Cheese-Making!

Update August 2025:

This spring I bought the coolest fridge! Why? Because I wanted a fridge that I could experiment with cooking in...especially making Feta Cheese in since Feta Cheese is so delicious but expensive! The cool thing about this fridge is that it is also a freezer at the press of a button! It goes back and forth!. Now I can have my cheese and eat it too! But seriously! It was exactly what I need in order to make cheese!

Summer 2024

I’ve been making cheese…and thinking. It's my pastime. Thinking, that is...I have a lot of pastimes but thinking is well, the major one. And trying to understand why life hurts so much sometimes. Came to a realization: I am a down to earth person and I don’t understand people who are ‘better” than everyone else around them or even certain people. It's rough. It really is rough. I wonder, why is some cheese better than others?

It has to do with the process it goes through, I suppose. You start with milk, obviously…but even the milk matters. If you use say, store bought milk, you may get a tablespoon of “cheese” depending on whether it was skimmed, 1%, 2% whole, or…unprocessed and homogenized. What? Raw milk! The Holy Grail of Cheese!

So, if you need the Real Thing for making cheese, then how can it be done better? Well, funny thing is, when I made cheese last week. I had fun. I also made a pile of grade A, certified GLOP! Not going to lie though, I still haven’t perfected my process. Why? Cheese requires certain conditions and I did not have those. Nothing was wrong with the milk...in fact, it was AMAZING!

 So I wanted to make FETA cheese. My FAVORITE. I’ve been collecting ingredients for a while and found a recipe that I liked. Problem was, I didn’t follow the recipe! 

That is like LIFE! You need to follow the recipe. Some people don’t and guess what? They mess it up for themselves and others. 

“How so?” You ask. Have you looked at the world lately? The latest joke is that America needs a reboot like a computer. Frankly, that is possible. But, not a popular opinion to say the least. 

So I have looked at recipes, recipes, recipes…and, just use raw milk. Unprocessed milk is better in many, many ways.

A few years ago, I tried making cheese with a gallon of SKIM milk that WIC gave me and got about a tablespoon of "cheese". I don’t generally drink milk as I have issues with my gut when I do, but I have been buying raw milk lately because it works better for me. Regardless of taking enzymes, it was bad.  It all went away when I stopped drinking milk. I still eat cheese. I still eat yogurt. I make yogurt too. It is awesome but tastes best made with whole milk to me. 

I have also made butter. A good way to pass the time is talking on the phone with my grandma while shaking a bottle of cream. It is good exercise too! I don’t need TV, that is enough stimulation for me. And usually, when we are done talking, I have butter and buttermilk in the jar! (Oh yeah, I also have used raw milk for that too!)

So why, then, if I am so good at making things, can’t I make a proper cheese? I can’t follow the process, honestly, it's more complicated than butter and yogurt. 

After I tried making cheese with skim milk, I tried making it with whole milk. That was more successful than skim milk. I made about a quarter cup of cheese for a whole GALLON of milk. Whoops! Something wrong there too? Yes, again, I didn’t follow directions and didn't add back the fats taken out during the process used to homogenize and pasteurize the milk, as well as strip it of the cream. 

So last week, I tried again. I used almost 2 Gallons of raw milk with the cream and mixed it up. I got a pound and a half of cheese. I was making Feta cheese. I put it into a bucket of salt water. Can anyone guess what happened, or what didn’t happen? Yes. I didn’t follow the directions AGAIN! Guess what didn’t I get? EDIBLE cheese. I got plenty of cheese with raw milk, but the cheese was not edible after what I did to it. 

At this point, I’ve wasted a lot of time, a lot of milk, and had a blast! Oh yeah, I am a chemist. It runs in the family and was a lot of fun…but next time, I really need to get some calcium chloride to put into the brine so the cheese does not turn into GLOP! 

But, I may POSTPONE making cheese for a while till I get another fridge, or else I won’t be following the directions again for making cheese. You are supposed to let the cheese dry at 58ish degrees Fahrenheit long enough to let it form a skin. And, honestly, I don’t want it exposed to the insides of my refrigerator! You know that won’t end well! Plus, my fridge stays at around 40 degrees Fahrenheit. It does not matter whether or not I make the cheese right, soak it in brine right, etc. If I don’t keep it at the right temperature, it isn’t going to come out right. 

So, why do I say that right now, I think America needs to reboot and why do I say that is like my experience with making cheese? We just aren’t doing it right. Every time we try rebooting, we do it our way. We need to do it…God’s way! And, I’m not going to lecture you about what is God’s way. Except to say, and I am guilty here too: we need to do a little more research and do a little more direction following. 

Just like when I make cheese!