How neat, let us know how it goes, and if it taste good.

bigbaby I have never made cheese with a kit. I used to get fresh whole milk straight from the farm, and made butter, and cheese.

I would just let the milk sour, and then hang the thick stuff in a cloth bag over a bowl (in the fridge) till it pretty well quit dripping.

That was a soft cheese, yummy by itself, and even better with herbs and spices.

Moni... who is intrigued now.

I will be waiting with bated breath to see how it turns out and all the details.

Cheese has gone up so much in the past couple of years, but I suspect it isn't any cheaper to make it, is it?

Sue

Well, Ron and I couldn't wait so we made it today! It was really easy. It takes a gallon of milk, either skim, 1%, 2% or whole milk. You can even make it with powdered milk but you have to add a cup of cream. The cost? Well, the kit was $25 plus shipping brought it up to $34 plus a gallon of milk was about $2.75. The kit makes 30 batches of cheese. So, it cost about $3.88 for 18 ounces of cheese (a little over a pound not counting what we ate on the spot!) This kit only makes mozzarella and ricotta cheese. They have kits to make hard cheeses, which I really want to try, too. I'm sold!!!!!!!!!!!

So how does it taste compared to store bought? I'm guessing pretty good since the 2 of you were eating it on the spot...lol.

I see where one can get a dozen kits for $149.76, and with shipping it would be just about $14 per kit to my house.

About how big is the kit (dimensions) and weight? I'm wondering if it might be fairly cost effective to split a dozen kits with some friends, even if I had to mail them on to them.

Sue

I ran across their site about 6 months ago and ordered some of the products to make cheese.
I've had two successful attempts and two failures. The milk you buy is key!! I thought Organic would be better, not so. Because their are fewer milk farms, especially organic, it has to be shipped further. Therefore more needs to be done to it. (Explanation on site)
I also ordered chemicals to make different cheeses, molds for different types, salts, cheese making cloth (butter cheesecloth), which is different than plain cheesecloth and other doo dads.
This is a timely post since I'm going to attempt to make either Brie or a Gouda type tomorrow :)
I'm glad I have people to chat it up with about this fun project!

Here is a link that might be useful: Cheesemaking

Sue, the box is about 9.5" x 9" x 2". It doesn't weight very much, either.

Deborah, let us know how your cheese comes out. I would love to try some of those cheeses, too.

ohhh i tried that many many yrs ago w/ ingredients from Nichols Gardens. i just started thinking about doing it again, having come across Nichols website recently while seed shopping. let us know how your's turns out. i used to do ricotta and it was very good. ~ liz

Here is a link that might be useful: Nichols garden Nursery

Ours turned out pretty good, but kind of sticky. It took longer than it was supposed to to form curds and it's not very firm. It didn't hold it's shape at all. Not sure why, but we really like it anyway and will keep working on it. It tastes really great. We took some to a pot luck last night and it was a big hit.

I have a cheese making kit I got years ago. I only made one batch of cheese. I tasted like a mild Colby. There were instructions for other cheeses, but they were a little more complicated, so I never tried them.

Now that I have lots of time, I should try again!