This is a nice book. The instructions are easy to follow and the text is interesting. The stories and recipes from other cheese makers are informative and inspirational. It's a good book for beginners. Many of the recipes are simple and require equipment you probably already have in your kitchen. It would have been better if the book was spiral bound - I like recipe books that will lay flat.

I bought this book after having purchased starter, lipase and rennet from another cheese supply company. Ricki owns and operates New England Cheesemaking and sells everything one needs to make cheese including starter in pre-measured packets. I was terribly disappointed to find that in her book, every recipe gives the measurement for starter in packets!

I wrote in to her website only to receive no answer. My next step is a phone call. I have the book and unless I find out how much starter is in each package, it's useless.

The recipes look nice, the book is well laid out and easy to understand, but I take issue with her attempting to get me to buy supplies only from her. There is more than one kind of lipase available, she only discusses the one she sells. What about us folks who have already purchased starter from someone else? How about a measurement in teaspoons? Or a conversion chart - not too difficult to do.

My advice? If you are planning to buy this book, plan to buy starter from Ricki. It's more expensive, but you won't have the headache of trying to figure out the conversions.

Definitely a great book for those looking to get into cheese making and learning some basics. Though, I would be nice if it got a little more into the science of each step, as this is important to know and especially when u would want to replicate cheeses. I've found, lots of questions after reading the book, which I fulfill by searching the web. Seems not enough people make homemade cheese though! One site I find my self regularly visiting to help in my cheese making endeavors is http://cheeseforum.org/

This is an excellent book and is well suited for the beginning cheese maker who has made a few cheeses and is ready to try some more advanced cheeses. The non-recipe sections of the book offer basic cheese making advice, troubleshooting tips, and a course overview of the cheese making process (no substitute for the very basic step-by-step instructions included in most beginning cheese making kits). However, once you've learned the basic cheese making process, this book will enable you to take your cheeses to the next level. The included recipes rely on a firm foundation of the steps involved, but provide all the details necessary to make these fabulous more advanced cheeses. My only complaint is that I wish they had covered even more varieties of cheese!

This is a very good book for aspiring cheese makers. The basics are clearly presented along with recipies and other interesting asides.

I really like this book, it was written for me, someone with no experience making cheese. I will be using it a lot. I have other cheese making books and they are good as well, but this one makes me feel confident I will succeed at making cheese.

I really like this book, it was written for me, someone with no experience making cheese. I will be using it a lot. I have other cheese making books and they are good as well, but this one makes me feel confident I will succeed at making cheese.

As a beginner cheese-maker, I bought this book to learn how to make cheese. Also bought Ricki's 30-min mozzarella kit. Figured I'd start with a basic mozzarella cheese, and it might be tasty with all the tomatoes in my garden. Well, things got a bit complicated.

While there was a lot of useful and interesting info in the book, the directions on how to make this 30-min mozz did not jive with her kit directions, nor did they even jive with the directions offered on her website (and there are two sets of slightly diffeent directions on the site!!). So, four sets of directions, each a little different (including target temperatures!!!), this beginner was frustrated from moment 1.

First batch failed entirely, probably due to the milk used. Bought another brand, dug around in the bin for the freshest one...this time things went better, BUT the curds did NOT form in the time she tells you....nor a half-hr later. Nearly an hour later, got soft curds and was never sure if they were "right"....they seemed too soft. Did manage to make 2 balls of cheese, but they tasted a little cooked.

I wrote to her website asking for help understanding what happened and for process clarification. No response a week later. I also wrote to this guy Steve who has his own cheese making website. He promptly answered, explaining that when he sells the Ricki kit he actually includes HIS OWN DIRECTIONS. Apparently the curd will often take up to an hour to set and tablet rennet (in the kit) can take a bit longer than liquid rennet. He offered a few other notes that very effectively explained what I was experiencing.

I am hesitant to make other cheeses from this book. I will probably compare the recipes/directions in the book vs online just for better understanding before starting the next trial. Part of me regrets this purchase because who needs to do all this homework? Ok, ok, it was just one recipe, but I bought the book thinking it would offer everything I'd need to just get started...and it failed to deliver on the first cheese!

Thank you for your quick shipment. Book is in great shape, as you stated.

As a novice at making cheese this book has given me the confidence I needed to give it a try. My daughter and I had a wonderful Saturday afternoon making Mozerella and Ricotta cheeses. The book is great.

This book is easy to read and follow. I definitely won't be making all these cheeses but there are basic favorites.

This book was recommend in a class I took on cheesemaking at Whole Foods. It's a great reference. I haven't made anything yet but it seems easy to follow and not too complicated.

Easy to follow directions, lots of recipes that a busy person can do too. Love the Muenster recipe!

Home Cheese Making / 1-58017-464-7

I bought this book planning to start making my own cheeses. The book is a fascinating read and is very easy to read and understand. The pictures are clear and precise, and I actually feel that I understand what is going on in the pictures (not often the case with do-it-yourself books!). The recipes (of which there are many) are fun to read and are interspersed with little testimonials of people who have found the joy of cheese making - and, in many cases, have made a business out of their new joy.

Though this is through no fault of the book, I do find that I am a little intimidated. The book is very clear and up-front about the equipment and materials which need to be purchased before making a certain types of cheese. I appreciate the book's candor - I would not appreciate it if I got started and only then found out I needed to buy a lot more equipment than I had thought. The book is also exceedingly clear about the conditions the cheese must be made in and aged in, and the amount of time and investment which goes into good cheese. All this has made me a bit worried and I don't believe I'm currently ready to start cheese making - at least not in my tiny apartment kitchen! However, I still enjoy pulling this book out on rainy days and reading and dreaming about the future. That, in of itself, makes it a good purchase for me.

I will also add that this is a great resource on cheese, period, and not just on cheese making. Thanks to this book, I understand the names and ingredients of the cheeses at the local organic market (chevre, anyone?) and I'm not so afraid to try them. I may not make cheese at home for awhile, but at least this book has given me a greater appreciation of cheeses in general, and I appreciate that.

I disagree with the person who wrote that the recipes were confusing and hard to follow. I think it's very easy to follow. I would definitely suggest reading the introduction before jumping right in. But overall I've found the book really useful and it has introduced me to a fun new hobby.

A lot of the old world recipes and traditions are being slowly lost in the world of fast food and frozen peanut butter sandwiches. I'm really happy this book exists and I can learn this process. It makes me appreciate the time and effort that goes into things like this. It's very easy to forget where that plastic bag of shredded taco cheese started.

I am an artisnal cheesemaker and I recommend this book to people who want to start making cheese at home.

Such an infortative view on the history and technique of cheese making you'll feel like an expert after a few chapters.
The back of the book contains many recipes for use with your cheeses that are to die for.I mean to say she can cook for me anytime.The best DIY I have evr seen.Did I say I love cheese? Now I'm self gratifiing!
Big hugs to her.

This book takes the mystery and fear out of cheesemaking. In easy to follow step by step instructions, Ricky Carroll teaches all the basics needed to make a variety of cheeses from very easy soft cream cheeses, through mold and bacteria ripened cheeses to hard cheeses. The writing style is clear and easy to follow, making it the ideal beginning book. In the several months since purchasing this book (I learned about it through the book "Animal Vegetable Miracle"), I have tried over a dozen recipes, with great success...Mozzarella, Cheddar, Gouda, Ricotta, Cream cheese, Feta, Kefir, Yogurt cheese, Paneer, Quesa blanca, Mysost and more! I even figured out how to make my own recipes for string cheese and cheese curds, based on the information the book contains. If you are new to cheese making, her website and DVD are helpful. Furthermore, if you have questions or problems, Ricky and her staff give excellent cheese making advice online.

Oh Ricki your so fine!! This book is the best I have purchased so far. The recipes are spot on and I have made many wonderful cheeses from this book. Although I still cant master the 30 min Mozzerella! This book is so good I have even purchased one for my Cheesemaker teacher in Brisbane. Love the different recipes for cream cheese. The Bondon is so easy and delicious. Buy this book first and then build up your library with the others.

I cannot rave enough about this book. Ricki Carroll strikes the perfect balance in this simple and entertaining guide, providing a resource that is perfect for the beginner who has never made cheese before to the expert who makes and sells cheese for a living, to everyone in between. The illustrations are clear and incredibly helpful; none of this "What's going on in this picture here?" The recipes are many and varied, and the little side notes from people who've written Ricki about her book at a delight to read.

I was led to this book by Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver, who wrote of visiting Ms Carroll's workshop while spending a year living off of her land. I found that chapter so compelling, I sought out more information. This book is right up my alley: the recipes are clearly written, and there is anecdotal information from amateur/pro cheesemakers interspersed throughout, making me feel like part of a community. From soft to hard cheese, cow to goat's milk,easy to difficult--I felt gently taken by the hand, and led into a brand new world.

This is a great book for beginning and 'intermediate' home, cheese makers. I would highly recommend having this book in your pantry if you are going to attempt making cheese from home!

This book is very detailed yet easy to understand. We have recently purchased cheese making kits for making cheeses at home since where we live, they are quite expensive and not readily available, especially for the goat cheeses in Australia.

THe 1st book we bought was good enough for beginners (if you are afraid of making cheeses, don't. Everything we did came perfectly all right). But this one goes into more details and explanations. So we recommend it!

This book is easy to follow. It made cheese making simple. I found that the recipes made better cheeses than I could buy.

This book contains a wealth of information for the beginning cheese maker or for experienced ones for that matter. Great recipes that work. In my opinion, the book is well worth the money I paid for it.

I got interested in making cheese after I meet the artisan cheesemaker at a local winery near Herman, Missouri. She told me that she had started in her kitchen and had developed the hobby into a professional culinary skill, after further education in Europe and Israel on the fine art of cheesemaking. She enthusiastically recommended this book, and I received it for Christmas. It is very well written, with logical chapter layout for ingredients, equipment, and techniques, followed by lots of recipes for the different families of cheeses (hard, soft, Italian, etc.) The beginning establishes the cheese makers vocabulary, which is then used throughout the book. A great book for a beginning cheese maker.

This book covered the cheese making process in depth, and I feel that I understand the process and have confidence in making cheese.

I had tried to make cheese from recipies I had found online with little success. I was rather frustrated and decided to buy this book and see what I was doing wrong. My first batch was a chedder cheese which came out exactly as the book promiced first time. My second batch was a gouda cheese which I upsized to a 3 gallon batch from the 2 gallon recipie using the instructions in the book and once again it came out perfect.

For the money it has to be the best aid to a home cheesemaker that one can buy. I highly recomend this book to anyone who wants to start out making cheese.

`Home Cheese Making', 3rd Edition, formerly `Cheesemaking Made Easy' by cheesemaking equipment supplier, Ricki Carroll is one of those books like Sandor Ellix Katz's book `Wild Fermentation' and Sally Fallon's Nourishing Traditions' which a dedicated foodie should read, if only to appreciate exactly how cheese is made and to thereby appreciate the differences between hard and soft cheeses as well as cheeses made from cow, goat, buffalo, and sheep milk. The procedures for cheesemaking can give us a much closer connection between everyday cooking and the transformations which turn milk into cheese than can be achieved by even a close reading of Harold McGee's chapter on milk in `On Food and Cooking'.

Aside from dedicated foodies and the armchair foodies whose experience is largely from Food Network travelogues, there is the hard core cheese hobbyist and unregenerated counterculture `Whole Earth Catalogue Hippie' who grows a lot of their own food and makes their own wine or beer to foster an independence from commercial products. This book is really for you.

The first thing which both pleased and surprised me about the book is that it does not limit itself to soft, fresh cheeses such as queso blanco, mozzarella, cream cheese, mascarpone and mozzarella. It doesn't even stop at cured mozzarella, giving provolone. It goes all the way to the hard grana cheeses such as Romano and Parmesan, plus cheddar, blue cheeses, and the soft cured cheeses (Brie, Camembert, Limburger) along the way.

One thing I should not minimize is that while the learning curve from conventional cooking to cheesemaking is not very steep, the investment in time, equipment, and special techniques for cleaning and sterilization may be a bit more than you will encounter when you get into some new culinary fields such as bread baking, souffles, and preserves. While buttermilk and crème fraiche may be pretty easy, even a product as simple as cottage cheese requires at least two specialized ingredients not carried by your local megamart.

In fact, if you are already familiar with the techniques involved in home beer brewing, canning, pickling, or wine making, you are probably already halfway to having the necessary skills and space needed to do serious cheesemaking. Unfortunately, this does not give you a leg up to access to the best raw materials. I suspect that serious cheesemaking for most types of cheeses may be beyond the resources of a typical city apartment or condo dweller, unless you have the time to take regular trips to farms to obtain the right kinds of milk. While I have not looked for them in New York City, I suspect that even Zabars doesn't have a lot of the raw materials you will need for recipes in this book.

While my favorite megamart does have only conventionally pasteurized cow's milk, it has no goat's milk, sheep's milk, unpasteurized milk, or single pasteurized cream. The very best location for getting into serious cheesemaking is probably in a standalone house and garage located close to goodly supply of dairy farmers. Living close to people like the Amish or Mennonites who just may do this on a regular basis, not to mention have a handy supply of raw cow's milk may be the very best venue for mastering cheesemaking.

It occurs to me that I have not given this book enough credit. In addition to many recipes for some very, very serious long-term cheese making, there are a number of recipes for things such as buttermilk, crème fraiche, sour cream, kefir, yogurt, butter, ghee, paskha and clotted cream. Unlike recipes you may find in most general cookbooks, the recipes for buttermilk, sour cream, and crème fraiche are not `approximations' or close substitutes. They are the real deal, which means that the recipes call for the kind of starter culture that can only be bought from a speciality mail order source.

Note that while the book does cover some simple yogurt recipes, I would not push it as a book on yogurt making. If that is your real interest, look for a title specializing in yogurt.

The general utility of the book is further enhanced by Chapter 11 that includes a quick course on the proper techniques for cutting and serving cheese. This same chapter contains several recipes for staple products using buttermilk, ricotta, fromage blanc, and yogurt. These are mostly breads, muffins and biscuits. It also has several recipes for dairy-based dips, spreads, dressings, appetizers, salads, pizzas, and veggie dishes. Personally, if I ever wanted to go beyond the fringe with foodie mania, I would much sooner go in the direction of cheese making and artisinal breads than towards the raw food doctrines. Those ancient Greeks and Romans knew a good thing when they saw it!

It will probably not be lost on you that the book's author happens to be in the business (New England Cheesemaking Supply Company) of selling equipment for making cheese in small batches, so the book is pretty self serving, but it is still an excellent introduction to the craft with several references to sources other than the author's own company. The end of the book also gives a generous number of references to artisinal cheesemakers, cheesemaking journals, and a very nice bibliography with some more advanced texts.

This book contains a lot of information, and you'll learn how to make cheese from it. In essence it's all you need to get started. Pictures in the similar book authored by B. Ciletti are better, whereas this book is a little more informative. I suggest that you buy one or the other.