Making cheese sounds like one of those things best left to the experts. Considering that every day people have been making cheese for thousands of years, it’s pretty safe to say that with the right cheese making tools, even you can do it. In this post, we share our tips on how to choose the best home cheese making kits. From artisan cheese making kits to kits for specific cheeses, we’ll explore what to look for.
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The Best Cheese Making Kits
We include detailed cheese making kit reviews below, but if you are short on time, feel free to use the table below to see our best picks. We recommend using Amazon for making your purchase.
First, we find Amazon to have the best at-home culinary kits in terms of price and quality. Second, we try to recommend products that are part of Amazon Prime, which provides purchasers with free and often super-fast delivery. (Get 30 days of Prime free here.)
The Best Cheese Making Kit – Reviews
The Ultimate Cheese Making Kit
If you are serious about making these, then The Ultimate Cheese Making Kit is for you. This kit is able to produce over 40 batches of mozzarella, ricotta, mascarpone, and other cheeses.
Everything you need to make cheese at home, other than milk, is provided. Three cheese molds, a dairy thermometer, muslin, as well as citric acid and organic sea salt come in each kit. A guidebook containing easy-to-follow instructions and mouth-watering recipes is also included.
Standing Stone Farms Ultimate Cheese Making Kit
The Standing Stone Farms Ultimate Cheese Making Kit provides everything except the cows to make cheese at home.
A family-run company that not only produces cheese making kits but also raises goats and produces its own cheese. Their complete kit features an 8-quart stainless steel pot, liquid rennet (vegetarian and organic), reusable cheesecloth, and strainer. Step-by-step instructions are also provided to ensure the best possible soft cheese is made.
Rickis Basic Cheese Making Kit
Making fresh and delicious cheese at home has never been easier. The Rickis Basic Cheese Making Kit is perfect for first time cheesemakers. Each kit comes complete with a basket mold, vegetable rennet tablets, a dairy thermometer, and reusable cheesecloth.
The kit makes a wide range of cheeses including cheddar, feta, cottage cheese, and ricotta. Easy-to-follow instructions with a recipe book are also included. Each kit produces 40, 1-pound batches of cheese.
Lekue Cheese Maker Kit With Recipe Book
Learn to make delicious soft cheese at home with the Lekue Cheese Maker Kit With Recipe Book. From one of the biggest names in kitchen products, Kekue, their at-home cheese making kit has everything you need. Each kit comes with a plastic mixing bowl, colander, and a detailed instruction booklet.
With the Lekue Cheese Maker Kit, you can make a variety of fresh soft cheeses in less than 2 hours. The included recipe book has over 20 different cheese recipes to test out.
Standing Stone Farms Basic Beginner Cheese Making Kit
If you are just starting out with making cheese at home, look no further than the Standing Stone Farms Basic Beginner Cheese Making Kit.
The kit provides all the necessary ingredients to make a wide range of soft cheeses including mozzarella, burrata, and ricotta. All of the ingredients including the liquid rennet and citric acid are non-GMO and organic. Made in the U.S.A., the Beginner Cheese Making Kit comes with easy-to-follow instructions and a recipe book.
The Big Vegan Cheese Making Kit
Making vegan cheese at home is quick and easy with The Big Vegan Cheese Making Kit. Using your own dairy-free milk, the kit allows at home cheesemakers to produce Mozzarella, Ricotta, Mascarpone, Cypriot and Greek cheese, and the King of Cheeses, Parmesan.
Each kit comes with a muslin cloth, thermometer, and step-by-step instructions detailing the cheesemaking process. The ingredients provided can make up to 20 batches of cheese. Working with other vegans, the kit comes with a vegan recipe book designed to match the authenticity of each cheese.
Why Make Your Own Cheese At Home
There’s been a renaissance of producing various food and drink products at home. Beer brewing, winemaking, and even the curing of meats at home have all taken off. Not to leave out is homemade cheese making.
But why make something that requires several steps and a fair amount of patience when it’s so easy to buy in the store? Here are a few reasons why you should make your own cheese at home.
1. Quality ingredients
Food companies pack artificial colors and additives into mass-produced store-bought cheeses. By learning how to make your own cheese at home, you control the ingredients.
This ensures any food allergies or dietary restrictions are taken into consideration. It’s also an opportunity to select ingredients from local food producers who can explain how their product is produced.
2. Learn a new skill
Ask any food lover and they’ll say that winemakers, brewers, and cheesemakers are culinary artists. Making cheese at home is a skill. And much like any skill, it takes time and practice.
Thankfully there are DIY cheese kits that provide the necessary tools and instructions to begin developing this new skill.
3. Source Appreciation
Sourcing ingredients locally for your cheese makings connect you with the people producing those ingredients. It develops an overall appreciation for how food is produced. The methods of production. And why it’s so important to protect the environment.
4. Family Fun
In today’s on-the-go world, family time is critical. Making cheese at home is a fun activity for the entire family. Cheese starter kits provide all the cheese-making supplies a family will need to get going.
Making cheese at home is a hands-on activity that children can easily and safely participate in. It’s a great way to teach children about where their food comes from. And dare I say teaches them a little science along the way.
5. Costs Less and Tastes Great
Make your own cheese kits are not that expensive. They include all you need to get started, minus the milk. With the exception of some real stinky cheese, even bad cheese tastes good. Knowing that the cheese you’re eating is the cheese that you made with your own hands makes it taste even better.
How To Make Cheese At Home
While the number of people making cheese has quickly grown, one thing has remained the same; the process for making cheese. At its basic, cheese is made by culturing milk.
There are two different methods used to turn milk into cheese. One is to allow natural enzymes and bacteria in raw milk to work their magic. The other is by introducing a starter culture containing microorganisms into milk to start the transformation process.
Making cheese at home requires a handful of cheese making supplies. These supplies are easy to source at homeware stores and supermarkets. The basic supplies you’ll need include a large stockpot preferably with a capacity of at least 2 gallons.
Other supplies include a thermometer, measuring spoons and cups, and a long-handled spoon. Lastly, you’ll need a large bowl, cheesecloth or butter muslin, and a colander.
Cheese Making Ingredients
There are only four ingredients you’ll need to make cheese at home. Milk, starter culture, coagulant, and salt. Most at-home cheese making kits will include all of these except for the milk.
In terms of actually making cheese, there are several steps in the process. While these processes can vary slightly, they are the same steps used in making both soft and hard cheese.
Cheese Making Process
The cheese-making process begins by slowly heating fresh milk. Once heated, a starter culture is added to the warm milk. The culture transforms lactose into lactic acid in a process called acidification.
Next, a coagulant most commonly rennet, is added. The rennet takes the milk from its liquid state to a semi-solid, gel-like form. As the milk solidifies, curds and whey are formed. The next step in the process is to cut the curds into pieces. The smaller the curds are cut, the less moisture is retained resulting in hard cheese.
Curds are cut into larger pieces to produce softer cheese. The curds and whey are cooked from several minutes up to an hour depending on the type of cheese you are making. The curds and whey are separated by draining them through a cheesecloth.
The resulting curds are then salted and shaped depending on the type of cheese. Some cheese such as ricotta can be eaten right away. Others are left to age completing the process.
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FAQs-Best Cheese Making Kits
After the initial start-up costs for the cheese making equipment you’ll need, making your own cheese can be cost-effective….and fun. By making your own cheese you eliminate most if not all the additional costs associated with store-bought cheese. The main ingredient in making cheese, milk, isn’t an expensive ingredient to purchase especially in bulk. It’s estimated that making your own cheese at home can save hundreds of dollars per year.
Homemade cheese can certainly be healthy especially compared to store-bought cheese. The main reason for this is you are in control of the ingredients used to make cheese. Sourcing 100% certified organic or locally produced ingredients is completely in your control. Maintaining strict hygienic conditions is also in your control.
Absolutely YES you can make your own cheese. There are tons of great and easy-to-follow-at-home cheese-making kits that make it possible. Making cheese at home doesn’t require a ton of ingredients and minimal equipment. From start to finish, making cheese can take upwards of 4-5 hours.
Without milk, cultures, and rennet good luck making cheese. These are the three ingredients vital to making cheese. Once you have these ingredients you can experiment with aging and flavoring cheese.
How We Review And Rate Products ⭐️
We only recommend brands we trust. We try to recommend kitchen products we’ve owned or used personally and we offer alternatives. We choose these alternative products based on recommendations from other food bloggers and chefs, sommeliers, and winemakers.
We conduct thorough research on the company, how the products are made, and whether they are a good value for home chefs. This allows us to offer competitive analysis, provide pros and cons of various products, and ensure you are purchasing quality products for your home.
- Some of the kitchen brands we love the most include 360 Cookware, UnoCasa, Calphalon, Ninja, and Instant Pot.
- For wine and drink products, we love Wine Enthusiast, VinGarde, and Danby.
- We often recommend purchasing products from Amazon because of the variety of kitchen and homeware brands they carry.
- Sometimes, we recommend buying a product directly from the manufacturer when we know it’s a brand we trust.
Learn more here.