Cheesemaking Ingredients: Milk, culture, rennet and more!

Whether you are making yogurt cheese or a farmhouse cheddar, it all starts with the right cheesemaking ingredients. Here is an in-depth look at all the ingredients that go into making delicious homemade cheese.

This post on cheesemaking ingredients is part of a series of posts on cheesemaking. Check out Cheesemaking 101 for a complete list of topics.

Milk

Buying milk for cheesemaking is not as simple as it may seem. Here are a few things to consider:

1. Cheese cannot be made with long-life UHT milk.
2. If you start with raw milk, then you need to pasteurize it in order to create a specific type of cheese. Otherwise, you can make cheese without adding any culture at all, as raw milk naturally contains a mesophillic culture.
3. The best milk for cheese is non-homogenized milk. Homogenization breaks down milk fat to stop the cream from separating. However, it really affects homemade cheese. I find about a 12% reduction in quantity of cheese per gallon of milk with homogenized milk. However, in my neighbourhood, non-homogenized milk is so expensive that I usually just use regular milk.
4. Goat and sheep milk are naturally homogenized.

Cultures

To make traditional cheeses, you need to use the proper cultures. Store-bought cheese cultures are very vigorous, and do most of their culturing within a short period of time. They come in all sorts of specific strains of bacteria, which will affect the type of cheese you end up with.

Cultures can be divided into mesophilic or thermophilic (affiliate links.)

1. Mesophilic bacteria culture at room temperature. So, they don’t require heating during the inoculation stage of cheesemaking. Mesophilic cultures are used for the majority of cheeses (from cheddar to brie).
2. Thermophilic cultures prefer warmer temperatures and need to be kept warm during inoculation. Generally, Italian cheeses (mozzarella, provolone and Parmesan) use thermophilic cultures.
3. Milk kefir can be used as a mesophilic culture for simple, fresh cheeses. It is a good replacement for the natural bacterial profile found in raw milk. Use it for cheeses like: feta, halloumi, cottage cheese and ricotta.

Rennet

Rennet is what causes your milk to coagulate and form curds. Traditionally made from the enzymes in a calf’s stomach, there are now many vegetarian (affiliate link) options.

Salt

Cheese salt (affiliate link) is a coarse, non-iodized salt that is specifically use for cheese. However, you can use any non-iodized salt for curing cheese.

Calcium Chloride

Calcium chloride is used to increase the calcium content of your milk.  This is very important if you’re using homogenized store-bought milk, sheep milk, or goat milk.

Use 1/4 tsp of calcium chloride mixed into 1/4 cup of chlorine free water for each 4 liters (1 gallon) of milk. It is added with the rennet to improve the curding of homogenized milk.

Buy liquid, food grade calcium chloride online (affiliate link.)