Home-Made Cheese : Artisan Cheesemaking Made Simple

HOME-MADE CHEESE

Cheesemaking made simple

Paul Thomas

Cheesemaking techniques have advanced a long way since early herdsmen created naturally fermented curds, but the fundamentals remain essentially the same.

Leading cheesemaker Paul Thomas shows you how to transform milk into cheese at home.

His definitive book explains, with easy-to-follow instructions and pictures to guide you through all the stages involved, how to create a wide range of dairy products, from simple yogurt, cream and butter through to mozzarella, lactic cheeses, Cheddar, Stilton, Gouda, Brie and other popular varieties of cheese.

There is detailed information on how to set up a home dairy, including the importance of food safety and hygiene; where and how to source milk; an accessible overview of the biochemical processes involved; and all the essential techniques such as milling, draining, pressing, salting, rind-washing, introducing moulds or yeasts, maturing and storing.

Featuring 40 classic cheeses, more than 475 beautiful photographs by William Shaw, and a user-friendly troubleshooting section, this book will enable you to develop the skills required, whatever your previous experience or level of expertise.

As head cheesemaker at Lyburn Farm in Devon, England, Paul Thomas created award-winning new cheeses, before setting up Thimble Cheesemakers. Paul provides technical support to many cheese manufacturers all over Europe, and runs popular cheesemaking courses at the School of Artisan Food and the River Cottage Cookery School. He is widely seen as the expert other cheesemakers turn to for advice. Having graduated with a degree in biochemistry, Paul Thomas worked for several years as an affineur at respected cheesemonger I. J. Mellis in Edinburgh. He then spent six years as head cheesemaker at Lyburn Farm in the New Forest, where he hand-made many cheeses, including the award-winning Old Winchester (called Old Smales in the USA), and Stoney Cross, and helped to develop the washed-rind cheeses Little Colonel and Francies in association with James's Cheese. With his wife Hannah he set up Thimble Cheesemakers in 2013, making soft raw-milk cheeses Little Anne and Dorothy. He then set up Paul Thomas Dairy Consultancy & Training to provide technical support to farmhouse an arrtisan dairy producers. As well as teaching at The School of Artisan Food and the River Cottage Cookery School, Paul helps cheesemakers around the world, to address issues such as product development, troubleshooting defects, dairy hygiene, and the biochemistry of flavour development. He delivers training to food enforcement officers on food safety in relation to cheesemaking, charcutuerie and fermentation. He is a consultant for the Guild of Fine Foods, and writes their 'delihelp' column.