How to Make Cheddar Cheese (with Taste Test)

Hello friends and welcome to another

cheese

making tutorial today. We will

make

homemade

cheddar

cheese

. It might be the most popular cheese in America and it might be the most popular cheese in the world! If you're new to the channel, consider subscribing and hitting the notification bell so you don't miss any recipes. Come to my kitchen. Let me show you how to

make

cheddar

cheese. Before starting this recipe, be sure to sanitize all of your equipment. You can do this by using the disinfection session in your dishwasher. Or you can also boil most of this equipment in your pot for a few minutes. then take all your equipment and place it on a very clean kitchen towel.

For more information on cheese making equipment, click the links in the description box below. Take three gallons of non-homogenized pasteurized milk and heat it slowly to 85 degrees. Most of the milk is for the cheese, but some will be for the kitten. You already know Yum-Yum isn't, but some cats are lactose intolerant. Be sure to consult with your veterinarian before giving your kitten any food. While the milk is heating to 85 degrees F, stir slowly so the heat is evenly distributed. When the milk has reached the target temperature of 85 degrees Fahrenheit, turn off the heat and you will take 1/4 teaspoon of mesophilic culture.

Sprinkle it on top of the milk. Let it rehydrate for 5 minutes. Once the five minutes are up, go ahead and in a top-down stirring motion add the mesophilic culture to the milk. You will stir for a minute. Then cover the pot and let the milk acidify for an hour. You can help maintain the temperature at 85 degrees by placing a towel over the pot if you lose a degree or two. It's really not the end of the world. But it would be best to keep it as close to the target temperature as possible during the hour. Check again, just make sure the stove is off.

You can prepare your ingredients about 5 minutes before the next step. After the hour it is time to mix the ingredients. The first thing we will do is add the calcium chloride. This is three-quarters of a teaspoon of calcium chloride in one-quarter cup of dechlorinated water. Add it to the milk. Stir for a minute. Be sure to stir in an up and down motion. The second ingredient is annatto. Now I did dilute this. You don't have to do it. I've done it both ways. I think if you dilute it, it spreads a little more evenly in the milk.

Just make sure to stir thoroughly and stir well for a minute. A little advice about annatto. It is a great colorant. It doesn't have any flavor though. So the last ingredient is always rennet. Add three quarters of a teaspoon to the milk. Stir well with up and down movements for no more than a minute. Cover the pot and let the curd rest for 45 minutes. You can cover it again at this step if you wish. See you in 45 minutes! I needed to reshoot this piece and used a little less achiote than originally, but 3/4 teaspoon achiote will make a nice orange cheese.

Now here's how to check for a clean break: Take your curd cutter, place it on the curd and lift it up. The goal is for the curd to break up as you lift it. So! And this is what a clean break looks like. Cut the curd into 1/2 inch and pick first vertically and then horizontally. Well now it's time to leave these curds, we will cover the pot and then we will let them rest for five minutes. See you in five minutes. After the curds have had a chance to rest, you'll go ahead and turn the heat back on.

And we're going to bring these curds from 85 degrees F to 100 degrees F over a period of 30 minutes. While this is happening, you will begin to stir the curd. Stir it very slowly and gently, especially at first. Since the curd is still fragile, we don't want it to break. But you can take it easy. You will have some curds that didn't cut as well as others and that's no problem. You can just cut them with the edge of the spoon. I like to call these whale curds. They are too big and you just have to cut them evenly.

Make sure the temperature doesn't get away from you. You don't want to heat up too quickly. You'll really want this to heat very evenly over the next 30 minutes. That should help me keep an eye on them. I think sometimes YumYum spends all his time trying to figure out how to get to the cheese. She is constantly looking for ways to get to that boat. Once the 30 minutes are up, the curds should have reduced to the size of all the peanuts, I would say. They should look like this. And at this point you can go ahead and put out the fire.

Over the next 30 minutes, you will stir a few times. Maybe four or five times. Just watch to make sure the temperature stays at 100. And if you want, you can put the lid on between stirring. See you in 30 minutes. And just one more time in the 30 minute cooking time. And that's it, now you're going to let the curd sit at the bottom of the pot for 15 minutes. The next step is to place a pan in a clean sink and then take the fine mesh strainer and place it on top and now we will pour the curd into the strainer.

You'll want to reserve some of the whey for the next step, so make sure you have the pan halfway full. We are going to use this bottle of serum a little later. I think I'll use it for caramel this time. And this is the pot I will use for the cheddaring process. Place this on the stove. You'll need it in a moment. And then finish with the curd nose in a sieve. That downloaded a little faster than I expected. This is what you are going to do. You are just going to take the dough and very carefully you are going to shape it.

And then very gently move it a little more evenly into the strainer. Press very lightly. Meanwhile, heat the half-full pot of buttermilk to 110 degrees F. While I'm doing this, I'll start reducing this for my buttermilk caramel, but that's in another video. Carefully remove this slab and place it on a cutting board. And with a clean knife cut the slab in half. Then, very carefully, place the slabs back into the strainer. Alright, why in the pot it's 110 degrees F and we've put the slabs back in. Make sure the strainer is not in the whey because you don't want the slabs to become submerged.

This begins the talking process. We are going to turn these slabs a total of eight times (every 15 minutes) over the next two hours. Make sure the stove is off. Cover the slabs with the towel and see you in 15 minutes for the first turn. Here we go. Here is the first 15 minute change. And the number eight. Phew! La

test

. Are here. These slabs look great. By the eighth turn, they should be the consistency of a chicken breast and will be very shiny. The next step is to cut the slabs into half-inch cubes. And then you will take the cubes and divide them into a container.

And now it's time to salt the cheese. You will take two and a half tablespoons and sprinkle them over the cheese curds. And then just grind it with your hands. Mix it very well. It's time to prepare the mold. I'm using a three to four pound, medium sized pan with a seven and three quarter inch diameter. I'll take a number ten cheesecloth and as you can see it has a very loose weave. And you'll just make a kind of wrapper for the curd to sit on. And then just take the curd and put it in the mold.

Okay, so you're going to take the edges of the cheesecloth and wrap it on top so that all of the cheese is covered. It's that simple. You will take the follower and place it on top. I'm pretty sure we'll need a couple of these. We'll start with one. Now we will install the cheese press. Try to center the cheese in the press as much as you can. Good. For the first press we are going to press this cheese at 25 pounds for one hour. See you in an hour. I wanted to show you something here. This is the serum that drains from the first pressure and comes at a pretty good rate.

This is pretty much how you want it. This is perfect and what you should be looking for. Let's see what we have here. I'm hoping for some kind of basket of loose cubes. I don't think it's all together yet. Very good, I think it's going to be a beautiful cheese, it's barely united, but it's okay. You must be very careful at this stage. Simply remove the old cloth to work with the new one. Yes, that's going very well. Alright. Put everything back in its place. It should sink perfectly. Pull up on the edges to reduce wrinkles in the cheese.

Put the follower back and some extras. Okay, the wing nuts are tightened to vise level and now we're going to add more weight. Let's add 40 pounds. Who knew making cheese was such an exercise! Here we go. Well, the second pressure is 40 pounds for 12 hours. 12 hours later or in my case the next morning. You're going to go ahead and get it out of the press. Oh it is beautiful! Check it out. This is going very well. So you're going to take it out of the cheesecloth and this time we're going to press it without the cheesecloth, it'll be fine and my goal is to avoid the wrinkles that the cheesecloth can make and that should take care of it.

It's time for the third press, we're going to press it at fifty pounds for another 12 hours. Phew! Here it is. Twelve hours after the third press and then you'll put it on a drying rack and turn it every 12 hours and leave it here until it's dry to the touch. I would say two or three days. And once it is dry to the touch, vacuum seal the cheese. Then, let the cheese age for three to six months at 54 degrees. Be sure to turn the cheese weekly. See you in three to six months. Alright! Five months ago today this beautiful cheddar cheese was born and I know I said three to six months...

I wanted to hold out for six months, but I just decided I didn't want to wait any longer. So the first thing we're going to do is weigh the cheese because I haven't done that yet. I'd just like to know what kind of performance I got this time. And it's exactly two and a half pounds. It's always an exciting day! The first thing I would always like to do is smell it. I like to see how it smells. Wow! Very cheddary. It's not a surprise. I'm going to show you this. It's part of the reason I decided to open it.

There's a little mold on the right, right there. I noticed it the last time I was flipping it. So let's go ahead and delete it right now. If there is a little bit of mold, what may have happened is that there may have been some moisture. But I decided it was time to open it and see what it

taste

s like. Let's cut a wedge. Cuts easily. Definitely a nice, firm pasta. You can see it well. Wow! Oh, check it out. That's beautiful, it looks good. A little piece conveniently came off, so let's try it. Hmm!! A little spicy and it's right in the middle between mild and spicy and I would call it a medium cheese.

Which would probably be enough for five months. Hmm. Yes, this is delicious! It wasn't too difficult to make, it's a long process that took about six hours from start to finish, but there are a lot of breaks in between. This is a cheese I will make again. I recommend that you open it between 3 and 6 months, especially the first time if it is one of your first cheeses. At 3 months it will be a little mild at 6 months. It will be sharper. And if you still want it sharper, you can always return it to the cheese cave for longer, I would say up to a year.

Just keep looking at it and turning it over once a week. This cheese is going to be the star of our dinners for a while, I think. So if you want to learn how to make cheddar cheese, I think this recipe will be great for you. Thanks so much for looking. We appreciate your support. Like and subscribe and see you in the next episode.