i recently stumbled upon cheese-making by accident. and it turns out it's trivially easy. and with raw milk, it probably wasn't just easy but almost unavoidable

i recently stumbled upon cheese-making by accident. and it turns out it's trivially easy. and with raw milk, it probably wasn't just easy but almost unavoidable once you were milking cows cheese making has 3 stages. milk is curdled, then strained, then pressed, and then optionally aged (i haven't tried aging yet) raw milk curdles itself and the whey could be strained out as easily as pouring it on a bed of grass or leaves and pressed by hand or with the weight of a stone in that same bed of grass. the result is cheese i can't buy raw milk, so my process is a bit different. i make yogurt, strain with a piece of fabric, and then press with a potato ricer making yogurt with pasteurized skim (or near skim, or non-homogenized) is trivially easy once the bacteria exists - inoculate with a starter (which can be as easy as adding milk to a "dirty" vessel) and let it sit till it curdles. for my first batch i used stonyfield to inoculate, and have used my own yogurt (or whey) as the starter since then. heat the mixture to 110°F and let it sit for several hours. there are also strains that work at room temp (but i haven't tried them). the result isn't as thick as commercial yogurt, but it's easier to strain. homogenized milk with fat doesn't produce a strong enough curd to strain, but that's a modern problem