The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Cheese: Making Cheese at Home

Cheese is milk that has been persuaded to separate into curds and whey, then encouraged to make something of itself. The simplest cheeses take half an hour and need nothing more exotic than milk, heat and a squeeze of acid. The rest is just a little more persuasion.

• DifficultyEasy to start, as deep as you like
• Hands-on time30 minutes for ricotta, about 2 hours for mozzarella
• Ready inThe same day for fresh cheeses
• MakesAbout 250–400g from 2–4 litres of milk

Curds, Whey and a Little Persuasion #

Every cheese starts the same way. Milk is mostly water with proteins floating in it. Add acid, or an enzyme called rennet, and those proteins clump together into soft lumps called curds, leaving behind a thin yellowish liquid called whey. Drain the whey and you have cheese. Everything after that, the salting, pressing, stretching and waiting, decides which cheese.

This guide starts with a cheese you can make tonight with things you already have, then moves on to the Mad Millie kits for fresh cheeses and mozzarella. Little Miss Muffet managed it on a tuffet. You have a kitchen.

The Milk Matters #

Most failed first cheeses are not the cheesemaker's fault. They are the milk's. The more a milk has been processed, the less willing it is to become cheese.

Milk	Good for cheese?
UHT or long-life milk	No. The high heat damages the proteins, so it barely sets. Avoid it
Ordinary supermarket full cream milk (pasteurised and homogenised)	Yes, for most cheeses. Add Calcium Chloride for any cheese that uses rennet
Unhomogenised full cream milk (the kind with cream on top)	Better. Firmer curds and more of them. Worth seeking out for mozzarella
Light or skim milk	Only for the low-fat recipes that ask for it. Less fat means less cheese, and less flavour
Goat's milk	Yes, for chevre and goat's feta. Softer curds, so handle gently

Always use full cream milk unless a recipe says otherwise, and check the use-by date: the fresher the milk, the better the cheese.

The Half-Hour Cheese: Ricotta and Paneer #

No kit, no culture and no rennet. Just milk, heat and acid. This is the cheese that makes people say "Oh, is that all it is?" and then buy a cheese kit.

You need #

Ingredient	Amount
Full cream milk (not UHT)	2 litres
Citric Acid	1 level teaspoon, dissolved in ¼ cup of warm water. Or 3–4 tablespoons of lemon juice or white vinegar
Salt	A pinch or two, to taste
Mad Millie Butter Muslin, or a clean cloth	For draining

Method #

1. Heat the milk gently in a heavy pot to about 90°C, stirring so it does not catch on the bottom. A thermometer makes this much easier; if you do not have one, stop just before it boils.
2. Take it off the heat and stir in the acid slowly. Within a minute the milk will split into white curds and greenish-yellow whey. If the whey still looks milky, add a little more acid.
3. Leave it alone for 10 minutes to let the curds firm up.
4. Ladle the curds into a colander lined with muslin and let them drain.
5. Decide what you are making. For soft ricotta, drain for 15–30 minutes, then salt to taste. For firm paneer, gather the muslin into a parcel, press it under a heavy pot for about an hour, then slice.

Strictly speaking, Italian ricotta is made from leftover whey, and this is "whole-milk ricotta". It is richer, easier and makes more of it, so we have decided not to mention this to any Italians.

Keep fresh ricotta and paneer in the fridge and eat within 4–5 days.

What Is All This Stuff? #

Beyond ricotta, cheesemaking uses a handful of ingredients that sound like a chemistry set. Here is what each one actually does:

Ingredient	What it does
Rennet	An enzyme that sets warm milk into a soft, solid curd you can cut, like a jelly. Needed for mozzarella, feta, halloumi and most firm cheeses. Ours are vegetarian, made without animal products
Cheese culture	Friendly bacteria that slowly sour the milk, adding acidity and most of the flavour. Fresh Cheese Culture suits feta, cream cheese and quark
Calcium Chloride	Puts back calcium that pasteurising takes out of shop milk, so the rennet sets a firm curd instead of a sad, soft one. Add it whenever you use supermarket milk with rennet
Citric Acid	A quick, reliable acid for ricotta and paneer, and for the fast method of making mozzarella
Cheese salt	Plain salt with no iodine. Iodine can slow down cultures, so ordinary table salt is not ideal
Butter Muslin	A fine cloth for draining curds. Cheesecloth from the supermarket is often too coarse and lets the curds escape

Cultures are freeze-dried living bacteria. Keep them somewhere cool, below about 25°C, or in the freezer, which adds about a year to their life. Fold over and tape an opened sachet, then freeze it. Keep liquid rennet in the fridge, and use everything before the date on the packet.

The Kits #

The Mad Millie kits put everything except the milk in one box, along with a recipe booklet. Follow the booklet for the exact amounts and temperatures; the notes below explain what is happening.

Kit	Makes	In the box
Mad Millie Fresh Cheese Making Kit	Feta, halloumi, cottage cheese, cream cheese, light cream cheese, quark, chevre frais, goat's feta and farmhouse butter	Fresh cheese culture, vegetarian rennet tablets, calcium chloride, cheese salt, feta moulds, cheese mat, cheesecloth, thermometer, pipette and measuring spoons
Mad Millie Italian Cheese Making Kit	Mozzarella, bocconcini, burrata, ricotta, ricotta salata and mascarpone	Vegetarian rennet tablets, citric acid, calcium chloride, cheese salt, butter muslin, ricotta mould, thermometer and pipette
Mad Millie Artisan Cheese Kit	The fresh cheeses above, plus hard cheeses such as cheddar, colby, Havarti, Caerphilly and Wensleydale	Mesophilic cheese culture, vegetarian rennet tablets, citric acid, cheese salt, calcium chloride, annatto colouring, a hard cheese press, cheese wax, cheese mat, feta moulds, ricotta basket, curd knife, thermometer and cheesecloth

The Fresh and Italian kits each make more than 10 batches before you need more consumables, and the Artisan kit makes about 10kg of cheese.

Other brands work the same way. If you're after one we don't carry, ask us.

Cultures and refills by the sachet #

When the kit runs out, or once you want to try something new, you do not need a whole new kit. Mad Millie cultures and refills come on their own too:

Product	What it is for
Mad Millie Fresh Cheese Culture	Soft and fresh cheeses such as feta, cream cheese, quark and cottage cheese. 5 sachets, each enough for 4 litres of milk
Mad Millie Cheese Culture	A general culture for both soft and harder cheeses. 5 sachets, each enough for 4 litres of milk
Mad Millie Kefir Culture	Kefir, the drinkable fermented milk. See below
Mad Millie Yoghurt Culture	Homemade yoghurt. Follow the sachet for the amounts
Mad Millie Vegetarian Rennet	Sets the curd. In handy tablets (a strip of 10, each for 4 litres) or liquid
Mad Millie Calcium Chloride	For firmer curds from supermarket milk
Mad Millie Butter Muslin	For draining. Reusable if you rinse it cold and boil it clean

Our range of cultures is small but covers the basics. If you are after something specific, such as a blue cheese culture, ask us and we will see what we can get in.

How mozzarella works #

Mozzarella looks like magic the first time, and is mostly a matter of temperature. The broad shape of it:

1. Acid first. Citric acid is stirred into cold milk, along with calcium chloride if it is shop milk.
2. Warm and set. The milk is warmed to about body temperature and the rennet goes in. Within minutes it sets into a soft curd.
3. Cut and cook. The curd is cut into cubes and gently warmed further, so the whey runs out.
4. Stretch. The drained curds are heated in hot water until they turn glossy and elastic, then stretched and folded like toffee, and shaped into balls.

The stretching water is hot enough to hurt. Wear clean rubber gloves, and stretch only until it turns smooth and shiny: overworked mozzarella turns rubbery.

Feta and halloumi #

Both use culture and rennet. Feta is set, drained in its moulds, then salted or kept in brine, and gets saltier and tangier over a few days. Halloumi is pressed, then poached in its own hot whey, which is what gives it that famous squeak and stops it melting on the barbecue.

What About Cheddar? #

It is usually the first question, and a fair one. Cheddar is very possible at home, but it is a different kind of project. Fresh cheeses are ready the same day; cheddar is made in an afternoon and then aged for months. The ingredients are the same ones in this guide. What changes is the process and the patience.

Stage	What happens
Culture and set	A culture such as Mad Millie Cheese Culture sours the milk, then rennet sets it into curd, just like the cheeses above
Cut, cook and drain	The curd is cut small and warmed slowly to push out much more whey, which makes a firmer cheese
Cheddaring	The part that gives cheddar its name. The curd is pressed into slabs, then stacked and turned for an hour or two while it drains and sours. This gives cheddar its firm, layered texture
Mill and salt	The slabs are broken into small pieces and salted
Press	The curds go into a mould under a cheese press, gradually increasing the weight over many hours to squeeze out the last of the whey
Dry and protect	The wheel is air-dried for a few days, then coated in cheese wax or vacuum sealed so it does not dry out or grow mould
Age	It rests somewhere cool, ideally about 10–13°C, for at least 3 months for a mild cheddar and a year or more for a sharp one

What you would need beyond this guide: a cheese press and a hard cheese mould, cheese wax or a vacuum sealer, and a steady cool place to age it, which on most Australian kitchen benches means a spare fridge set warm or a wine fridge. A 4 litre batch makes only about 400g, so many people start with a few batches of fresh cheese first, then step up. If cheddar is your goal, the Mad Millie Artisan Cheese Kit includes the press, wax and culture, or come and talk to us about what you need.

Kefir: The Easy Bonus #

Kefir is a tangy, drinkable fermented milk, a little like a runny yoghurt with ambitions. Stir Mad Millie Kefir Culture into milk, cover it, leave it at room temperature until it thickens (usually about a day), then refrigerate. Follow the sachet for the amounts. It is the easiest fermenting project in the shop, and the only one you can drink with breakfast without raising eyebrows.

Clean, Cool and Fresh #

• Clean everything that touches the milk: pots, spoons, moulds and muslin. Milk is a perfect home for bacteria, which is the point when they are the ones you chose and a problem when they are not.
• Rinse muslin in cold water straight after use (hot water sets the milk proteins into it), then wash and boil it.
• Eat fresh cheeses fresh. Ricotta, cream cheese and mozzarella are best within a few days, and should be kept in the fridge.
• Do not waste the whey. Use it in bread dough, smoothies or soup, or water the garden with it once it has cooled.

Start with ricotta tonight. If it works, and it almost certainly will, the Italian kit is the natural next step. Mozzarella you made yourself, on a pizza you made yourself, is a deeply smug experience.

Happy cheesemaking, and may your curds always be firm and your whey always be clear.