Home Cheese Making: recipes for 75 homemade cheeses by Ricki Carrol

I give this book 10 out of 10 acorns.

This is the third edition. Earlier editions had the title Cheesemaking Made Easy

If you have never made cheese, this book will help you succeed.

The author was a key player in the renaissance of artisanal cheesemaking in the USA, teaches classes in cheesemaking that people travel hundreds or thousands of milke to participate in. She continues her role in the artisanal cheesemaking renaissance.

She wrote this book with beginners in mind. The recipes are clear and easy to follow, and she includes the history/origins of each cheese, what milk it was traditionally made from. She also includes heirloom recipes other cheesemakers have shared with her, and "cheesemakers stories" throughout the book.

She provides information about what kinds of milk to use if buying milk at the grocery store, troubleshooting section, and resources.

She also has a website, New England Cheesemaking, where the recipes in the book are available for free, often times with more detail than in the book, and a rating of easy to difficult.

If you are the type who wants to follow the recipe every time or the type who gets an idea of the recipe and then wings it, this book is an excellent resource.

I give this book 4 out of 10 acorns.

Don't get me wrong, it's not a bad book. It's well written, loaded with information, and has lots of recipes. So why only 4 acorns? Because this is Permies, where we are "homesteading and permaculture, all the time." Home Cheese Making, on the other hand, presents the industrialized approach to cheese making, doable for the individual at home. It was the first cheese making book I purchased, but it was disappointing because I was looking for sustainable cheese making methods. This book is not that.

"Part 1: Getting Started" is loaded with good information. It discusses ingredients, equipment, and techniques. I learned a lot from this section. My chief criticisms are that, while whey as a traditional culture is mentioned, the emphasis is on modern direct-set cultures, all of which must be purchased. It also bothered me a bit that in the rennet section, chysmosin is not properly identified as genetically modified. That tidbit can be picked up by reading between the lines, but considering how many people object to GMOs, I think it should be clearly spelled out. It also fails to mention that liquid rennet contains preservatives. All the recipes in the next section call for liquid rennet.

"Part 2: Recipes For All Types of Cheese" contains seven chapters of recipes: soft, hard, Italian, whey, bacteria- and mold-ripened, and goats milk cheese. Chapter 10 contains recipes for other dairy products, and discusses standard recipes for buttermilk, sour cream, yogurt, kefir, and butter. It also contains a few recipes for more exotic treats such as ghee, Devonshire clotted cream, paskha, and crème fraîche. Unfortunately, about 99% of these recipes rely on purchased cultures to make.

"Part 3: Serving, Enjoying, and Cooking with Cheese" rounds out the book with advice on cutting, storing, and serving cheese, also how to pair it with wine. Then comes another recipe section for recipes that use cheese as an ingredient: baked goods, pasta, appetizers, casseroles, desserts, dips, spreads, and dressings.

Appendices include a glossary, troubleshooting guide, and resources, featuring, of course, the author's own cheese making supply company! To be fair, other resources are included as well.

My recommendation on whether or not to get this book depends on your individual goals. If you will be happy purchasing all of your cheese making ingredients, then you'll be happy with this book. But if you are looking for a permaculture approach to sustainable cheese making, I recommend you look elsewhere.

I give this book 9 out of 10 Acorns

This is a good choice if you intend to use inoculation packages to create your cheeses. Many people do. The book is solid on giving you all the information you may need to accomplish the task of making your own cheese. This was one of the first books I read on cheesemaking and I can say that it certainly made things easy to understand for someone just beginning to explore the craft. I want to say more, but honestly it is a strait-forward and simple book and deserves an equally strait-forward review. This is one I think everyone could benefit from adding to their collection. It serves as a perfect springboard into exploring the broad world of making cheeses in an approachable way.