When I first began milking my cows in the very beginning of 2019, I was in awe of the abundance of milk I had at my disposal. Suddenly butter-making and yogurt were a weekly event in my kitchen, and still I had a fridge full to bursting with beautiful raw Jersey milk. I knew I wanted to fulfill all of our dairy needs from our cows – heck, it seemed wrong NOT to, given the copious amounts of dairy coming in from the barn each day! But – I was also a busy mama of two small children, learning the homestead lifestyle, milking cows and a goat every single day, and living with my parents all while we started the process of building our own house. I didn’t feel at all capable of learning a new skill like cheesemaking, let alone finding time to fit it into my day!
Enter my friend Victoria. A neighbor connected the two of us, and after paying a visit to me and my cows, she told me she’d like to teach me to make cheese and invited me over for a day spent cheesemaking in her kitchen. I was hooked. Surely I could learn this art for myself!
That first year I made a few cheeses, and none of them were terribly bad or terribly good. I was stuck on the notion that I had to make cheeses that my family was already buying from the grocery store, and that meant cheddar. It turned out that cheddar was not the easiest of cheeses to make, and had a rather long and daunting process from start to finish. But after our second freshening with our cow, I was determined to find some cheeses that fit into my day and were still enjoyed by my family.
I had recently given birth to our thirdborn, and was still reeling from a summer of sick cows and an unexpected litter of australian shepherd puppies, but I made a commitment to myself to make cheese at least once a week. With my two big girls at homeschool co-op once a week, I decided to take advantage of the time and made Fridays my official “Cheesemaking Day.”
That Fall and all through Summer I stocked my family’s fridge with hefty wheels of cheese. Gouda became a fan favorite, with its relatively short stirring time and quick aging period. I also experimented with cheeses in the cheddar family, long-aged cheeses like parmesan, and even added dried fruit to a few cheeses too!
That act of just diving in and doing it, week after week, made a world of difference. Suddenly I was no longer over-analyzing my day and wondering whether I could fit making cheese in. Now I was declaring one day a week for cheese, and just doing it and not worrying about every single thing being perfect.
These days I still make cheese on a weekly basis. My kids are quite used to mom pulling out the big cheese pot, and have fun helping me stir. I typically get the milk heating on the stove immediately after morning milking chores, and so while the milk cultures and the curd sets I can wash up breakfast dishes and help get the kids started on schoolwork or a craft project, or whatever else we have planned for that day. The bulk of the stirring usually happens while my toddler naps, and then the cheese is in the press by mid-afternoon, and the kitchen is reset before dinner time!
No, I have not yet discovered a way to make my Cheese Days entirely smooth and stress-free. I have just resigned myself to the fact that having kids around while doing any multiple-hour task in the kitchen is not going to be all sunshine and rainbows 100% of the time. And I’m ok with that.
That being said, I do have a few tips and tricks for adding cheese days into our life in the most stress-free way possible:
- I try to sit down and read to the kids, or otherwise spend another form of quality time with them, while the milk is culturing to make sure I fill their tanks. Cheese Day doesn’t make me unavailable to my kids, but it does take a lot of my attention and focus for the morning, and it helps them if they know I’ve given them my full attention ahead of time.
- I try to start with a clean kitchen. A homestead kitchen is never fully clean, but with a small kitchen like mine it really pays to have the dishes out of the way when handling large pots and such! I have the girls empty the dishwasher while I milk in the morning, and then while the milk heats up I do my best to get all the dirty dishes washed up and the counters cleared off. Clutter drives me crazy. Sometimes it’s unavoidable, but it sure helps my sanity when spending a long day in the kitchen.
- I plan my chores for the week around Cheese Day. I try to keep other projects and chores to a bare minimum on these days, and do the laundry and other tasks during other times throughout my week. I might add a second kitchen task, such as making yogurt or broth, or get dinner going while I make cheese, but otherwise I try to keep my energy focused to just the kitchen and kids, otherwise I get zapped.
- I don’t worry too much about the recipe times. It’s not worth the stress. Kids are going to need their mama, diapers will need to be changed, and sibling squabbles will need breaking up. I try to go with the flow, and truly don’t worry too much about stepping away from the pot for a few minutes. The only times that are absolutely crucial are times where the curds have been strained from the whey and have the potential to cool too much before pressing. Aside from those critical moments, I am comfortable adding leeway into my recipe time frames.
- I invested in a ChefAlarm thermometer. This baby is more expensive than your average instant read thermometer, but it is worth its weight in gold. I use it to set an alarm for when the milk or curds reach my goal temperature, and that way if I walk away to help a kid, or get distracted with another kitchen task I can make sure I don’t overheat the cheese! This is important, because overheated milk takes FOREVER to cool down again, and overheated curds sometimes can’t be saved without turning them into ricotta.
6. I clean as I go in the kitchen, from start to finish, so that there is never an overwhelming mess after a long day on my feet.
7. Keep it fun. Nobody likes Stressed Out Mom. A few gallons of milk is not more important than keeping a peaceful home and maintaining a good relationship with my children. I try to keep my cheese days as low-key as possible, invite the kids to help me if they are interested, keep them in snacks and maybe even turn on a show in the late afternoon when it’s the final stages of the cheese and where timing actually does really matter. On cheese days we typically eat leftovers or a super easy meal, or every so often I ask my dear husband to pick up Chipotle on the way home.
So there you have it, my Busy Mom guide to making cheese at home. Like most anything, once you find a rhythm and have some practice under your belt, making cheese really becomes just another part of the day. The few hours spent beside the cheese pot really do add up to some big rewards. For every gallon of milk I use I typically get about one pound of hard pressed cheese. I like to make cheese with 4-5 gallons at a time. The wheels add up quickly, and before you know it there’s a wealth of cheese in the fridge and an abundance of milk preserved into a nutrient dense food for your family. That’s worth it to me any day!
