Cheddar
I have never been accused of being a chief. When my husband and I first started dating, he had to teach me how to make macaroni & cheese, and I’m not talking about a fancy version with real cheese. I’m talking about straight kraft macaroni & cheese from the box. Back then anything more than ordering fast food or microwaving a cup-o-noodles seemed overwhelming. After we started our family and I reluctantly admitted kids need to eat more than junk food, I went ahead and took on the task of learning to cook. I taught myself how to follow easy recipes at first, when that got boring, I started making more crazy and complicated meals.
Now that we have so many dairy animals lactating, I needed to find recipes that used up all that wonderful milk before it expired. I bought a book which is always my first step and then started making some easy soft cheeses. Everything I read said I needed to master soft cheeses before taking on hard cheeses. I hadn’t mastered them yet, but I had a terrible week and decided the world owed me one, so I skipped a bunch of steps and tried to make one of the most difficult hard cheeses… Cheddar.
The cheesemaking book I had previously been reading made cheddar one of the last chapters. I was too impatient to read all the in-between chapters, so I consulted good old youtube instead.
I followed this video almost exactly, except she had way fancier tools than I had. She used a big expensive 10-gallon brewing pot, and this almost stopped my hard cheese dream in its tracks. After a hunt around my hoarder's paradise kitchen, I found a massive graniteware pot I use for canning. The internet had mixed reviews on whether or not it would work, but I’m a risk-taker and cheap, so I went with it. Cheese-making pots typically have a thick bottom, so the milk doesn't scold while it's cooking. My pot didn't have that, so I just made sure to constantly stir the milk. I didn’t have a large fancy cheese mold and press either, so I made my own out of a 5-gallon BPA-free food-grade bucket (another post coming soon on how I made it). For the press, I used two more buckets filled with water.
The video didn't explain what to do after the cheese is made, so I did a Google deep dive to figure out the next step. Google explained that I needed to let it sit out for three days, turning it over once a day to make sure it dries evenly. Next, I mixed 1 tsp of salt into 1 cup of cool water and wiped the cheese down to kill any mold that may have developed. I waited an hour for that to dry, and then I proceeded to wax the cheese. I used the high heat dipping method from this website - https://cheesemaking.com/blogs/learn/how-to-wax-cheese
I put the cheddar into a converted old dorm fridge, and in 6 to 12 months of daily flipping, it should be ready to try. Wish me luck & updates to come.
