Cheesemaking

We have our own goats' milk and easy access to as much raw cows' milk as we want so I've been making cheese for a while now. However, it has been just soft cheese or a hard-pressed farmhouse style of cheddar both achieved by warming the milk to 30C/86F, adding a little rennet, leaving overnight, draining off the whey, salting and eating (in the case of the soft cheese, maybe with garlic or herbs added) or pressing in my drainpipe mould with a bottle of port and a bicycle inner tube! However, I'd like to be more adventurous but whenever I look for the 'additives' (eg Penicillium Candidum, Geotrichum Candidum, Penicillium Roqueforti) I can only seem to find industrial quantities and I get scared. There must be lots of cheesemakers out there - what do you guys do?

Alison, I've bought cultures online in small quantities.
If the culture's kept frozen and you make a bit of cheese, there should be no wastage.

Cool - so you can freeze what you don't need?

Next question - how do you 'hold' the level of hardness? Whilst mine is maturing it just goes rock solid

Wow I think the cheese you make would be really fresh as you are milking on your own. Even I have been making cheese with cheese making kits and it tastes pretty good. As my kids love only home made cheese I am also learning to make different kind of cheese which can be used on the Pizzas.

Jackson, how lucky you are that your children eat only home-made cheese. My are the opposite and have got far too used to the shop bought stuff. Mind you cheese in France is pretty awesome, home-made or otherwise.

We have five goats, and most of our cheese is homemade. That would be cheddar, ricotta, cottage cheese mainly, though I do make mozzarella at times. We make a lot of yogurt too.