Making cheese at home can be an incredibly rewarding and enjoyable experience. The Artisan Cheesemaking Kits come with all the necessary ingredients, tools, and instructions to make impressive, handmade artisanal cheeses right from scratch. Not just one cheese, but each kit will allow you to make at least 50 cheeses.
Imagine making your own cheese, then enjoy eating it knowing that you made it; you will be able to make enough that you can also share some with family and friends or simply take some to the next BBQ or dinner.
Graham Redhead, one of Australia’s most accomplished cheesemakers, has developed all of the Artisan Cheesemaking Kits. Graham has taught commercial and home cheesemakers in Australia and overseas for many years. That experience has been used to formulate a series of recipes that provide step-by-step detailed information but are still very easy to follow when you make each cheese.
Many of the cheeses you make with these kits are easy to make. However, other cheeses require you to use accurate techniques during the making. However, previous cheesemaking experience is not required to make any of these cheeses. Simply start by making the easier cheeses and progressively graduate to the harder-to-make styles.
There are nine cheesemaking kits all up. All the equipment and ingredients are of the same premium quality that is provided to commercial cheesemakers.
The only items that you may need to purchase are milk and depending on the recipe and some cream. The recipes allow you to make cheese with cow, goat, sheep and buffalo milk.
Each of the kits has three components:
- A reference email booklet of 80 pages. The level of information in this booklet is unique to home cheesemakers. It is not essential to read this book before you make cheese. But it is offered to you should you want to delve deeper into the science behind cheesemaking.
- An emailed Recipe Instructions Guide of 20 pages. This mini booklet explains how to implement each step in the cheesemaking recipe.
- The individual recipes. Each recipe is 1 to 4 pages long. Each recipe provides the following:
- The background information of each cheese, such as its origins and style variations.
- A list of the equipment you must provide, e.g. milk, cream, stirrers, pots, herbs.
- A list of the specialist items the kit will provide for that cheese, e.g. cultures, sanitiser, thermometer, and mini spoons.
- The actual recipe specifies the exact details at each step, e.g. times, temperatures, dosages….. Each step is also clearly numbered so you can see what you are doing and also see what is coming up. The 20-page Recipe Instructions Guide is a supporting ‘how to do each step’ guide and it keeps the wordy parts out of the recipe and into a separate document.
- Timing. So that you can plan your activities around how long it takes to make each cheese. Some recipes give you ready-to-eat cheese, and some recipes take a little longer before you can consume them.
- The Recipes, Background Information Booklet and Recipe Instructions Guide will be emailed to the person purchasing the kit. There are over 100 pages of information.
Each kit will have several items that require storage in the freezer and or the fridge when you receive the kit. The cultures are freeze-dried and can withstand several weeks out of the fridge and freezer for distribution.