Fresh cheese and brined cheese

In short

• Fresh cheese is made from pasteurised milk (63 °C / 145 °F for 30 min), with a culture and calcium chloride.
• Rennet: roughly 0.2–0.3 mL per 1 L of standard-strength liquid rennet, diluted in cold boiled water.
• 6–7 L of cow's milk gives roughly 1 kg of fresh cheese; sheep milk almost twice as much.
• Sliceable brined cheese is dry-salted and ripened in 8–10 % brine at 12–15 °C (54–59 °F), then somewhere cold.
• Pregnant women and young children: only cheese from pasteurised milk, fresh and kept cold, or baked hot in a dish.

What's inside

Chapters

1. How cheese forms
2. Rennet
3. Cultures and calcium chloride
4. The clean-break test and cutting
5. Recipe: acid-set fresh cheese
6. Recipe: fresh rennet cheese
7. Sliceable brined cheese: Travnik and Sjenica style
8. Soft cheese safety
9. When something goes wrong
10. Common mistakes
11. Printable checklist

Worksheets

• Fresh and white cheese calendar
• Cheese yield calculator
• Rennet and salt calculator
• Cheese batch diary
• Brined cheese ripening record
• Cheese and equipment inventory