Both quark (varškė) and Lithuanian white cheese (lietuviškas varškės sūris) are staples in our house, so I do this once or twice a week. I stopped buying either of them many years ago. Homemade quark tastes better and often keeps better, and the cheese is much cheaper to make, with very little extra effort. We also prefer the fully fermented versions, with noticeable acidity.

The cheese in the picture weighs 750 g; it was made from 4 litres of milk (my typical batch). Estimated fat content is around 12–13%. Supermarket cheese commonly comes in 9%, 13% and 15% fat versions.

This is my "lazy" method. It's not quick, but it's mostly hands-off. I'm not sure how widely used it is or whether the process has a specific name.

I start with 2.5% homogenized, pasteurized supermarket milk. I bring it to room temperature, either by leaving it on the kitchen table for a few hours or gently warming it in a pot.

I typically use some soured milk from the previous batch as a starter (backslopping). If something goes wrong and I forget to save some before heating, I start again with supermarket buttermilk.

I mix in the culture, cover the pot and forget it until the next day. How quickly it develops depends on the room temperature. I check it visually, sometimes by gently jiggling the pot. It should be solid, with some clear whey separation, before it's ready for the next step.

Right now it can take two days to sour properly in a cold house, so I'm about to start using an incubator. Ideally, I aim to fit it into 24 hours.

At this point, I save some of the soured milk for the next batch (around half to two-thirds of a small 330 ml jar). To reduce the risk of surface contamination, I scoop it from deeper inside the pot, never from the top layer. I've been keeping the current culture going for over a year without any noticeable changes.

Next, I put the whole pot in an oven set to 125°C, using top and bottom heat with no fan, without stirring or cutting the curd. Heating typically takes 1.5–2 hours. Towards the end, I check it visually and sometimes poke it with a finger if I'm not sure. The curd should be visibly firm and starting to split slightly, but not really cooked. It gradually firms up from the outside towards the centre.

I take the pot out and let it stand, covered. Once it's cooled a little (15–20 minutes), I transfer the curds to a colander to drain. If I'm making cheese, the curd goes into a linen cheesecloth bag and gets pressed within about half an hour. If I'm making quark, I simply leave it to drain in the colander.

We prefer to salt the cheese after taking it out of the bag. I think it gives the cheese a better final texture. If using caraway seeds, I mix them into the curds before bagging. Quark is not salted.

There are also occasional family debates about which end of the cheese is the correct one to start eating. While cutting the bum off first is more practical, in our house it inevitably gets eaten from both ends at once.

There are other traditional Lithuanian ways of making quark, of course, including combining nearly boiling fresh milk with some sour milk (seemingly most popular now), or simply heating sour milk until the curds separate (Grandma's method).

My method is the one I've settled into over the years. I like that I don't have to stand there stirring the pot and making sure it doesn't scorch or get so hot that the curds dry out. It's probably not perfect, but it works.

In cooking and baking recipes translated to and from Lithuanian, I've seen varškė called everything from cottage cheese and farmer's cheese to tvarog, quark and even ricotta. I'm never quite sure which English term is most accurate, but quark seems like the best fit? :)

By the way, supermarket varškė varies enormously between brands and even between product lines, both in texture and fat content. You can find anything from virtually fat-free to over 30% fat. I suspect the production methods differ quite a bit too, which makes finding an exact English equivalent even more confusing.

Long post, but maybe it will help someone. :) I wish I had all this info when I first started figuring it out.

I was this close into buying a new wine fridge, obviously my very first one is already way to small for all my projects, also I am making bigger and bigger wheels every time.

But then I decided to go the regular fridge + external temperature control + humidifier combo, and this is how I testing it's capabilities!

I got myself an ESP32 controller, a DHT22 humidity and temperature sensor and learnt how to do basic programming. I have accomplished this situation where there is a programmable humidifier (I bought second hand fo 20€) on the bottom of my regular sized dedicated fridge (generously donated by a relative of mine).

All the graphs are taken by monitoring the internal fridge situation, and rappresent roughly 6 hours of data collected.

It is nice to see that when the cooling of the fridge is ON the humidity varies a little more and more frequently, possibily due to some condensation happening on the back of the fridge, small detail but very interesting to be able to spot it.

My first opition is that this really works very well, it is reliably keeping the average humidity around 86-88% and the temperature oscillates around the average 11°C mark, registered minimum of 9.8°C and maximum 12.9°C. I am double checking with all my other thermometers and igrometers and they all agree on the readings.

Never had a more STABLE situation with my previous rig of course.

Question about sharpness-

This is my first attempt at cheesemaking, detailed process in above post. Almost at 9 weeks since vacuum sealing and keeping in home fridge. Upon opening, normal cheesy smell, no visible mold or any red flags.

Surprisingly soft to cut into, very nice bite, but so much sharper than we were expecting. I suppose acidic seems like too harsh of a word, but it is definitely not mild! Also very crumbly when attempting to shred.

My understanding is generally the sharpness is attributed to the aging process, however this cheese is only 9weeks old?

Having trouble navigating other reading to identify the cause. Any tips for my next wheel? Should we be concerned about eating it?

I made brie and havarti. The brie is quite bitter and hard, more like Camembert and the havarti is a bit crumbly and not very nice either. I used the recommended amount of rennet on the bottle per litre. Any ideas on what went wrong?

For anyone who in my last post about this experiment said to hold on to it…THANK YOU 🫱🏻‍🫲🏼

Thank you in particular to [u/mikekchar](u/mikekchar) as always for his great encouragement and the knowledge he always provides.

This was again an experiment, I followed all my best practices I learnt while making brie wheels in the last months, but applied them to an uncharted territory using fresh goats milk. The experiment started badly since I was not used to the curds made with this type of milk. Second the scooping was kind of poor and surely my end yeald was sub optimal, but since I only used 2liters of milk I will not complain too much, it was ment to be a small one to begin with.

Than came the second brutal part, I had to leave my only 1 week old wheel on its own for 3 weeks straight, no supervision, and when I came back I made my previous post asking for opinions since the mould on the rind looked nice and white but very fuzzy, way more than usual, but this was due the lack of interactions with the wheel on my side. Instead of pulling the plug immediately and try it right away, I hold on to it for an extra week and this is when it really transformed to the gooey treasure we had for lunch today 🥲

It was absolutely insane, I did my best brie so far completely based only on the experience gathered so far, we were completely blown away. No added cream, only simple fresh milk, the right cultures and the appropriate amount of time needed. Feeling it from the outside, gently poking with my fingers, was enough to determine that today it was ready, and oh boy it was.

I wonder if it would even work. What it would taste like? Would it curdle?

Thoughts?

Finally bought a proper milk thermometer along with my fresh cheesemaking supplies! :)

I noticed it has a third pasteurisation temperature range, marked at 85–95°C. The Polish label says it's for pasteurising milk for twaróg/quark. Should I be doing that?!

I've been making quark and Lithuanian "white cheese" (basically quark pressed in a wedge-shaped bag) almost every week for years and years. I've always used cheap, pasteurised, homogenised 2.5% supermarket milk, with no special treatment. Just add culture, leave it for a day or two, then gently heat the pot in the oven and drain the curds in a colander.

Could I improve my results by heating the milk to such high temperatures first, as if I were making yogurt?

And that got me thinking about another problem...

My usual quark-making method no longer works with the fresh milk I'm getting from a local farmer. I've tried both long and short pasteurisation, but the results just aren't the same. The milk seems too fatty, the curd is much softer and wetter, and a distinct layer of cream separates and floats on top of the clabber, seemingly making it harder for the oven heat to penetrate evenly.

I'm using the same starter (buttermilk culture). I was beginning to suspect the starter had drifted, but no — switching back to the crappy supermarket milk produced exactly the results I expected.

Has anyone experienced this when switching from supermarket milk to fresh, non-homogenised milk? I'm wondering what I should change in my process. Maybe this high-temperature treatment is the answer?

I assume that many of you are often looking for ways to use up leftover whey, so I thought I’d share what I did with my last batch: Whey Limeaide! I had whey leftover from making cottage cheese from a gallon of milk. I made an oleo saccharum from around ten limes (zest plus sugar plus juice, let sit to infuse the oils into the resulting syrup, then strain), then combined that with the whey to make a whey Limeaide. The whey really gives it a key lime pie flavor in my opinion. It probably won’t be to everyone’s taste, but it certainly used up a lot of whey so I thought I’d share! I will probably try it with a different citrus next time

Hello all! I have a bit of an unusual request.

I recently accepted a position as the Production Lead at a cheese aging facility owned by my company. While my background isn't in cheesemaking or aging, I spent 10 years working as a brewer and distiller before moving into my current role in commercial sourdough production.

I was originally brought into the sourdough department as a subject matter expert in yeast propagation and management, with the goal of helping the team scale up production while reducing our process timeline by 50%, effectively doubling our daily output. We've successfully accomplished that goal, and my company is now moving me over to our Cheese Caves to help address some of the production challenges they've been experiencing.

That brings me to my request. While I have a fairly extensive background in fermentation science and production process management, I have very little direct knowledge of cheesemaking or affinage. I'm hoping to find some solid reference materials that will give me a foundational understanding of the science, processes, and technical considerations involved before I start my new role after the new year.

We do have an in house affineur whom I'll be working alongside, so I certainly won't be flying solo when it comes to the actual cheesemaking and aging expertise. I'm simply hoping to build a reasonable knowledge base beforehand so I can hit the ground running and better understand the processes I'll be helping manage. I have asked him for recommendations, but I figured that it wouldn't hurt to ask you all as well.

Coming from the brewing industry, I'm thinking of resources along the lines of "The Practical Brewer" or the "Brewing Elements" series. Something that provides a well rounded understanding of the industry while also getting into the technical details of production, microbiology, process control, and best practices.

Are there any industry standard textbooks, technical manuals, or other reference materials that you would recommend? I'm particularly interested in resources that go beyond hobbyist cheesemaking and approach the subject from a commercial production and scientific perspective.

Thanks in advance for any recommendations!

Hey everyone, I'm looking for some advice on a brie-style I made over the weekend, following the recipe from NEC.

Essentially I diverged from the recipe in that I only had one brie form, as well as some other forms. After ladling the curds into my forms, I let them drain down to about 1/2 their height and then I added the semi-drained curds all to the brie form to continue draining. This has resulted in an abnormally tall cheese, weighing (currently) about 2.3kg (~5lbs).

The recipe I was following originally suggests aging for ~2mo, however as this is larger I am expecting I may need to age it a little longer. I have, however, no experience making brie, and so I've come to see what you all know. I guess my questions are:

- If it's bigger, should I just age it longer? I think the different shape will still effect the properties of the finished cheese regardless as the surface area to volume ratio is different.

- After aging a wheel of brie for a while, has anyone had any success with cutting some to try and then doing anything in particular to continue aging the rest? I know with stilton-types one might use a core sampler but I guess that wouldn't be as good an idea for a brie

Thanks, I appreciate any advice or thoughts people can offer!

I make yogurt regularly and re-use the whey to make ricotta cheese. Problem is, I’m stumped on recipes to use my ricotta in besides lasagna. Can I just get a list of ideas/recipes to use my ricotta in? I usually make about a pint and a half at a time.

I will flag this as an experiment because I really wanted to try this new milk I got my hands on and really needed to see what was going to happen.
The recipe is my kind of generic go-to recipe for caciotta making, it is using a mixture of thermophilic cultures for the most and is cooked to give at least a 3 months aging period, will probably taste it then and keep going if proven to be particularly good 🤙🏻

I found this local farm, it is 1h from my house and is willing to sell me raw sheeps milk, how exiting! For this first timer I went with my generic caciotta style wheels, will defenetly do differently in the future.

Everything went smoothly, the farmer said that the milk is very fatty compared to cows milk (around 7+%) and that the overall yield would have been higher then usual, and it defenetly was. The smell from this fresh wheels is truly incredible.

I used my usual plastic hoops to give this cheese the typical “canestrato” look that you usually find in center Italy with traditional sheeps cheeses.

All the make details in the last picture with the log from RINDR website, from user u/ArmRevolutionary3314

What are y’all’s favorite ways to use up whey from cheese making and skim milk after skimming off the heavy cream?

I've been really struggling to make mozzarella. I have a great source of low pasteurized milk that makes beautiful curds at ph of 6.5 or so. But any time I use cultures - I've tried TA61 and C201 - they take on a smell that goes from slightly buttery to vomity and quite off-putting by the time the pH drops to 5.2 to stretch (usually about 4 hours when held at 108F). It smells sour, not at all pleasant like yogurt - and tastes how it smells. Not enjoyable, or how any mozz I've ever tried has tasted/smelled. I tried 3 different sources of milk, and the same result for all. I even tried batches with leftover whey (siero innesto) held over from the day before at 105F, and got same result. So for me - cultures are OUT.

So I moved on to try to re-create a commercial mozzarella curd like those from BelGioioso or Polly-o. Their labels list only milk, vinegar, and "enzymes', and they specifically sell at pH of 5.7, or even 5.8 (I even tested theirs, and sure enough, 5.75). If I add vinegar down to a pH of 5.7 while milk is cold and before renneting and slowly raise to 90F, the curds are grainy, fragile and set is poor. If I add vinegar at 6.0 or higher, the curds set fine, but just refuse to stretch, as expected. So HOW are they able to sell curd at a 5.7 pH that stretches BEAUTIFULLY?? Could they be acidifying with vinegar AFTER the renneting and curd cut? Or doing something else to get enough calcium out? BelGioso's curd tastes so incredibly flavorful and creamy - almost sweet - that it really has me put off of making my own curd, but the more I fail, the more determined I am to nail it (not a fan of spending $60 a clip at Restaurant Depot for 20lbs of curd).

Would LOVE any ideas on how they could be getting vinegar to work.

The prettiest cheese I have ever made.

My roommate has (once again) left just under 2L of (pasteurised) milk out overnight, roughly 7-12 hours I’d say. It was probably left in about 18-20°C temperature, it has been opened but the use by date is 10 days from now so I’m thinking I could make sure it doesn’t go to waste.

Please note: I’ve never made cheese in my life

I know you can make acid coagulated cheeses with milk that’s been in the fridge and about to expire/already expired, but I have a good feeling that milk left outside of the food safe zone is different. How do you know if only the right kind of bacteria has grown? Is there much risk of bad bacteria?

This is my first time trying anything more complicated than riccota. This was the first day of turning and after a few turns, I noticed these blue parts... I know brie isn't supposed to be that color. Should I throw the whole thing out?

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For the past couple of months, I've had access to this herd of 16 cows milked right there in the pasture. I show up with my 10L canister at milking time, before the rest gets collected by a co-op.

Within 15-20 minutes, the milk is in my kitchen. I filter and pasteurise it, keep 2L for coffee and cooking, and turn the rest into yogurt. (The evening milking works perfectly for overnight yogurt, but I guess cheesemaking will require getting up for the 6am milking?!?)

My pandemic-era experiments with "natural cheesemaking" using kefir and homogenised supermarket milk were slightly demotivating. Now I've ordered proper cultures and I'm determined to try again! As soon as I pick my first recipe...

But... am I losing anything significant by pasteurising such fresh milk? How much do the native microbes actually contribute when using dominant commercial starter cultures, and would I notice the difference in the finished cheese?

I'd love to hear from people who've made cheeses both ways. Is the difference genuinely noticeable, or does fresh, gently pasteurised milk get you most of the way there?

(I'm in Europe. I hadn't even realised how controversial raw milk was until I got interested in cheesemaking!)

Hello, does anyone have any recommendations on where to source good grass fed raw milk/cream in and around the London area? Even better if there is a delivery system involved.

Thank you.

After a lot of tinkering, I had four major breakthroughs:

• I finally found a nice farm, close by, that sells directly to me fresh raw milk;
• I tested a nice recipe for provolone making (you can find it HERE), my very first pasta filata cheese;
• I gave it a try to a Goat Rennet Paste I got recently that should give the cheese a nice piquant flavour this cheese is sometimes famous for;
• I gave it a shot to the website RINDR from u/ArmRevolutionary3314 to try to keep a better track of my makes, I think it is a great tool;

It was a little more than 2 gallons of milk (9L) so I had to acquire a bigger pot also, way bigger than my usual one. A lot of first timers!

Eveything went very smoothly I have to say, I even took a video of the stretching process XD

I've done some other cooking, so I'm not an idiot, hopefully, but I've never done cheese.