The Making Of: Gouda Cheese

This article describes my first attempt at making cheese. I picked up a copy of Cheesemaking Made Easy: 60 Delicious Varieties from the local library for instruction. Most (all?) of the recipes start with 2 gallons of whole milk and end up creating 2 lbs of cheese. The shopping lists and instructions below are for creating 2 lbs of Gouda from 2 gallons of supermarket whole milk.

Before you Start Gathering Material

• The author points out, specifically, that aluminum cookware should not be used as it can impart a taste to the cheese.
• A good thermometer is very important. The cheese making process appears to be sensitive to temperature.
• Use a glass bowl for the brining process. I had a couple spots of oxidization form in my stainless steel bowl.

Hardware List

• 12qt stainless steel pot
• stainless steel ladle
• stainless steel curd knife
  • I bought a 14" but a 12" would be fine for a 12qt pot
  • Also sold as an "icing spatula"
  • Amazon.com link
• stainless steel food thermometer
• glass bowl
  • used for brining
  • should be able to hold 1 gallon of liquid
• cheese cloth
  • I don't think the grade really matters too much for this recipe.
• cheese press
  • You can build one of these for pretty cheap
  • I'll talk about it below.
• cheese drying board
  • Can be made pretty easily.
  • Discussed with the cheese press.
• (optional) 10 gallon pot for steam sanitizing your cheese press
• (optional) propane patio stove for the 10 gallon pot

Ingredients

• 2 gallons of whole (vitamin D) milk
• 1.25 lbs of course salt
• water
• cheese rennet tablets
  • do NOT use junket rennet tables as they sell to make ice cream
  • can use rennet liquid instead
  • can be bought off Amazon.com
• mesophilic cheese starter culture
  • can be bought off Amazon.com
• Vinegar
• Sanitizer

Procedure

1. Disinfect and Sanitize
   • Cheese, like any fermented food, is created by the action of micro-organisms and as such you are really creating an environment that is ideal for the growth of bacteria. Good bacteria makes cheese (or beer or bread or kimchi). Bad bacteria smells, can make you sick, and will ruin your cheese. Therefore it is vital to ensure that you don't introduce and unintentional foreign bacteria into your cheese making process. For this reason we make sure to sanitize all of the equipment that we'll be using.
   • Cheese Press & Cheese Drying Board
     1. Wooden items need to be sanitized using steam. A topical sanitizer (like we'll use for the rest of the tools) can't adequately penetrate the porous wood. Wooden items should be steam sanitized for 20 minutes.
     2. I setup a 10 gallon pot on a propane patio stove with about 2 inches of water in the bottom, fired it up and waited for the water to boil.
     3. Once the water was at a rolling boil, I placed my Cheese Press base in upside down, put the lid back on, and left it for 20 minutes.
     4. After the time was up I pulled it out, added a bit more water, and placed the other wooden components of the Cheese Press, as well as the Cheese Drying Board, into the pot for another 20 minutes.