From fresh milk to the perfect wheel of artisan cheese.

Go inside the kitchen with Julia Carter as she breaks down the science and soul of cheesemaking.

Discover the flavors of a Park Rapids homestead.

Next on 218 life.

Production funding of 218 life is made possible in part by.

First National Bank Bemidji, continuing their second century of service to the community.

Member FDIC.

Hug hydroponics committed to making in floor heating simple providing and floor heating solutions for both commercial and residential.

More info at Hug hydroponics.com.

Closed captioning of 218.

Life is provided in part by Renaissance Hearing Center, committed to enhancing your hearing, allowing you to enjoy life's most important moments.

We called it a homestead.

That was, the goal initially, was to sustain ourselves.

To provide as much as possible our own food.

We have five kids, and that was important to us to feed them the best.

Before we got a milk cow, we were buying about 11 gallons of milk from a farm, a local farm.

Every week.

We'd go every Monday and we'd fill our jars.

And I one day said, I think that we could probably afford our own milk cow.

And that's when we got Daisy Bell.

And we got her from a local Amish man.

And his sister owned the grocery store, And she knew I got a cow.

And the next time I went there, she said, you are going to need this cheese recipe.

And she gave me some cheese that they make.

And, sure enough, I've been making that cheese for over ten years.

W e had so much milk from one cow, and then when she had her baby, it was a girl, well, then we had another cow, and we had to do something with all that milk or get rid of the cow.

So I thought, I better make cheese.

So I started making cheese, and I started making hard cheese.

And it's been a learning process.

Pretty full So these are Suvie's.

And this is, I heat the water.

And that's what keeps my milk at the right temperature.

So I'll just check the temperature here and make sure.

So this came in and 91.94.

So what we're making today is we're going to make, a Lancashire, which is in the cheddar family.

And what we want to do is we want to add, our culture, and we're going to keep this in the low 90s for the entire make.

So that's the the highest temperature it's going to be.

So I'm getting ready to add our culture, I'm going to add a culture because our milk, when it comes from the cow it has good bacteria, has bad bacteria.

And what we want to do is we want to add culture.

And that is going to take the good bacteria, and it's going to take it in the direction you want it to go.

So, um, so when we add this, it's going to kind of tell the milk we're going to make this cheese.

Maybe I'll explain it this way.

So you can buy cultures from a cheese supply store.

I use, New England cheese supply.

And this would be your culture.

And it's a powder.

And you would add just, just maybe a half a teaspoon, depending on your milk and what you're wanting.

But as a homesteader, I can use this as a culture.

So I'm going to use my yogurt to culture my cheese today.

So the cheese we're making today is actually called a Plowman's Cheese.

And it's a type of cheddar, and it's something that was served, like in a Plowman's lunch.

They would have some kind of crusty bread.

They would have a chunk of cheese.

In this cheese, the Plowman’s cheese has, it has chives and it has onions and it has garlic.

So it's a it's a very flavorful cheese, typically served with pickles, served with, pickled onions, something like that.

So anyway, that's what we're making.

We're going to add our culture now.

About a cup, to each pot.

These are about five gallons.

And then we're going to stir it in.

For a couple minutes just to make sure it's evenly distributed.

One thing I often tell people is when you're making cheese, it's not as much about the recipes as it is technique.

When you put the yogurt in the, it kind of wants to just kind of stick to the top that you can see the fat in the top of this milk.

And it kind of wants to, how fat wants to raise, it rise, it wants the culture to rise.

And it kind of brings out, you kind of, when you stir it you want to push it down.

you don't want to stir too hard.

You do want to be gentle with your milk.

Pretty much with cheese making you pretty much you want to be gentle when you're stirring the curds.

Whatever you're doing, you want it to be gentle.

So I think we've got that stirred in pretty good.

And we're going to let this stand and culture or ripen would be the right word.

You're going to let this ripen for 30 minutes.

So our milk is cultured, and if you will look, the cream is come to the top a little bit more.

But now it's cultured.

So we're just going to stir that back in.

Okay.

And now we're going to add Rennet.

So this is Calf Rennet .

So rennet is what's going to give you your curds.

We're going to put that in there, and it's going to make it into a firm mass Calf Rennet comes from the stomach, the fourth stomach of a calf.

And they take that, a little piece of that stomach and they can put it with, with water or whey, something like that.

And then they can make the Rennet, like used to they would use whey and they would put the calf, a little piece of the stomach in there.

So that's what this is.

If you're buying milk in the store and it's pasteurized, you're going to need more rennet than fresh raw milk, because the raw milk, it's just it's ready to be made into cheese.

The pasteurization and the homogenization, it really is what causes it to not want to curd up.

So if you're making cheese with pasteurized milk from the store you would want to add Calcium Chloride.

That's something I don't know a lot about.

But what it does is it, adds calcium back in so that you can make cheese with it.

So....And use just a couple of dribbles.

And then we're going to stir it.

stir it in slowly.

And you would not want to stir it more than a minute.

I don't even think I do it a minute.

You kind of want it just distributed through the milk.

And then once you get it stirred, you want to stop it with your spoon and keep it still.

And, once again, this is one of those things where you're not following a recipe, but you got to, you have to know the technique to making cheese.

We always advise getting organic animal Rennet.

Then you're staying away from, anything that's going to be, genetically modified or anything weird microbial or something.

So you, so to use just organic Calf Rennet Okay, So we're going to let that sit.

And this is going to take probably, I can check it again probably in 45 minutes.

It's probably going to take about an hour.

And then it's going to be, it'll be a solid mass and that'll be fun for us to see.

So there you go.

Okay, We're going to check our curd.

So we put in the Rennet and then we let it sit.

And now we're going to check and see if it's firmed up enough to cut our card.

So I'm going to stick this knife in here.

What we want is for it to be like a thick, yogurt or jello type texture.

And it's not quite ready.

So I like showing people before it's quite ready.

So you can see that that's not ready yet.

And that's what it might look like.

And if it's that way, we're going to let it sit for just a little bit longer.

So let's say, we're going to let it sit for 15 minutes.

We're going to check our curds.

Some people put their hand in there, and you can do it that way.

I use a knife.

You can just put your knife in, pull it back and see how that nice clean cut stays there.

I can do that here, too.

Nice clean cut.

It's a little bit loose, but I think it's going to be fine.

So, a lot of times in a recipe, it's going to tell you, I've always, I've talked about technique is important.

One thing, it tells you to cut the curd and what you're going to do when it says to cut the curd is you're going to slice it.

I do this one.

Would this be better here.

We're going to, you're going to slice it.

This one here takes about a, I think it's a quarter inch curd.

And you're just going to cut it.

And make like a checkerboard pattern.

And you'll, you'll watch and you'll see the whey coming up.

And this is going to, that's what we're doing is releasing the whey.

And now we're going to go crossways this way, No pun intended.

then when we get done here, we're going to cut it the other way.

We're going to cut it horizontally next.

And, that's done by just taking your knife and going like this.

And you go all the way down to the bottom.

And then you go the other direction and see how these nice little cubes, there's a curd.

So you're just going to cut them all up.

And that's releasing the whey.

And is that sits there, you can see the fat on top.

Once again that's those jerseys give so much cream.

So we're going to let these cubes sit for a minute.

And that's going to solidify them a little bit.

They're going to get a little, maybe like a little bit of a skin on them.

Like You think of a, maybe a boiled egg, the skin that you might see on a boiled egg.

We're gonna let this sit for a minute and then, so that's cutting the curds.

And sometimes, I use this because I'm usually, I have a lot of things to do.

So I take this, and I cut the curds this way, And this works, this works quite well for the cheese I'm making today.

And some cheeses you might, I might need to use the knife, but today I'm using this one.

I'm going to use this.

And as I do this, remember that a lot of people are making one gallon at a time.

You can do that in your stovetop, and you can just use a little knife or a little whisk.

Anybody, anybody can make cheese in their own kitchen.

Okay.

Without a lot of special things.

You can just use what you have.

Okay.

So I've got this cut.

I'm gonna let this sit now and let those curds.

I'm going to leave this in here because I'm going to stir it with that in a little bit.

We're going to leave these.

So we're waiting and letting this sit for ten minutes.

Because we're wanting the the curds to heal.

And so when we cut them and we're releasing whey, we don't want them just to go to pieces.

So we're going to they're going to be a little bit of a firmer cube.

And so we're waiting for ten minutes.

So that can happen.

All right, so it has been ten minutes, and our curds have healed.

We've got some.

You can see these little squares.

They're going to hold their shape a little bit better, but we're going to stir it, and that's going to release even more whey.

And when you do that obviously it's going to shrink the curds.

And depending on how you, how you stir how big your curds are, it's going to make a difference in your flavor.

Because did you know,you probably if people think about it all, cheese is made out of the same ingredients.

All cheese has milk, culture, Rennet and salt.

Those are the ingredients.

You might add jalapeños.

But that's not what makes your cheese.

It just adds flavor.

But all cheese is the same ingredients, and then it just depends on what you do to it.

So.

So if you're curds are smaller.

They'll be drier and you'll have a drier cheese.

If you want a moist cheese, you're going to want bigger curds.

I make a Gorgonzola, an Italian blue cheese, and you want the blue, to go through that.

And you want it to be a moist, paste.

So you had large curds on that.

That's a good example of a cheese you would have to use a knife with.

You don't want to make your curds little.

Okay, I've stirred this for ten minutes.

And as you can see, our curds are smaller.

There's that one, and there's this one.

And I'll show you here.

And what you want to do when you're stirring is you're wanting to break up the clumps.

You don't really want to stir vigorous, vigorously or anything.

You just want it to not be clumping at the bottom, because right now it's trying to be cheese and it's wanting to clump up and make cheese.

And I will show you these little curds.

And it's almost the texture of a soft boiled egg.

You can see that split there.

And that's what you want.

And you want to be able to smash it like that.

And it doesn't completely go to pieces.

So what we're going to do now is we're going to let this sit for 30 minutes, and it's going to all sink to the bottom.

And then we do want it to kind of clump up.

So we're going to let this go for 30 minutes now.

Okay.

So our curds have sunk to the bottom, and we're going to ladle them out.

Probably if you're making this at home, you might have this in a pot on your stove, and you're using a gallon of milk.

You can just pour this into your strainer.

I'm going to ladle it because I can't, I don't want to lift this five gallon pot.

So I'm going to take these out and see how beautiful those are?

Those are very nice little curds.

And they've sunk to the bottom.

They're really trying hard to be cheese.

And then we're going to let these drain.

We’re going to let these drain for about an hour.

During that time we're going to try to keep them at about, 88, 91 degrees somewhere in there because you don't want them to get too cold or too warm.

So I'm going to put this, I'm going to put this strainer right back on top of this warm whey, and just let it drain right back into the pot.

So our cheese has been strained, draining for about an hour, and now we're going to cut it into slabs.

And we're going to do what's called cheddaring the cheese.

So if you wondered why a cheddar was called a cheddar, it's because it goes through a cheddar process.

So we're going to cut our cheese into slabs.

And the idea of this is to to get more whey out.

So we're going to turn them and we're just going to flip these cheeses or these slabs, to make this cheese.

And, you can see the, the texture of it.

And we're going to flip these a few times.

And they're going to become almost like a chicken breast.

Is a good way to describe it.

We're just going to pile them on top of each other.

And then in ten minutes we're going to come back and we're going to flip them around.

And that is cheddaring.

And we'll do that about three times.

Okay.

I'm flipping these for one last time for a total of three times.

And if you could feel this, you would, it feels like a chicken breast.

Very much, like a chicken breast.

And that is what we're looking for.

And that has expelled whey.

And we are going to just flip all of these.

Then we're going to mill the cheese.

And by the way, if you wanted cheese curds right now, you could slice this into cheese fingers.

You could salt it and you'd have cheese curds And we're going to mill it into little pieces.

We're going to add our salt and our seasonings, because my plow cheese takes onion, parsley and a little bit of garlic.

So I'm going to add that when I mill it, which means I'm going to tear it into little bitty pieces.

This is our cheese cave.

It's, incognito cheese cave.

This is where we store our cheese.

Cheese is happiest maturing at 55 degrees.

So we keep this at about, 50 degrees or so, to 55 degrees year round.

And our cheese matures quite nicely in here.

So we have, everything is dated.

We keep everything notes on everything so that we know when we made it.

I cultured it with yogurt.

Sometimes I'll have notes on there, like I forgot to do something.

Or I did something later.

And this is all done with a CoolBot.

And so we have an air conditioner system in the summer, and we have a heater system in the winter to keep everything the right temperature.

A lot of cheese, you want to age a year or better.

So that's what this is.

This is where we age at all.

When we first started making cheese, a lot of obviously cheese makers don't have something,a facility like this.

You can age cheese in your refrigerator at a colder temperature, it just takes longer.

So we would keep cheese, especially in the crisper of our refrigerator.

And some people use, like a wine refrigerator because you can turn the temperature to 55.

And, you know, if they do small cheeses, they can use that.

So ya.

All right, we've got our curds are all milled, and we're ready to add our salt and our seasoning.

So I'm going to add, to this, in cheese, When you make cheese is about a tablespoon per gallon.

And I'm going to put in a third of a cup in here.

And then this is a Plowman's Cheese which has chives.

I would measure but I don't usually do that.

So I'm not going to start now.

And just a smidge of garlic.

And then a little bit of minced onion.

And you may have heard of this cheese being called a Cotswold.

But this is a Plowman's Cheese at our house.

So now we have all of our herbs in there, and we're just going to mix them in.

Here's a little bit of whey in there.

But that's okay.

That's good.

It's going to you see that pretty good.

These right now would be, tasty little tidbits.

A little bit milky tasting but they would be, it smells very good.

I can smell it.

Even in a cheese factory you're going to have these chunks.

And actually in a cheese factory they have big shredding machines.

They put in the chunks of cheese and then they shred it into little pieces and it comes out like this.

And then they put it in molds much like this, and they fill it up with their cheese.

And then we're going to put weight on it, and the weight is going to make all these pieces come together.

This cheese will have No weight put on it until tomorrow.

It's just going to sit and drain.

You can add any flavorings you like.

I do jalapeño We like mustard seed in our cheeses.

Some people like dill.

So okay, there you go.

And I'm going to put this cover on this little thing and this is what we'll push it down.

But for today it's just going to keep it covered to keep all the little beasties out of it.

So there you go.

So we're done until tomorrow.

This is Tuesday's cheese.

And this is Monday's cheese.

So I'm going to, take the weights off of these.

These are ready to be dried.

So I'm going to take those weights off now.

And we'll take a look at those.

So the weight is pressing the cheese.

And it's going to make the, it's going to expel the whey out of it.

And it's also going to close up the, it's going to close up the, the rind of the cheese.

You can look at this one and see how bumpy that is.

And we want it to not, we want it to be smoother than that.

So we're going to close.

We're going to close up.

We're it's going to call.

We're going to knit the curds together is what it's actually called.

So we're going to a...we'll look at these.

And these have been sitting under 50 pounds of weight since last yesterday afternoon.

This is a homemade cheese press my husband made for me, actually my little boy made one for me and he made the other, but it's just PVC pipe boards and saved me a couple hundred dollars.

And this is called a follower.

And that's what this is what presses it down like that.

This cheese is ready to be dried.

And this is a Plowman's Cheese.

It's what I've been making recently.

And here it comes.

And there we go.

And we're going to let this air dry.

And this will air dry for a day, maybe two days.

Kind of depends on the humidity.

And then we're going to vacuum seal it, which will close it up even more and knit the curds together better.

And then, then we'll move it to our cheese cave.

I think everybody should make cheese.

And everybody who wants to especially should make cheese.

Yeah.

I always go back to my first cheese Velveeta.

You don't need anything special.

You need a thermometer.

And you would use citric acid,baking soda.

You would need a pot for your milk.

And a strainer to strain your milk.

And it's, it's that simple.

And salt And it's fun!

Production funding of 218 life is made possible in part by.

First National Bank Bemidji, continuing their second century of service to the community.

Member FDIC.

Hug hydroponics committed to making in floor heating simple providing and floor heating solutions for both commercial and residential.

More info at Hug hydroponics.com.

Closed captioning of 218.

Life is provided in part by Renaissance Hearing Center, committed to enhancing your hearing, allowing you to enjoy life's most important moments.

Production costs for this program have been made possible by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund, and the members of Lakeland PBS.