Home-made cheddar cheese?

[suziquzie]

Can one make it themselves? I was just thinking, we go thru at LEAST a pound a week here, usually more. Our budget is so tight, it's gotta be cheaper home-made, pound for pound.
I know you can make ricotta, could you make cheddar?

 

[jennyema]

It would be quite challenging to do it at home and probably not worth the effort.

making Cheddar Cheese ... cheesemaking.com

 

[pacanis]

It would be quite challenging to do it at home and probably not worth the effort.

Not to mention the price of the cow......

If there's one cheese I always have on hand, it's cheddar. I try to pick it up on sale whenever I see it and haven't really noticed a difference between name brand and store brand.
I've got five little packages of the stuff right now because they came out cheaper than a big brick. And I'm still using the brick. This is where the Reynold's vaccuum sealer gets its workout, keeping my cheddar cheese good.

 

[larry_stewart]

I actually bought a cheese making kit from that very company. It was for homemade mozzarella , ricotta cheese. The ricotta worked fine, the mozzarella wasnt as successful. I wanted to try the hard cheeses, just never got around to it ( decided to try my hands at wine making since i had a bumper crop of kiwi's )

 

[expatgirl]

Saw a documentary about making hard cheeses like the commercial ones and I think that it would be quite a task as a lot of them are "aged" under very special environmental conditions---check your food ads (ours come out on Wed.) and look for specials and then load up---cheese will last a long time in the fridge esp. if you keep it tightly wrapped---any mold can be cut away.....maybe you can cut down easier in other areas

 

[TATTRAT]

stick to store bought. just my $.02

 

[suziquzie]

Yeah, dumb idea. I'll just go to Sam's club. Thanks though!

 

[Bilby]

You can freeze cheddar that you intend to use for cooking quite successfully too. When I get one of those pre-shredded packets, I stick it in the freezer. Makes it last a long time then too.

As to the difference between name and no-name cheeses, in a lot of instances there isn't much of one but some of them can be very salty and others don't melt as well as they should. But if you find a no-name you are happy with it - why not stick with it! Don't know what it is like in the US, but over here, a lot of the no-name brands are made by the same producers as the named brands and there is no difference other than packaging and marketing.