Richard Helweg - The Complete Guide to Making Cheese, Butter, and Yogurt at Home

THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO

Making Cheese, Butter, and Yogurt At Home:

Everything You Need to Know Explained Simply

By Richard Helweg

The Complete Guide to Making Cheese, Butter, and Yogurt At Home: Everything You Need to Know Explained Simply

Copyright 2010 Atlantic Publishing Group, Inc.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Helweg, Richard, 1956

The complete guide to making cheese, butter, and yogurt at home : everything you need to know explained simply / by Richard Helweg.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN-13: 978-1-60138-355-6 (alk. paper)

ISBN-10: 1-60138-355-X (alk. paper)

1. Cheese. 2. Cheese--Varieties. 3. Cookery (Cheese) I. Title.

SF271.H45 2010

637.3--dc22

2009054423

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A few years back we lost our beloved pet dog Bear, who was not only our best and dearest friend but also the Vice President of Sunshine here at Atlantic Publishing. He did not receive a salary but worked tirelessly 24 hours a day to please his parents.

Bear was a rescue dog who turned around and showered myself, my wife, Sherri, his grandparents Jean, Bob, and Nancy, and every person and animal he met (well, maybe not rabbits) with friendship and love. He made a lot of people smile every day.

We wanted you to know a portion of the profits of this book will be donated in Bears memory to local animal shelters, parks, conservation organizations, and other individuals and nonprofit organizations in need of assistance.

Douglas and Sherri Brown

PS: We have since adopted two more rescue dogs: first Scout, and the following year, Ginger. They were both mixed golden retrievers who needed a home.

Want to help animals and the world? Here are a dozen easy suggestions you and your family can implement today:

• Adopt and rescue a pet from a local shelter.
• Support local and no-kill animal shelters.
• Plant a tree to honor someone you love.
• Be a developer put up some birdhouses.
• Buy live, potted Christmas trees and replant them.
• Make sure you spend time with your animals each day.
• Save natural resources by recycling and buying recycled products.
• Drink tap water, or filter your own water at home.
• Whenever possible, limit your use of or do not use pesticides.
• If you eat seafood, make sustainable choices.
• Support your local farmers market.
• Get outside. Visit a park, volunteer, walk your dog, or ride your bike.

Five years ago, Atlantic Publishing signed the Green Press Initiative. These guidelines promote environmentally friendly practices, such as using recycled stock and vegetable-based inks, avoiding waste, choosing energy-efficient resources, and promoting a no-pulping policy. We now use 100-percent recycled stock on all our books. The results: in one year, switching to post-consumer recycled stock saved 24 mature trees, 5,000 gallons of water, the equivalent of the total energy used for one home in a year, and the equivalent of the greenhouse gases from one car driven for a year.

DEDICATION

This book is for Karen, Aedan, and Rory for sharing their refrigerator with all of my cheese, butter, and yogurt.
Also, I dedicate this book to all of my friends and neighbors for taking in copious amounts of dairy products.

INTRODUCTION

This cheese is delicious! Where did you get it? Imagine being able to answer, I made it. People who love to prepare food take great pleasure in sharing what they have made with others. This book will help you add some incredible new dishes to your repertoire.

Chances are if you are reading this book, you like to work and play in the kitchen. Whether you enjoy baking breads, preparing desserts, or creating gourmet dishes, making cheese, butter, and yogurt can complement just about any of your favorite foods.

If you enjoy preparing food, you know how satisfying it can be to cut into a freshly baked loaf of bread or open a bottle of homemade wine. Making your own cheese, butter, and yogurt delivers the same wonderful satisfaction.

The mission of this book is to be a complete guide to making cheese, butter, and yogurt at home. It is everything you need to know about making cheese, butter, and yogurt explained simply.

To explain the process of preparing these creamery items in your home, it is best to start with the simple process of making butter, and that is how this book will begin. This book will take you from the surprising simplicity of butter to the complexity of making your own aged bacteria- and mold-ripened cheeses.

Making creamery items is a culinary skill the whole family can enjoy. Making butter, yogurt, and cheese can be a fun and educational experience for kids as well as adults. The recipes for butter and easy Mozzarella are great for chefs of all ages and skill levels. Get the kids involved as you learn about how cream and milk change with shaking and heating. You will be fascinated by understanding how milk separates into curds and whey. (The curd is the solid mass that results from the heating and ripening of milk, and whey is the liquid that separates from the solids in the milk.) This curd can be cut, stretched, strained, drained, broiled, and baked, while the whey can be used to make cheese, bake bread, soften pizza crust, and much more. There is no limit as to what can be done with a gallon of milk.