
Cheesemaking tips from the ancients - diodorus
https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/eat-cheese-mostly-fresh-not-too-much
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sametmax
If you ever read "Le Têtard", a biography of the French best seller author
Jacque Lanzmann, you'll learn some very funny things about the 1930 French
country side.

One of the details that sticked with me was that, in his village, there was a
lady whose job was to pee on cheeses. She'll go from cheese maker to cheese
maker, and do her thing on each piece.

Also a windmill gore accident, bestiality with a cow, rape by a grandma and
mugging by the police.

But the cheese pee is still my favorite.

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zoul
There doesn’t appear to be an English translation, is there?

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sametmax
No idea.

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skadamou
There are a plethora of online guides to DIY cheese-making but I'm wondering
if anyone on Hacker News has any specific books or websites they would
recommend for the first time cheese-maker. I appreciate the guidance.

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mikekchar
I'm a very novice cheese maker. I also recommend watching Gavin Webber's
youtube videos to understand the basics. He's probably not the best cheese
maker in the world, but he's refreshingly honest about his mistakes and he
shows videos of where things have gone wrong and what he thinks he should have
done differently. One thing's for sure, though. He dominates cheese making
videos on you tube :-)

But other than that, I think the best thing is just to make cheese. My wife is
in charge of the credit card in our family and when I told her I wanted to
make cheese, she wisely suggested that I see what I could do with things I
could find at the grocery store -- just to see if I would still be interested
after 3 days (she knows me well!)

I started with some fresh cheeses -- mostly ricotta. I learned why UHT milk
can't be used for anything other than ricotta. I experimented trying to make
cheese from yogurt and discovered why that doesn't work. I did many google
searches about how rennet works and how acid curds are formed (I believe it is
the University of Wisconsin that has a really good page somewhere about how
casein micelles knit together in a variety of situations, but I can't seem to
find the page right now).

In the end I discovered that you can make a hard cheese by inoculating milk
with yogurt (thermophilic culture), bringing the temp to 42C, letting it ripen
for 40 minutes, then slowly adding citric acid while stirring slowly with a
whisk. The resulting curd will melt slightly (!) and you can ladle that into a
camembert hoop (which I fashioned by cutting the ends off of a pet bottle and
poking holes in the side with an awl). If you drain for 4 hours, flipping
every hour, it will form a delicate cheese that you can brine. It's
essentially a lactic cheese (even though the final curd is made with citric
acid, not rennet). I let mine age in my regular refrigerator and it eventually
formed a rind. I'm still waiting to taste it, but I've done a couple of
cheeses that way and eaten them fresh and they were delicious (tart, crumbly,
like a Caerphilly or Wendsleydale). I've also tried making a fresh cheese with
a butter milk culture (mesophilic) with a washed curd. It was also delicious,
but I'm not sure that washing the curd actually did anything -- it's already
too acidic at that point.

Anyway, I feel like it's almost like playing a game without reading the
spoilers :-) It's super fun just experimenting and by and large you can make a
cheese of _some_ description. I need to wait until winter to do some more
"normal" cheeses, but my experiments have whetted my appetite (and I've
unlocked the "you can use the credit card" achievement).

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tomcam
You ought to throw your hat into the YouTube cheesemaking ring!

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cangencer
For anyone interested in cheese, I really enjoyed the book "Reinventing the
Wheel: Milk, Microbes and the Fight for Real Cheese" by Bronwen Percival and
Francis Percival

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Baeocystin
The title alone deserves an award. As a hobbyist cheesemaker, thanks for the
suggestion, too.

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ofrzeta
It's not a hands-on book, though, but more of a detailed history of natural
cheese-making.

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Baeocystin
No worries. I'm as interested in the history as much as any particular recipe.
:)

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itronitron
blessed are the cheesemakers

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maniacalrobot
it’s not meant to be taken literally; it refers to any manufacturers of dairy
products.

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cr1895
Highly recommend watching Michael Pollan's documentary series "Cooked,"
especially episode 4 where he delves into fermentation.

He visits a convent where the sisters are making raw milk cheese. It's
fascinating.

[https://www.netflix.com/nl-en/title/80022456](https://www.netflix.com/nl-
en/title/80022456)

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marmottus
You just made me want to make my own cheese! Thanks for that!

