Expansion on Cheese (from a cheesemaker)

Discussion in 'Suggestions' started by cheezeatinmonky, Jun 1, 2016.

  1. cheezeatinmonky

    cheezeatinmonky Seal Broken

    I love the game.
    I also love cheese.
    Many people probably share the same 2 thoughts I would imagine (Don't know too many people that dont like cheese, or that played the game and can't help but enjoy it).
    I also however love to make cheese at work and at home. Artisan cheese all made by hand not some conveyer belt either.
    Many people to the best of my knowledge sadly don't know how its made, beyond maybe the basics like yaaaa it comes from milk right.
    Even the ingredients are pretty vague. milk, cheese cultures, salt. (what most packages say). Or my favorite people who say I don't like white cheese, I only like yellow cheese (which would include annatto on packaging, so they should call it cheddar and yellow cheddar not cheddar and white cheddar).


    However on to the point. I wanted to throw some stuff out there that could be added for new content, especially with all the artisan goods in the game. I don't know about mayo and pickling, and wine, and all that stuff but I do know about cheese and many things involved in the production of cheese is already in the game so here goes if you hold in there.

    Cheese in made in a vat

    -First off milk often has cultures (bacteria) added to it after it is heated up to a certain temperature. Demetrius is a scientist who seems to be into biology. (Did I mention cheese making is half science). More on him later

    -After the cultures work rennet is then used as a coagulant to seperate the curd (cheese) from the whey (byproduct of making cheese which has other uses many people might know a few). Rennet is derived from the stomach of young cows, and even plants. Maybe not the exact plants in game but thats an easy fix but young cows definately.

    -The mass will then be cut to seperate the curd from the whey which is a very crucial step which could be very similar to other mini games already present such as fishing. easy to get concept, a little harder to get perfect for best results. It is a timing based thing where cutting too early or too late will lose you quality and quantity in your yield. Also you want cuts to be as uniform as possible to control how much moisture is in cheese among preventing problems. So like how fishing you gotta follow going up and down with a key. you could have a knife running across the vat and you see it move faster or slower and you have to press a key when it reaches certain points. reach end then cut other direction to make criss cross.

    -the curd will start out larger and weak but then you have to cook it and it will shrink in size and become more solid. while you are cooking you often stir the cheese but larger vats use agitators to stir it at various speeds starting out slow as to not break the curd. There is currently cooking in the game so if anything to improve cheese this is the most realistic.

    -from there you often have to get more whey out from the curd. as much as you can and different cheeses you different things to. But to keep it basic you would take the curd out of the whey it was cooking in and then place it into the cheese press where it would sit for different weights for different amounts of time to remove as much whey from the curd mass as you can because the whey leaves a bitter taste in your product. This pressing would also form all your little cheese curds into the cheese wheels or blocks you see in the store today. If you are trying to go volume 3 hours sure would be good. Many people would press for at least 24 hours though especially for home operation like the character in game and many artisan things goods take over 24 hours anyways so i'll go out and say 24 hours.

    -But wait there is more, that't just baby cheese. why not age it and make it taste better and worth more.
    You could wax the cheese with beeswax that you could obtain when crafting honey with already placed bee hives.

    -What would you do with this waxed cheese then you wonder? How about put it in your very own cheese cave, well it could be one if maybe you mine an area and put up some wood boards. You got a cave on the farm already and you got the wood to make boards for cheese. let them sit and go up in value even more if you got the space. cheese needs to be in certain temperatures and humidity which a cave would be perfect for, or a basement of a house. Or aging wine i guess while on the subject. Also I told ya we'd get back to him. Who's the man that wants to use that cave.... Demetrius.

    -So you got your cheese and you aged it? id you fall asleep yet? No whey. well anyways cheese is only like 10 percent of your milk that you first started with. the rest is whey which is protein. You can use whey in cooking substituting water for whey. You can mix it in you water and use it on your plants. you can feed it to your animals, pigs love the stuff and so does my dog. you can even make lemonade. There is even machines out (they got one at my work) that turns that whey into concentrated more potent whey that you see in protein drinks and such which is expensive for the byproduct of making cheese.

    -You could also add separator to separate the cream from the milk to make skim milk and cream or even skim milk cheese. use the cream for cooking, many sauces use cream, as well as ice cream, or even get a butter churn and make butter and buttermilk out of the cream.

    -To the bottom line though you could make a whole building that has all these things to do anything containing milk. vat for cheese, area for cheese presses, a separator if you want to skim the cream out of milk, a butter churn, a holding silo for the whey to do whatever with. an RO (machine that makes concentrated whey, stands for reverse osmosis). Any other cheese making equipment such as cheddaring tables to make cheddar or work other cheeses. Or even a pasteurizer

    -Cheese was made to preserve left over milk so as not to waste it since raw milk spoils quicker than
    pasteurized milk. Since there is no spoiling in the game though to best of my knowledge, you could make it as a daily thing you put in your schedule in small batches starting up or you could have an upgraded version of the cheese room with a bigger cheese vat and such and put more milk in after you have a surplus built up and have a day with rain or winter where you have less to do and make larger vats of cheese.

    Well I'm sorry for taking all your time if you are still reading this but you must have been at least intrigued if you are still reading. Any questions or comments I would love to hear them. Would like to see what everyone thinks.
     
    • Lilliput

      Lilliput Supernova

      While I think all of this is waaaay more complicated than Stardew needs (If we broke down pretty much every single craft in the game by details-- brewing, weaving, preserves, etc.-- there are countless details to the process that would be possible to add and endless new equipment that could complicate things, but how much fun that would add is debatable.), I do love the idea of cave-ripened cheeses and already store my cheese press in the farm cave to roleplay that aspect of the craft. (Being something of an olde-tymey skills maven I knew most of the cheese making steps already.) I think having the option to make some changes to the cave for cheese production would be another fun use for the space, as Mushrooms v. Bats is dull after a bit.
       
        Gabaw, Borodin and ssokolow like this.
      • Gabaw

        Gabaw Spaceman Spiff

        Extreme cheesemaking. More challenging than fishing? I'm in.
         
          Salamander Sundaes likes this.
        • cheezeatinmonky

          cheezeatinmonky Seal Broken

          Yes I agree its way more complicated than the game needs. When i write or type I tend to just go on and on and not look back lol, unless of course it was something already planned to expand on. Also like I said ya I don't know too much about the other stuff in detail like brewing and pickling stuff and all. But the simple things that are not too complicated would be the option to skim milk for cream, you can take the cream out of milk when its raw easily since its on the top of milk. Making cheese with a like 4x4 tile vat with a stack of milk instead of single space cheese press. Sell then or press for like 48 hours for higher value, with a limited amount of space in the cave for aging so you have to play with what to keep and what to sell. Giving whey when you make cheese on top of recieving cheese, especially since it is the majority of what you get and it is so important on a farm. Not only can you use it for your crops your animals, its like other gifts where most people will look at you wierd if you gave it to them cause they dont know better, but then like body builders or ranchers would be like "you are the best. It is also a great way to throw comedy in game dialogues. there are endless whey jokes. Well here I am rambling on again, my wife always tells people don't get me started on talking about cheese ;0. Lastly the image for cheese should be that of a wheel and not a wedge, you press wheels of cheese and sometimes blocks but most often this type of operation would be wheels.

          Also yes Gabaw, its absolutely extreme and challenging. no matter if you screw up or not during the process it is almost always still edible, but the quality and yield are drastically different on things just as small as "cutting the cheese" :p, how long you press it, how fast you stir it, or if you let it get too hot or cold during different steps of the process.
           
          • Rauchschwalbe

            Rauchschwalbe Cosmic Narwhal

            I also think that all these detailed stuff would make it far to complicated. I mean, nearly every aspect of the game is a cut down process compared to real life.
            If you would just swing your scythe over some weeds in Rl they would never be gone and grown back within a few days. Cows need to get calves to produce milk and rabbits can`t just give you 5 feet. They only have 4! Where are they supposed to get more than that?

            But all these suggestions like detailed brewing/cheese making/... are perfectly suited for mods (in my opinion).
             
            • Lilliput

              Lilliput Supernova

              Now, I wouldn't mind about /one/ extra step per Artisanal Good in Stardew, because really, these are the big moneymakers in the game and they're pretty easy right now. You should have to press grapes and other fruits to get juice /before/ you put them into a keg to ferment. (This would also mean you could sell fresh-squeezed apple juice or cranberry juice, etc. as a lower-priced alternative to 'wine'. While we're at it, apple cider, please. Not apple wine.) Cloth could be dyed before sale. Milk cooked/curdled in a vat first and then the curds pressed and aged. Honey could be brewed to mead. (I'd really love to see that one added.) For beekeeping, you harvest raw comb and can spin that in an extractor for honey and wax. Maple sap doesn't just come out as syrup-- you have to boil it down to concentrate it. You get the idea. Don't add a mad plethora of extra steps to make it real, but in each case perhaps one extra step that lets the goods tree branch out into a variety of new products and variations. I'm sure just about everyone who's had a personal craft like cheezeatinmonky could bump with suggestions.
               

              Share This Page