All Day Cheese Making Class
Choose both days or one, 9am-5pm.

You do not need to take the Basic Class first.  Just start in here.

In addition to the regular All-Day Classes, I will be adding a class teaching 3 different styles of Blue Cheese, one day, 9am-5pm.  You will learn the difference between making a Roquefort style which is strong and robust, a Forme D'ambert type which is intermediate in texture and flavor, and a Gorgonzola Dolce which is soft, creamy and mild.  The class will be $145 per person for one day.  Please write if interested and tell me when you are available.

For the regular All-Day Weekend Classes:  Each day we will make three or four or more different types of cheeses from start to press.  Each requires a completely different method, so you'll learn a full array of accurate traditional and professional cheesemaking techniques in every class.  Then you'll be prepared to make nearly any type of cheese at home.  You will take home an excellent direction packet.  And you may call me later with questions.

Saturdays, 2012:  Traditional Cheddar,  Camembert/Brie, Alpine/Swiss, & Ricotta

Sundays, 2012:  Blue cheese, Traditional Mozzarella (not the quickie citric acid type), and Ricotta.  Also we will finish up the cheeses from Saturday.

You will get your hands into these cheesemaking process, using all your sense to observe the changing textures and aromas which go along with the scientific explanations.  You'll learn the different "clean breaks" for different kinds of cheese, the correct curd texture at draining, and undestand why it's important to monitor and control acidity and pH, moisture, temperature, and salt, in order to create consistent, delicious cheeses.

We will discuss aging areas from the simple to the complex.  If you're cheesemaking needs a lift, if you are completely new to it, or you are thinking of opening a cheesemaking business, come get your questions answered!  You will NOT bring home cheese; but you will bring home the knowledge for making all your favorites.

After the St. Louis, MO, Classes, you may watch the goats being milked.

BRING
LUNCH, snacks, & water bottle, we will eat here during the class.  (No time to eat out).
Pen & paper for notes.
Bath towel to dry your hands all day.
Apron.
Money for supplies to take home so you can start in right away.  (I supply everything for the class itself.)

Choose one day or both.  Nothing extra to buy for the class.
We will be inside, but dress for the weather (warmer clothes in winter, cooler clothes in summer.)

PRICE of All Day Cheese Classes
$145 per person per day in St. Louis.  More for out of town classes to pay my travel expenses.
$10 discount: $280 for two sign-ups (in St. Louis)
       (one person both days, two people on same day, or two people, one per day.)
Click Here to SIGN UP ONLINE or by PHONE 314-968-2596.

Custom Cheese Making Class
I travel to other areas to teach Cheesemaking Classes.  Please CONTACT ME if interested.

Remember, you do NOT have to take the Basic Class first. 
Just take whichever class you'd like.

MAY 2012

Sat. May 19, SOAPMAKING with Ruth Mannebach, 9am-12pm here at my place in St. Louis.
 

JUNE 2012

June 2, SOAPMAKING with Ruth Mannebach, 1-4 pm here at my place in St. Louis.

Sat. June 9, BASIC CHEESEMAKING CLASS 12:30-4:30pm

June 24, Sunday: OPEN HOUSE, 2nd Annual St. Louis Sustainable Backyards Tour, sponsored by Home Eco Store, www.home-eco.com for map to the many homes in the St. Louis area, and to register (free).  See our backyard goats, chickens, & home-made greenhouse.

June 30/July 1, ALL DAY CHEESE MAKING CLASS, 9am-5pm
Choose one day or both, 9am-5pm
 

JULY 2012

June 30/July 1, ALL-DAY CHEESEMAKING CLASS, 9am-5pm
Choose one day or both, 9am-5pm
 

AUGUST 2012

Sat Aug. 18, BASIC CHEESE MAKING CLASS 12:30-4:30pm
 

SEPTEMBER 2012

Sat Sept 15, BASIC CHEESEMAKING CLASS 12:30-4:30pm

Sept. 22/23 ALL DAY CHEESE MAKING CLASS, ST. LOUIS
All-Day Cheesemaking, Choose one day or both, 9am-5pm
 
Return to see new classes as they are added.

To register, click HERE

Taught by Ruth Pinnell of Washington, MO

St. Louis, MO:
May 19 (CLASS FILLED)
Sat. June 2, 2012 (still open)

Franklin County, Union/Washington, MO: June 3, 1-4 pm

(St. Louis classes held here
at Merryl's cheesemaking place
in Webster Groves, MO 63119)

Love fancy handcrafted lye soap?
Want to save money and make great soap for gifts or family?

I can teach you how to make fantastic, natural, hand-crafted, cold-process soap
for a fraction of the cost you've seen.

You will learn all the steps from start to finish, including how to develop your own creative, personalized recipes! 
I will show you how to avoid common mistakes and mishaps,
as well as creative ways to mold and package your soap.
We will learn the basics, develop a recipe for the class, and make the soap.

Host a soap making party with your friends and keep your soap creation!
Otherwise, class participants will go home with 2 bars.

Classes are 3 hours in length and $25 per person.

All materials provided except for safety glasses and long rubber gloves.

Classes forming now for May and June
at locations in St Louis, Washington/Union, and St. Peters.

To sign up CLICK HERE

or Contact Ruth Pinnell at 314-974-1463
rpinnell@toast.net

Contact me to get some. 
We will then arrange what day you will come over, and how much milk you will get. 
On that day your milk will be waiting with your name on it.

Absolutely no drop-in shopping.  This is my house.  I do not sell cheese, only the supplies.  I teach you how to make the cheese for yourself.

2012 RAW GOAT MILK PRICE through June 2012
Quart, $3.75, plus $1.00 refundable deposit on the jar itself.
Half Gallon, $7.50, plus $2 refundable jar deposit
Gallon, $15, plus $4 refundable jar deposits.

Return the crystal clean glass jars and lids, trade in, only pay for milk next time.
Done getting milk, return the clean jars & lids, get deposits back.

All cheese making supplies are available here too.  A direction packet from my class is $10, then you or your friend will get $10 off a class if you sign up within a year .  Or, get anything from one starter culture packet ($1.50) or liquid rennet $6-$8, to a cheese press, ($75-$100), or an entire cheesemaking kit complete with press plus a generous amount of all sorts of supplies, $250.

RAW MILK IS COMPLETELY LEGAL FOR YOU TO BUY IN MISSOURI.  Statute 196.935 states:  "Only pasteurized, graded milk may be sold to a restaurant, soda fountain, grocery store, or similar establishment, with the exception that an individual may buy and have delivered for his own use, raw milk or cream from a farm."  There ia also quite a bit of written documentation from the MO Milk Board that they have agreed, since Feb. 2008, that the wording of the statute means what it unequivocally says in plain English.

And just what are the "exceptions"? 
The exception to pasteurized is raw.
The exception to graded is unlicensed, (as a person sells from home)
The exception to selling to a restaurant, soda fountain, grocery store, etc., is selling to an individuaal for his own use.

Missouri's law is also outstanding in that milk can be delivered AND bought from the farm.  Some states don't allow delivery.  Also, we can sell milk AND cream; some states don't allow cream to be sold on it's own, only as risen within the bottle of milk.  Some other states prohibit advertising of raw milk, not so in Missouri.

Here are the signs you will notice if the problem is the pasteurization.  In St. Louis, MO, even the lowest temp pasteurized milk currently available will not work (see the other post for reasons).

For presseed cheese, after adding 1/8 teaspoon rennet per gallon of milk (that is the normal amount of rennet for pressed cheeses), the milk should coagulate smoothly, starting at about 15 minutes, becoming like slick firm yogurt within 30-45 mintues.  If it is soft and mushy and stays that way, or takes hours to coagulate, that's wrong. and it's because of the supermarket pasteurized milk.

Next you cut the slick firm milk into thousands of tiny cubes.  If they shatter or melt together into mush, it's the supermarket milk.

Stirring:  the curds dissolve or shatter if you use supermarket milk.  They are supposed to contract firmly into little bits like cottage cheese as you stir over the course of an hour.

Of course this kind of cheese won't drain properly and when it stays wet for days and days, it accumulates yeast and moldy flavors. 

Mozzarella won't stretch more than a couple of inches.  If you use the correct milk, it should stretch smooth as silk about 2-3 feet.

By the way, many recipes call for 1/2 teaspoon of rennet per gallon of milk, plus some calcium chloride, in order to force the supermarket pasteurized milk to behave.  Well, 1/2 teaspoon of rennet is way too much and will make your cheese rubbery and bitter tasting.  And calcium chloride, which is normally added at 1/8 tsp per gallon of milk, assists only with correctly pasteurized milk.  It won't compensate for supermarket milks. 

Once I tried a half teaspoon of each in some store milk.  The curds didn't shatter, but they didn't contract like cottage cheese particles either.  In fact, I left the pot on the stove for 4 days and the same exact cubes of cut cheese just sat there the whole time, not contracting and not packing together either.  Weird.

I really don't know why people keep advising that you can use supermarket milk for cheesemaking.  Commercial cheesemakers who pasteurize do it themselves, properly.  They don't buy milk at a store.  And anyone who has written a cheesemaking book doesn't use that milk themselves, and they usually say so somewhere in the book!

Merryl Winstein, Cheese Making Teacher, St. Louis, MO

However, you can make, buttermilk, sour cream, yogurt, ricotta, and queso blanco from pasteurized store-bought milk.

So your directions or kit says you can use pasteurized, homogenized milk from a store for cheesemaking and mozzarella?  Maybe they mean milk from a store in some other state.  Milk sold for drinking, in St. Louis, MO, is all pasteurized at 170 F or higher, rendering it unable to coagulate firmly, stretch, or drain.

Yes, that includes the "low temperature pasteurized" brand.  When the milk hits the heating element, it gets to a high temperatures even though the overall vat stays at 155 or lower.  The particles of milk which were overheated ruins the whole batch unsuitable for cheesemaking.  (In the same way when you cook a pot of soup, the bottom layer next to the flame becomes extra hot, but the entire batch reaches just the right temperature.  For soup, that's ok.  But not for cheesemaking.)

Luckily, clean raw milk will work, just like it has throughout the history of cheesemaking.  For sources check www.realmilk.com or www.localharvest.org

Also, on www.cheesemaking.com (Ricki Carroll's site), there's a method for using powdered dry milk, plus cream, for making mozzarella.  Perhaps it will work.

There are wonderful pasteurized-milk cheeses.  Those cheesemakers carefully pasteurized their milk at the correct temperatures.  They aren't using milk from a supermarket, and neither can you.

By the way, it's completely legal to buy raw milk in Missouri, under Mo. Statute 196.935, which states:  "an individual may buy and have delivered, for his own use, raw milk and cream from a farm." 

I get a lot of phone calls about this, that's why I have written this note.   Succeed - use the right directions, and the right kind of milk.