paradoxbox - 20 June 2009 05:31 PM
Thankfully I don’t think UHT milk is even sold in Japan. The quality and freshness of the milk here is pretty high, but it’s expensive. All milk in Japan comes from one place up at the north of the country and since almost every area of Japan is accessible by truck or rail within about 15 hours max from the dairy, dairy products tend to be pretty fresh.
I have some similar milk challenges being on Maui in Hawaii. We don’t have much source for local milk, and storebought is expensive (up to $8US/gallon.) Costco has lower prices but is ultra-pasteurized for extra long shelf life. I’ve been using MeadowGold brand 1 gallon jugs on sale at our local Safeway store on sale for $4.39 each.
paradoxbox - 20 June 2009 05:31 PM
Does anyone have any specific recommendations to make as far as what kind of quantities and which particular chemicals I should be buying? I.e. people mention calcium chloride a lot, how much should I buy of that and how long will a package last me if I am making mozzarella’s with 2 or 4L (Approx 1/2 gallon - 1 gallon) of milk each time? Is it something that’s really necessary or can I get away without doing it?
I’m fairly new at this myself, but would recommend you buy your enzyme and chemical ingredients in quantity and form for what you expect to use up in a year. All of the ingredients you will need can be stored either refrigerated or frozen for at least a year. In the case of calcium chloride I bought a 2oz. bottle and use at most 12 drops per gallon of milk. Even making cheese every weekend I don’t anticipate running out in a year. The bottle stays stored in a ziplock bag in my regular fridge along with my annatto, which is also a 2oz. bottle and I use even less of the annatto per gallon of milk. If you are making cheese with only a half gallon of milk at a time, your ingredient supply will likely last a long time. (I can’t imagine making cheese that small, I make mostly hard cheeses and 1/2 gallon of milk would make me only about 6oz. of cheddar!) The only way for sure to find out if you can get away without using calcium chloride is to try it with your milk. If your curd can get a clean break without it then you don’t need it. 
paradoxbox - 20 June 2009 05:31 PM
How about bacterial starter cultures - are mesophilic and thermophilic cultures really needed or can I get away without them? I’ve read on Fankhausers (SP?) cheese page that he just uses buttermilk for thermophilic starting and yogurt for mesophilic. Does this work or is it going against the grain?
I have not made my own cultures from buttermilk or yogurt because 1) it’s more convenient to use prepackaged direct-set cultures, 2) I believe my results will be more consistent using the same source and amount of culture each time, 3) the cultures are not expensive, especially since I can buy industrial concentrations and measure them with my cheap scale accurate to .01g, 4) I know exactly what culture strains I am using without the unknowns of possible contaminations that might result from making my own.
paradoxbox - 20 June 2009 05:31 PM
What kind of rennet should I use? Keeping in mind that the shipment from the USA/Canada will probably not be refrigerated, and since it’s expensive to ship I’d like it to last a long time without losing its potency completely..!
My understanding is that the shipping temperature is really only an issue when shipping cultures, since they are live bacteria. I don’t think it’s a practical problem for rennet enzymes or chemicals like calcium chloride, but I’m not sure about the liquid form. I haven’t used liquid rennet though, I’m using the common vegetable rennet tablets because I find them to be cheap, easy to measure and prepare, and will store in the freezer for years. I was concerned about shipping temperature for cultures, since they have to be shipped to me from the mainland, but have had no problems so far. Some suppliers will only ship on certain days and methods that make it too expensive for me to buy from them, but I’ve had good results so far buying from others who aren’t as particular about shipping methods.
My biggest expense by far has been providing an environment for me to age my hard cheeses. If you plan to make only fresh cheeses then you won’t have this issue. Our “room temperature” is mid-70F in the winter and mid-80F in the summer, and we have no cool basements or cellars here. Our food refrigerator is too cold to age cheese so I bought a used small (5 cubic foot) refrigerator and added an external digital thermostat so I could have a good place to age my cheeses at 55F. This was a considerable expense for us because of our electricity costs—it adds a few hundred dollars a year to our electricity bill. (40+ cents per kilowatt-hour isn’t fun, folks!)
