I‘m starting to understand why you can pay so much for a good cheese if you buy it in the shops. Our first homemade cheese – a variety called House Cheese – has now been maturing in the outhouse for four weeks, so we could technically take it out and cut into it. But we don’t want to. Yet.

It’s starting to smell like cheese now, which is encouraging. It’s a bit like a pair of dodgy feet, and it’s getting a decent skin on it, rather than green mold, which I guess will be a nice orangey rind by the time we come to eat it.

That time will probably be about six weeks from now.

Why? Because if we want a decent mature cheese we’re going to have to age it for a full ten weeks. Two and a half months!

We’re only making a single round in this first instance, but think of commercial cheese makers. They have to find enough room to age a lot of cheese for a long time – often a lot longer than ten weeks. And of course our little round of cheese, which is about five inches across and two inches deep, took five litres of milk to make. Multiply up that quantity to a commercial scale and you’ll need a fair few cows at your service.

This whole process has been an eye-opening experience, and one that has taught me to treat cheese as a luxury that should be enjoyed little and often, rather than en masse from a cheap block.

That’s probably a good thing as it’s not exactly healthy stuff, is it.

Related posts:

1. Our first homemade cheese is a success
2. The cheese is out of the press!
3. We have a cheese-making deadline