I am looking into this as well and hope to carry the supplies at my shop. We will see.

I have been doing some research the last few days and just decided to check here.
Its a lot like brewing, its fermenting cheese with a bunch of bacteria we don't want in our beer. They even have two different bacteria cultures that like to operate at different temps, like ales and lager. I think I will try and build a cheese press before I jump into it.

I so totally want to make cheese, but have you seen milk prices recently?

But I will probably try it soon anyway.

This is something I've been tossing around in my head recently too.....I have a guy in my York HB club who's a dairy farmer. I'm sure he'd sell me some raw milk. Anyone in the central PA morthern MD area who's interested, hit me upand I'll see what I can do.....

I just had a great cheddar type cheese marbled with a porter from Ireland. Great combination of tastes.

To those who have made cheese- would you put the quality of your cheese up with the quality of your homebrew? I know most of us can make commercial quality brew the majority of the time, but does homemade cheese approach this level?

kace, I was just looking at a method for making feta cheese on Wikihow..

he guy built a cheese press about as simply as you could.

Take one regulation tin of food - make sure its about 4-6inches in diameter, open one end, take out the food, open the other end. Save one of the end pieces. Wash it.

Place tin on bamboo mat, pack with curds, put in the end piece. Smaller diameter tin on top, board on top of that, weights on top of board - done

Simple, cheap and just chuck it in the re-cycle bin when you re done with it.

Thirsty

LOL
Thanks Thirsty boy, I'm not sure if I can get any of that around here. I have no idea where I would get a bamboo mat and I am not sure what a regulation tin of food is. I can make a guess but I am not sure where to get 6 inch round can of food.

I have seen some other simple ones on line but I was thinking more along the lines of this.

http://schmidling.com/press.htm

He is the same guy who makes JSP malt mills and he has all the instructions right there for you. I think I can cobble up most of the parts for nothing or really cheap. I am hoping to build it for around $20. I just haven't put my mind to it yet, I have the brew bug.

As a bonus I have a super discount hardware/building supply store about 500 yards from my house.

I made ricotta a couple of weeks ago. Supper easy and made awesome ravioli. Got the recipe from cooks.com

Brad