive guide to home cheese making, filled with easy-to-follow instructions for making mouthwatering cheese and dairy items. Renowned cooking instructor Mary Karlin has spent years working alongside the country’s most passionate artisan cheese producers—cooking, creating, and learning the nuances of their trade. She presents her findings in this lavishly illustrated guide, which features more than eighty recipes for a diverse range of cheeses: from quick and satisfying Mascarpone and Queso Blanco to cultured products like Crème Fraîche and Yogurt to flavorful selections like Saffron-Infused Manchego, Irish-Style Cheddar, and Bloomy Blue Log Chèvre. Artisan Cheese Making at Home begins with a primer covering milks, starters, cultures, natural coagulants, and bacteria—everything the beginner needs to get started. The heart of the book is a master class in home cheese making: building basic skills with fresh cheeses like ricotta and working up to developing and aging complex mold-ripened cheeses. Also covered are techniques and equipment, including drying, pressing, and brining, as well as molds and ripening boxes. Last but not least, there is a full chapter on cooking with cheese that includes more than twenty globally-influenced recipes featuring the finished cheeses, such as Goat Cheese and Chive Fallen Soufflés with Herb-Citrus Vinaigrette and Blue Cheese, Bacon, and Pear Galette. Offering an approachable exploration of the alchemy of this extraordinary food, Artisan Cheese Making at Home proves that hand-crafting cheese is not only achievable, but also a fascinating and rewarding process.

In this home cheese making primer, Ricki Carrol presents basic techniques that will have you whipping up delicious cheeses of every variety in no time. Step-by-step instructions for farmhouse cheddar, gouda, mascarpone, and more are accompanied by inspiring profiles of home cheese makers. With additional tips on storing, serving, and enjoying your homemade cheeses, Home Cheese Making provides everything you need to know to make your favorite cheeses right in your own kitchen.

The key to becoming a successful artisan cheesemaker is to develop the intuition essential for problem solving and developing unique styles of cheeses. There are an increasing number of books on the market about making cheese, but none approaches the intricacies of cheesemaking science alongside considerations for preparing each type of cheese variety in as much detail as Mastering Artisan Cheesemaking. Indeed, this book fills a big hole in the market. Beginner guides leave you wanting more content and explanation of process, while recipe-based cookbooks often fail to dig deeper into the science, and therefore don’t allow for a truly intuitive cheesemaker to develop. Acclaimed cheesemaker Gianaclis Caldwell has written the book she wishes existed when she was starting out. Every serious home-scale artisan cheesemaker—even those just beginning to experiment—will want this book as their bible to take them from their first quick mozzarella to a French mimolette, and ultimately to designing their own unique cheeses. This comprehensive and user-friendly guide thoroughly explains the art and science that allow milk to be transformed into epicurean masterpieces. Caldwell offers a deep look at the history, science, culture, and art of making artisan cheese on a small scale, and includes detailed information on equipment and setting up a home-scale operation. A large part of the book includes extensive process-based recipes dictating not only the hard numbers, but also the concepts behind each style of cheese and everything you want to know about affinage (aging) and using oils, brushes, waxes, infusions, and other creative aging and flavoring techniques. Also included are beautiful photographs, profiles of other cheesemakers, and in-depth appendices for quick reference in the preparation and aging room. Mastering Artisan Cheesemaking will also prove an invaluable resource for those with, or thinking of starting, a small-scale creamery. Let Gianaclis Caldwell be your mentor, guide, and cheering section as you follow the pathway to a mastery of cheesemaking. For the avid home hobbyist to the serious commercial artisan, Mastering Artisan Cheesemaking is an irreplaceable resource.

Easy-to-follow techniques for the home dairy, by an artisan cheesemaker and teacher, with beautiful photographs.

Cheese making is an art and an absorbing pastime. Geared to the hobbyist, this book will turn anyone into a cheese artist. Most of the equipment you need is already in your kitchen, and with investing more patience than cash, your cheeses will far surpass their commercial counterparts in flavor and freshness. This hardcover guide is full of mouth-watering and inspiring photographs and full-color illustrations, along with step-by-step instructions on how to make cheese. Delicious recipes for many different soft, molded, and aged cheeses will tempt the most discerning of cheese connoisseurs, and shares the secrets of famous cheese makers through history. Also included in Making Artisan Cheese, readers will find “What can go wrong” tips to help avoid cheese making pitfalls, and profiles of master cheese makers who share professional tips and advice. Since half the pleasure of making cheese is eating it and serving it to friends and family, readers will also find tips on discovering the best fruits, breads, nuts, wine, and beer to complement every kind of cheese, and how to present, serve, and properly store your cheeses.

Including more than 35 step-by-step recipes from the Black Sheep School of Cheesemaking Most DIY cheesemaking books are hard to follow, complicated, and confusing, and call for the use of packaged freeze-dried cultures, chemical additives, and expensive cheesemaking equipment. For though bread baking has its sourdough, brewing its lambic ales, and pickling its wild fermentation, standard Western cheesemaking practice today is decidedly unnatural. In The Art of Natural Cheesemaking, David Asher practices and preaches a traditional, but increasingly countercultural, way of making cheese—one that is natural and intuitive, grounded in ecological principles and biological science. This book encourages home and small-scale commercial cheesemakers to take a different approach by showing them: • How to source good milk, including raw milk; • How to keep their own bacterial starter cultures and fungal ripening cultures; • How make their own rennet—and how to make good cheese without it; • How to avoid the use of plastic equipment and chemical additives; and • How to use appropriate technologies. Introductory chapters explore and explain the basic elements of cheese: milk, cultures, rennet, salt, tools, and the cheese cave. The fourteen chapters that follow each examine a particular class of cheese, from kefir and paneer to washed-rind and alpine styles, offering specific recipes and handling advice. The techniques presented are direct and thorough, fully illustrated with hand-drawn diagrams and triptych photos that show the transformation of cheeses in a comparative and dynamic fashion. The Art of Natural Cheesemaking is the first cheesemaking book to take a political stance against Big Dairy and to criticize both standard industrial and artisanal cheesemaking practices. It promotes the use of ethical animal rennet and protests the use of laboratory-grown freeze-dried cultures. It also explores how GMO technology is creeping into our cheese and the steps we can take to stop it. This book sounds a clarion call to cheesemakers to adopt more natural, sustainable practices. It may well change the way we look at cheese, and how we make it ourselves.

Making cheese at home is one of the joys of a self-sufficient lifestyle, along with gardening, canning, and raising chickens. Author Janet Hurst is a twenty-year-veteran home cheesemaker, who shows you how to easily craft your own cheddar, feta, chèvre, mozzarella, and 50 more cheeses. Included are profiles of 20 artisan cheesemakers—from Cypress Grove, Vermont Butter and Cheese, Shelburne Farms, Does Leap, Pure Luck, and more—and their favorite recipes.

How to create artisanal-quality cheeses, butters and yogurts.

A guide to cheese making history, technique, artistry, and business strategies.

Gourmet restaurateur and vegan food expert Miyoko Schinner shares her secrets for making homemade nondairy cheeses that retain all the complexity and sharpness of their dairy counterparts while incorporating nutritious nuts and plant-based milks. Miyoko shows how to tease artisan flavors out of unique combinations of ingredients, such as rejuvelac and nondairy yogurt, with minimal effort. The process of culturing and aging the ingredients produces delectable vegan cheeses with a range of consistencies from soft and creamy to firm. For readers who want to whip up something quick, Miyoko provides recipes for almost-instant ricotta and sliceable cheeses, in addition to a variety of tangy dairy substitutes, such as vegan sour cream, creme fraiche, and yogurt. For suggestions on how to incorporate vegan artisan cheeses into favorite recipes, Miyoko offers up delectable appetizers, entrees, and desserts, from caprese salad and classic mac and cheese to eggplant parmesan and her own San Francisco cheesecake.