how to make cheese at home

A Complete Guide & The Easiest Way on How to Make Cheese at Home!

Food & Drink / By / March 13, 2021

Table of Content: How to make Cheese at Home!

Learn How to make Cheese at Home!

The process of cheese making can be a real easy chore. And you’ll need the right knowledge though: For cottage cheese and ricotta you need a good batch of raw milk, something acidic like vinegar or lemon juice, salt, a cooking thermometer, cheese cloth and a strainer. Scroll Down for a complete guide !

The quality of milk you use is at the heart of cheese making. In India a lot of what you eat is adulterated so we’re very careful about where we source our milk from, because it can make or break the taste of cheese.

Seven eighth of milk is made of water and one eighth of it is made of protein, fats and minerals. When milk coagulates, water evaporates and what’s left is milk solids. These solids are what determine the nature of cheese and they can differ with the animal and breed you choose. The taste of cheese depends a lot on the kind of milk that’s used. Goat’s milk makes slightly softer and yellow cheese. It’s delicate so needs to be cooked at a slightly lower temperature than cow’s milk. It also delivers cheese which is lightly pungent and peppery.

Sheep’s milk has less water and more milk solids which is why it gives a higher yield. So you don’t need to use as much rennet or salt.

What is Rennet ?

Traditionally, many varieties of cheese were made using rennet, an active ingredient that helps the milk coagulate. In earlier times, rennet was derived from the stomach tissue of a slaughtered calf. But now, most cheese makers use the vegetarian version of rennet which could be made of fig barks or any other plant with coagulating properties. Rennet is used in most kinds of cheese but some fresh cheese like cottage cheese and ricotta can be made without it as well.

Make cheese at home. Complete step by step Guide?

Step 1: Start With Fresh, Warm Milk.

The nicer and the fresher the milk you use, the more delicious your cheese will be. I like to buy my milk the same day I make it into cheese. To warm the milk, you can either get it still warm from the udder (in which case you need to be on a dairy farm) or you can transfer it from the fridge into a large pot and warm it slowly on the stovetop.

Step 2: Acidify the Milk.

There are many ways to make cheese but the first ‘split in the road’ is how you acidify the milk. One way is to dump acid (vinegar or citric acid) right into the milk to get the correct acidity. This process (called direct acidification) leads to cheeses such as ricotta and mascarpone. The other way to acidify the milk is to add cultures, or living bacteria. Given time, warmth and lack of competitor bacteria, these cultures will eat up the lactose in the milk, turning it into lactic acid.

Step 3: Add a Coagulant.

The most common coagulant is rennet, the name for an enzyme which causes the proteins in milk to link together. However, the word ‘rennet’ is a bit vague. Rennet can mean a ‘traditional rennet’ which comes from an animal stomach. It can mean a ‘bacterial’ rennet, sometimes also euphemistically called ‘vegetable rennet’ which comes from recombinant bacteria (using DNA from veal calf stomach cells). Or rennet can come from a fungus (‘microbial’ rennet).

Using the more general and accurate term ‘coagulant’, we can add in ‘plant’ coagulants which might be sap from a fig tree or a milk thistle.

Mix the coagulant into the liquid milk and wait until a gel forms.

Step 4: Test for Gel Firmness.

When you’ve given the rennet enough time to work on the proteins in the milk, the milk will transform from a liquid into a gel. You can test the ‘doneness’ of the gel by pressing (with a clean hand) onto the surface of the milk.

Step 5: Cut the Curd.

The next step is now to cut the curd down from a giant blob into smaller cubes or chunks. You can do this with a ‘cheese harp’, with a knife or even with a whisk. The size to which you cut the curds will dramatically effect the amount of moisture retained in your final cheese; the smaller the initial pieces, the drier (and more ageable) the cheese will be. And vice versa.

Step 6: Stir, Cook & Wash the Curd.

For the next several minutes or even hour (depending on the recipe), you’ll stir the curds in the vat. Possibly, you’ll turn on the heat and cook the curds while you stir. During this phase, the most important thing that is happening is acid is continuing to develop inside the curd and, from the motion of your stirring, the curds are drying out. The more you cook and the more you stir, the drier your cheese will be.

Washing is the process of removing some of the whey from the vat and replacing it with water. This creates a milder, sweeter, more elastic cheese and cheese paste.

Step 7: Drain the Curds.

Finally, it’s time to separate the curds from the whey. You might do this nearly final step by simply dumping the contents of the pot into a colander in a sink. You might wait 10 minutes to let the curds settle to the bottom then press the curds together at the bottom of the pot before bringing them up and out of the pot in chunks.

Generally, we work quickly at this point in the process because we want to conserve the heat into the curds, encouraging them to mush back together to form a nice smooth wheel. If we wait too long, the curds get cold and the cheese falls apart.

Step 8: Salt and Age the Cheese.

Once the curds have been separated from the whey, you can add salt. Or, you can move the curds into their final forms (or baskets) and press the cheese into a wheel before salting. If a cheese is salted, properly acidified and has the correct amount of moisture inside, it can be aged into something more complex. Or it can be eaten immediately–the same moment it was made.

For more in-depth information on the ways to make cheese, you can read my book on home cheesemaking, called Kitchen Creamery. It’s available through Chronicle Books and has more details on cheesemaking then you ever thought possible!

Materials used for Making Cheese

  • Milk
  • Lemon (fresh)
  • Lemon squeezer
  • Teaspoon
  • Tablespoon
  • Knife
  • Cutting board
  • Two pieces of cheesecloth or cotton fabric
  • Workspace that can tolerate spills
  • Timer (optional)

Observations and results


Did you see some nice clump formation in your milk? Whereas regular milk looks smooth and white, it changes very fast when you add a teaspoon of lemon juice. It almost immediately gets thicker in consistency, and you see white clumps forming that stick to the cup wall when you swirl the milk slightly. The clumps, or curd, consist of casein proteins that are usually in solution where they form micelle structures.

These structures are very fragile, and when you change the conditions of the solution, they can easily break up and form clumps of casein proteins. This can happen if you change the pH, or acidity, of the milk, which means making it sourer. Lemon juice is very acidic, and that is why you see the casein proteins clumping once you add it. Heating the lemon juice does not affect its acidity, which means when you added heated lemon juice to your milk, the exact same reaction should have occurred.

Pineapple juice,

on the other hand, is not acidic enough to break the micelle structure of the casein proteins. Your milk still clumps when you add it, however. This time, it is not the acidity but special enzymes within the pineapple that make the milk curdle. The pineapple contains an enzyme extract called bromelain, which contains a protease enzyme that chops up the casein proteins, destroying their micelle structure.

You might have noticed the curdling did not happen as quickly with pineapple juice as with lemon juice—the enzymes need some time to activate—but within five minutes the milk should have looked very clumpy.

Many enzymes are deactivated when heated. When you put the pineapple juice in the microwave, the enzymes will not work anymore. This is why no milk curdling occurs when you added the heated pineapple juice.

Filtering out the curd through a cheesecloth results in a whitish-yellow solution called whey, which consists of about 94 percent water and four to five percent lactose and whey proteins. The solid part, the curd, looks like cottage cheese—and it actually is! If you want to make it really tasty, look at the recipe below given in the “More to explore” section.

Is it cheaper to make cheese at home?

It’s extremely cost-effective

On average, the cost of making cheese at home is about a quarter that of buying it in a supermarket. Remember, when you make your own you only pay for the ingredients; when you buy it in a packet you’re also paying for packaging, store mark-up, freight and marketing.

When You Make cheese at home:

You get to control exactly what goes in : There are none of the harmful types of preservatives, gums, and stabilizers in your homemade cheese that you might find in store bought version. Since you can control each ingredient that goes into your cheese, you get to use true organic ingredients.

It’s extremely cost-effective : Cheesemaking is a hobby that is fairly inexpensive to start up, and relatively cost-effective to maintain. Most of the necessary supplies needed to make cheese you may already have such as a pot, stirring or slotted spoon, and colander. 

Cheese making is easy : Don’t be put off by the thought of spending extra time to make cheese—it’s easy and rewarding! Many cheeses are simple to make at home, such as mozzarella, ricotta, mascarpone, feta, even Camembert and Brie. There are a few basic steps to making cheese in general, with only a little bit of tweaking to get the different varieties. Much of the process of cheesemaking involves waiting for the cultures to ripen the milk, no need to “babysit” the pot like you would think.

Also, like any skill, the more you’re involved with cheesemaking at home, the faster your process will be.

Cheese making is fun & You get to keep the amazing whey for yourself.

How long does it take to make cheese?

This seems to be the first question I am asked when I tell someone that I make cheese at home. The answer depends on the type of cheese being made.

It can take from 1 hour to 8 hours to make a batch of cheese in the kitchen, and sometimes this is spread out over more than one day. Even when you spend all afternoon making cheese, you are usually not busy the entire time. There are often 30 minute to 1 hour periods where you are just waiting for some phase to complete. If you are making a fresh cheese, then the cheese will be ready to eat when you are done in the kitchen. Cream cheese, chevre, paneer, ricotta and mozzarella are examples of fresh cheese.

Aged cheese like cheddar, swiss, and blue cheese takes much longer complete, due, of course, to the aging process. Depending on the style, you age a cheese anywhere from a few weeks to up to 12 months (and sometimes longer). Monterey Jack is ready after only one month of aging, but a Parmesan style cheese needs to age for 9 to 12 months. Blue cheeses take from 3 to 6 months to age. Camemberts and Bries are perfect after 6 weeks.

What kind of equipment do you need?

Again, this depends on the style of cheese you are making. Basic equipment for all cheesemaking includes large pots, a dairy thermometer, a long spatula or knife for curd cutting, cheese cloths and a colander. For many cheeses you will need to have cheese molds to shape the cheese. Hard styles need to be pressed with considerable force and require a cheese press and an appropriate mold with a follower.

In order to age cheese with the best results you will need an environment that can be kept at a constant temperature in the 45º to 60º Fahrenheit range and a relatively high humidity. A standard refrigerator is too cold and too low of a humidity. Most home cheesemakers use either a refrigerator built for storing wine or a small dorm styled refrigerator with a custom thermostat. Some people age in a basement at certain times of the year, with varied results.

Cheese can be aged a standard refrigerator, but it takes a much longer time and results can vary.

What kind of specialty ingredients do you need?

The simplest acid-coagulated cheeses like paneer and ricotta require only milk and lemon juice to make. Most common cheeses use bacterial cultures (known as starter cultures) to acidify the milk, rennet to coagulate it, and salt to flavor and preserve it. Some specialty cheeses add blue or white mold cultures, or additional bacteria for strong flavors.

Starter cultures are a combination of bacteria stains that are added to warmed milk at the start of cheesemaking. These cultures consume lactose, a sugar found in milk, and produce lactic acid. Acidifying the milk is necessary for rennet to work well. During acidification, the starter bacteria also create flavor and if the cheese is aged the starter bacteria will continue to live and eventually die which produces additional flavors. Starter cultures that are similar to starter cultures are used to make yogurt and buttermilk.

Buttermilk can be used as a starter culture for cheesemaking if cheese starter cultures can not be obtained (buttermilk bacteria produces a buttery flavor that are not necessarily wanted cheesemaking).

Rennet

is an enzyme traditionally derived from the fourth stomach of an unweaned ruminant. For some this may be an unpleasant source of a food ingredient, and vegetarian rennet is available which is derived from microbial or fungal sources. Geneticists have inserted the gene for calf rennet into bacterial DNA, creating a bacterial source of calf rennet (some may also objections against using such genetically modified ingredients in their food).

Traditional rennet and GM rennet tends to coagulate milk with best results, though modern vegetarian rennet is nearly as good and is perfectly fine to use.

Salt used in cheesemaking needs to be iodine free and home cheesemakers usually use kosher or pickling salt, which are readily available at grocery stores. Cheese salt is available from some cheesemaking suppliers and is very finely ground to encourage dissolving and incorporation into the cheese. Except in a few cases, specialty cheese salt is not necessary.

All necessary specialty ingredients are available from cheesemaking suppliers on the internet or locally if you are lucky. See our resources page for sources.

Can cheese be made without rennet?

Now, not all cheese contains animal rennet. Soft dairy products that contain whey (like paneer, ricotta, yogurt, and cream cheese) practically never have rennet, because of how they’re traditionally made.

What kind of milk do you use to make cheese?

What kind of milk can I use to make cheese? Jess: Most cheeses, with a few specific exceptions, are made with whole milk. This can mean pasteurized milk from the grocery store, or raw milk fresh off the farm. The only milk that should not be used for cheesemaking is ULTRAPASTEURIZED milk.

Is homemade cheese healthy?

Its Healthier

Simply put, making cheese at home is healthier. There are none of the harmful types of preservatives, gums, and stabilizers in your homemade cheese that you might find in store bought version. Since you can control each ingredient that goes into your cheese, you get to use true organic ingredients.

MORE ABOUT MILK

It is in this section that noteworthy additional or new information about milk will be presented as it becomes available. Here’s an overview of what we cover in Artisan Cheese Making at Home. Milk is where all cheese making starts. As acknowledged in the book, it is the primary building block of cheese. Milk is produced by ruminant animals (hoofed animals with multi-chambered digestive systems) as nourishment for their young but it is also used as food for humans. Ruminant milk has a unique protein structure that enables coagulation which is essential for cheese making.

The primary animal milks used for cheese making come from cows, goats, sheep and water buffalo. The type of milk used (cow, goat, and sheep) for cheese making does not determine the style of cheese being made since the variety of cheese making milks are used for all styles of cheese.

For cheese making purposes, these primary components of milk are what we are interested in:

  • Whey (the liquid) = Mostly Water + Proteins + Lactose + Ash (minerals)
  • Sugar = Lactose, the milk sugar which needs to be metabolized to produce lactic acid
  • Protein = Caseins, the primary proteins for cheese making
  • Fat = Butterfat, the taste globules. A higher fat content results in better flavor in the final cheese

Choose Your Milk Wisely. Buyer Be Aware.

The milks used for cheese making can be: Raw, Pasteurized, Homogenized, or Pasteurized and Homogenized. Ultra-Pasteurized (UP) or Ultra-high Temperature (UHT) milks will not form proper curds for cheese making.
Familiarize yourself with the meanings of the milk processing terms and ingredients on milk carton labels. Make it your mission to understand what these terms mean and their effect on the milk and ultimately you.

Also become aware of milks that have stabilizers or thickeners added. Try to avoid these milks if possible. These additives can inhibit proper coagulation and curd development in cheese.

Raw milk

Raw milk has naturally occurring flora not present in processed milk. When used for cheese making, less starter culture, if any, will need to be added to the raw milk than to pasteurized milk to start the cheese making process.


Though most home-crafted cheeses will most likely be made with store-bought pasteurized milk, you can still make fabulous, great tasting cheeses. The terroir nuances imparted from regional raw milk may not be present, but your cheese will still have a fantastic flavor due to the nuances you and your ingredients have imparted.

If raw milk is what you desire, but it is not available from a local retail source, one option is to buy into a local ‘herd share’ program as access to raw milk. Though still illegal for raw milk to be sold in many states, where legal, you can buy your share of milk from a specific farmer who cares for the animal for you. As a share-holder you get fresh local milk and you are supporting a small dairy farmer in the process. See Milk Resources (page 240) for more information.

Start With High Quality Milk

Whether raw or pasteurized, find a reputable locally-produced source for high quality milk. You must start with quality milk to make quality cheese. Smaller, local dairies and processing plants are the ones to support. Ultimately, it is the quality of the milk that is more important than whether it is raw or pasteurized. Once you have a source you like for making cheese, stick with that one. Read the labels for processing procedures and sell-by dates. Always buy the freshest milk available. Old milk does not make good tasting cheese.


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