Home Dairy is part of a the Homemade Living Series that teaches people to embrace local, seasonal food and to have an interest in knowing how and where it's produced. It encourages becoming engaged in your community, exploring self-sustainability and enjoying fresh flavors. Other books include Keeping Bees, Canning & Preserving, and Keeping Chickens.
The first chapter takes a look at a brief history of the home creamery dating back to about 11,000 BC. It walks you though history including the Sumerians, Egyptians, and Romans. It also talks about the growth of cheese-making into Europe with Roman colonization end explains cheese making as it impacted monasteries and abbeys in the British Isles, England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland. It also has a very interesting chart that lists the different types of dairy products in a variety of categories (butter, cheese, cream, frozen, milk, powdered, sour & whey).
Chapter two is an interesting look at the ingredients found in various dairy products. It looks at a variety of different types of milk from the most common cow's milk to less common llama milk. The recipes in this book have been tested using cow and goat's milk. This section also contains a number of helpful definitions of words like homogenization and pasteurization. It also explains the different types of milk from skim to whole and takes a look at the different types of starter cultures and has a great recipe for a DIY starter culture. This chapter explains the supplies necessary to make a variety of dairy products including cultures, rennet, lipase, bacteria, molds, salts, acids, herbs, spices & flavorings, calcium chloride, ash, and kefir grains.
Chapter three is all about the necessary equipment including cheesecloth or muslin, colanders, dairy thermometer, double boiler, jars, measuring equipment, pans, sieves/ladles, etc. It also details equipment specific to making cheese, making butter, and making ice cream & yogurt. Included is information on what type of product it's used for along with where to find it & how to care for it.
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