Making Cheese at Home: The Cheesepalooza Project

The Cheesepalooza Nine

1. Mozzarella

Mozzarella is a stretched-curd, or pasta filata, cheese, and it is the one that feels most like a magic trick the first time you make it. Milk is set with rennet and acid, the curd is cut and heated, and then the drama begins: the warm curd is dunked in hot water and pulled and folded until it turns smooth, glossy, and elastic, before being shaped into a ball. It can be done start to finish in an afternoon, which is part of its appeal. The difficulty sits in the middle. The chemistry is not hard, but getting the curd to stretch rather than tear depends on the milk and on hitting the right temperature. Fresh, ultra-pasteurised supermarket milk is the usual culprit when it will not stretch.

2. Farmhouse Cheddar

Cheddar is where a home cook meets real technique. What makes it cheddar is the cheddaring step: after the curds form, they are cut into slabs and stacked, turned, and restacked so the whey presses out and the texture becomes dense and layered. The curds are then milled, salted, packed into a mould, and pressed hard under weight for hours. A farmhouse version is aged for a few months at least, which is where the sharpness develops. This is a proper intermediate project. Nothing about it is impossibly technical, but it rewards patience, an even hand with temperature, and a willingness to wait, because a young cheddar tastes of very little.

3. Camembert

Camembert is a soft cheese with a bloomy white rind, and it moves the challenge from the curd to the ripening room. The milk is set gently, the curds are ladled into moulds without pressing, and the surface is encouraged to grow a coat of the mould Penicillium candidum, which forms that velvety white skin and slowly ripens the paste inward until it turns soft and creamy. Difficulty is high, not because the make is fussy but because the ageing is. You need steady cool temperatures and high humidity for the right mould to flourish and the wrong ones to stay away, which is a lot to ask of a domestic fridge.

4. Romano

Romano is a hard grating cheese in the same family as its better-known cousin Parmesan, made to be aged long and grated over food rather than eaten in slices. The curd is cooked at a higher temperature and worked to expel as much moisture as possible, then heavily pressed and salted, often in brine, before a long rest that can run to many months. That low moisture and long ageing give it a dry, granular texture and a sharp, salty bite. It is an advanced make. The steps are within reach, but the reward comes only after months of storage, so it is a test of commitment more than skill.

5. Fourme d'Ambert

Fourme d'Ambert is a French blue cheese, tall and cylindrical, milder and creamier than many blues. The blue comes from Penicillium roqueforti, a mould added to the milk at the start. The distinctive move is piercing: once the young cheese has firmed up, it is pierced right through with needles or skewers to open air channels, because the mould needs oxygen to grow. Those channels are where the blue veins spread. Difficulty is high. Managing a live mould, keeping it to the veins rather than the rind, and holding the right ageing conditions all take care and a tolerance for cheeses that look alarming before they turn delicious.

6. Feta

Feta is a brined cheese, traditionally from sheep's or goat's milk, and it is one of the friendliest cheeses for a beginner to attempt. The curd is set, cut, drained, and salted, then cut into blocks and left to cure in a salty brine that firms it, seasons it, and preserves it. There is no pressing rig to build and no delicate rind to nurse. Difficulty is low. The brine does much of the work, and the tangy, crumbly result is recognisably feta even on a first go, which makes it a confidence-builder early in any cheesemaking run.

7. Goat Cheese (Chèvre)

Fresh goat cheese, or chevre, is the easiest possible starting point and a lovely first make. It is lactic-set, meaning the culture and a very small amount of rennet acidify the milk slowly overnight until it sets into a soft curd, which is then ladled into cloth and left to drain. No cooking, no pressing, no ageing. Difficulty is genuinely low. If you can warm milk gently, stir in a culture, and be patient overnight, you get a soft, bright, spreadable cheese the next day. Roll it in herbs and it looks far harder to make than it was.

8. Ale-Washed Trappist

This is a washed-rind cheese, the pungent, sticky-orange sort in the tradition of monastery cheeses, given a twist by washing the rind with ale instead of plain brine. After pressing, the young wheel is brushed or wiped regularly over its ageing with an ale-and-brine solution, which encourages surface bacteria that produce a strong aroma and a savoury, meaty flavour under a supple rind. Difficulty is high. The washing must be done faithfully over weeks, the ageing conditions kept steady, and the smell is not for everyone, though the taste is milder than the aroma suggests.

9. Gouda

Gouda is a pressed, semi-hard Dutch cheese, and its signature is the washed-curd technique. Partway through the make, some of the whey is drained off and replaced with warm water, which rinses lactose from the curd. Less lactose means less acid, and that is what gives Gouda its characteristic mild, sweet, almost nutty flavour. The curd is then pressed, brined, and often coated in wax to protect it while it ages. Difficulty is moderate. The washed-curd step is a little more involved than a basic pressed cheese, but it is forgiving, and even a young waxed wheel is very pleasant to eat.

What the project actually teaches

Working through cheeses in that order teaches something no single recipe does: that cheese is a spectrum, not a set of unrelated tricks. The same milk, culture, and rennet can become a soft overnight chevre or a hard wheel that outlasts the year, and the difference is mostly in how much moisture you drive out and how long you are prepared to wait. It also teaches respect for the humble ingredients, because good milk and clean technique matter far more than any gadget.

There is a wider point here too. Making a food from scratch, watching milk turn to curds with your own hands, is a quiet antidote to a diet built on things you cannot picture being made. If you enjoy that thread, our notes on chef-made versus factory food and on ultra-processed foods pick it up from the nutrition side.