Beginnings of a dairy product – Story of a cheese

I was making Lasagna (this vegetarian one here, it turned out delicious!) and realized, that in making the pasta from scratch, the only produce I was using was the cheese. That got me thinking, could I make cheese myself?

I knew the process in theory, I actually started my career in studying how cheese matures at a Finnish dairy giant. But could I make it at home? This would actually be an interesting challenge and it would provide some content for my maturation fridge.

After some googleing (here, here and eventually here), I decided to start from acquiring the inoculas. But that seemed like a challenge as I wasn’t quite keen on ordering lyophilized bacteria from the US and then explain to the customs that what have I ordered. Finland has a strong history in dairy produces and I even contacted a contact at my previous employer, but naturally their cultures are a very closely guarded secret.

Eventually I found a “small” Finnish dairy supplier that promised to send me some (Italian) cultures. The smallest batch was for 100 liters of milk…

So here they are, a diverse selection of cheese cultures and traditional animal rennet. Now I’m just waiting for my cheese moulds before I can start the process.

Rennet and cultures
Animal rennet and a mix of different bacteria for cheese making

 

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