Making Cheese

Clean Kitchen- Wipe cheesemaking area and counters with bleach solution, especially if you make bread or  have been cooking recently with flour.
(Wild yeast gets into the air and into the cheese causing it to swell, smell like bread dough and taste awful.)

Milk Handling- Use fresh, clean, strained milk. (Milk that has been exposed to strong odors or is goaty tasting is going to make a poor tasting cheese.)

Pasteurize- Except for making starter cultures, in which case you always pasteurize the milk, I consider pasteurizing optional.

Ripening- Stir in 1/4 to 1 cup homemade yogurt or other Mesophilic culture, to 1 to 1 1/2 gallons of warm ( 85f-95f ) milk.

Keep covered and let it set undisturbed in warm place for one to four hours - go do the laundry, trim hooves, whatever. Usually, the longer the culture grows the stronger the tasting the cheese.

Renneting- Stir in 4 to 6 drops of liquid rennet to 1/2 cup cool, room temp water, then stir that into the ripening milk.

The milk has to be at least 85F  or the rennet won't set (nor will the culture grow properly.)

More heat or more rennet will speed the setting, too much of either will usually make a hard tough cheese.