Learn To Make Cheese With Claudia Lucero’s Cheesecraft Club

Have you ever wanted to learn to make cheese? Do you feel like it’s maybe too difficult to do so? Portlander Claudia Lucero is here to help. She is launching Cheesecraft Club this summer to help you make cheese with ease.

Cheesecraft Club: Cheesemaking Is Having a Moment

Claudia emailed me in May about this new project:

“This summer, I’m launching Cheesecraft Club, a new online membership where beginners learn to make one new cheese with me each month in a way that feels approachable, creative, and genuinely doable in real life.”

She went on to write about how she’s noticed more people are getting back into hands-on hobbies—creative, practical, and grounded in everyday life. Sourdough is a good comparison; it gained huge traction during the COVID pandemic. Seems like everyone was keeping a sourdough starter, baking bread, and finding ways to use the discard.

Other creative pursuits my neighbors partake in include ceramics, gardening, preserving, and DIY pasta making.

Claudia believes cheesemaking “is having a moment”—it’s tactile, forces you to slow down and tune into the process, and you get something delicious to eat in the end. And if you happen to already be good at bread baking, why not add cheesemaking to that? Imagine your own fresh mozzarella atop fresh sourdough bread. Or labneh spread on a classic beer bread you just took out of the oven. Sounds good to me.

These are the things that inspired Claudia to create Cheesecraft Club. She’s building the waitlist right now, which you can join here.

Claudia Lucero and Her Cheesemaking Life

I first encountered Claudia through her Urban Cheesecraft work—in fact, I bought one of her cheesemaking kits back in 2012 when I was doing a lot of fermenting and some cheesemaking (which is also a kind of fermented food). The citric acid and rennet from that kit might be gone, but I held on to the recipe/instruction books, which are clear and easy to follow.

Along with being able to order her kits directly from her website, some of them have been available at retailers like Whole Foods and Williams Sonoma. Here is a video about her work.

She is also the author of several cheesemaking books including One-Hour Cheese. Cheese in one hour! It really is possible. She’ll teach you how.

“Over the years, I’ve heard the same thing again and again,” wrote Claudia, “I’ve always wanted to make cheese. I just don’t know how to get started.” Cheesecraft Club is her answer to that.

A Little More Background

Before she became a cheesemaking expert, Claudia went to school for social work and early childhood education. She worked with the San Diego LGBT Community Center where she helped start a women’s resource center there in her home town. She worked at San Diego’s Rock n’ Roll Camp for Girls, where she was the director operations. And she worked at a few other nonprofits, as well.

But a career in food called to her. “I always wanted to start a food business, I always wanted to do something for myself,” she explained. And on top of her passion for cheesemaking, her business provided a way for her to create an access path to cheesemaking for others. “When I first made cheese, I was like, ‘Everyone must know!” She opened an Etsy shop at first, and was later discovered by Whole Foods, Williams Sonoma, and New Seasons. 

At age 33 she moved up to Portland with her partner. 

Getting Into Cheesemaking

I asked Claudia what it was about cheesemaking in particular that grabbed her and kept her interest. “I’ve always been a maker,” she explained. “I was dabbling in fermentation [she is one of the organizers of the Portland Fermentation Festival]—sauerkraut, pickles, yogurt, butter—and it just kind of all snowballed. Cheese is the one that really lit me up in that, “Oh my gosh, why don’t we all know this?!?’ kind of way.”

She dove into cheesemaking, learned various curd creation processes (e.g., using just vinegar, just rennet, rennet + citric acid). “That was not hard at all,” she said. She remarked that for her, cheesemaking was easier than keeping, maintaining, and using a sourdough starter.

She found that making most cheeses starts out similarly—milk and something to coagulate it. “After a while, you realize 70% of the process starts like this. The other 30% is what turns curd, essentially, into a different cheeses.”

She was fascinated at how small changes have big outcomes. “You make one cheese. And then you make the next cheese,” she said. “You only add that one ingredient and change the process a little bit—now you have another cheese!” It was very exciting, very stimulating, and endlessly fascinating.

Vegan Cheesemaking

Over the years she has explored making cheese both with dairy and plant-based ingredients. Her book, “One-Hour Dairy-Free Cheese,” was published in 2019, funded by a Kickstarter. Thoughout her cheesemaking life, she primarily worked with dairy, this “vegan cheese sidequest” was an interesting journey.

While working in the vegan cheese realm she learned that simple is better, and if you approach vegan cheesemaking with quality ingredients—and not expect vegan cheeses to behave like diary-based cheeses—it’s a very satisfying experience. And while she appreciates the range of vegan cheeses, she found that she prefers the fresh vegan cheeses, ones intended to be eaten within a week, in particular.

A Love of Teaching Cheesemaking

Claudia has a deep interest in education and how people learn, but also giving access and not gatekeeping information. “It’s just fun,” she said. “There’s such an a moment of awe when you make these kinds of foods that are science and alive.” She loves guiding people to this kind of experience and feeling.

She had written books, taught workshops in person, but working in the digital sphere was really appealing to her. It allows her to connect with people all over the world, and broaden her reach in teaching. She is excited to spend time in this dedicated realm with cheesemaking enthusiasts all over the world.

Cheesecraft Club: What To Expect

The Cheesecraft Club is a membership club that includes access instructional videos (live and in a library), forums, and a chance to meet up virtually on Zoom. Tevello is the course platform—and Claudia has put together a “Cheese Chat” to encourage the community to connect.

“It’s for anybody in the club wanting to chat with each other, and even brag and show their photos—but also to contact me,” she explained. Think forums or something similar to Discord. And there will be a specific channel that’s just for those who need help with their cheesemaking; Claudia will be able to assist through that.

There will also be some live sessions with an AMA element. And if you can’t make it during the scheduled time, the recording will be available to replay at one’s convenience. Instructional videos include how to use equipment effectively, how to “shop your kitchen” using what you have on hand at home. She’ll also provide the grocery lists and equipment lists, as well as recipes themselves.

There will also be discussions on the economics of cheesemaking—what are the costs? What are the benefits of making cheese vs buying it at the store? Claudia mentioned that showing you how to make cheese with ingredients you can easily find (read: not a $15 gallon of raw milk) at the store is just one way to make cheesemaking more accessible and less intimidating.

Stages in Cheesecraft Club

Claudia is also cognizant of how easily it can be to feel overwhelmed with too much information. As far as the cheesemaking lessons go, members will have access to instructions/video for some of the easier cheeses—think labneh, queso fresco—first, and move forward through levels of ease/difficulty to more advanced techniques.

Fresh mozzarella and its friend burrata might be next, then chevre, then heading into things like brie and some aged cheeses. Videos will unlock over time, introducing new cheesemaking skills as you go.

Your Time Commitment To Cheesecraft Club

I wondered how much time each member should expect to spend with Cheesecraft Club. We mentioned earlier that there will be one live cheesemaking event per month.

“I think for the live cheesemaking event, if you’re going to attend and watch, an hour and a half,” she explained. “Because I want to be able to make the cheese in 40 minutes and allow time for Q&A. So you’ll make cheese during these lives.”

She continued, “During the first six months, the active work of making the cheese is going to be one to two hours each month. And after the monthly makes, the recordings will go into the library. That’s what’s really cool about me going live once a month—that’ll always be there for any future member who wasn’t there for it originally. It’ll be in the library and they can easily access it.”

Claudia will edit that video to make it purely instructional—editing out the live chatty parts, leaving the actionable part for the library.

This is a great opportunity to learn to make cheese yourself, guided by an expert, and be part of a community of cheese heads like yourself.

On the Cheesecraft Club page, she writes, “Join the waitlist for the launch alert email! Founding members will receive discounted pricing and special bonuses for joining early. I can’t wait to build a warm, engaged community of new cheesemakers learning together!”

Sign up for the waitlist on the Cheesecraft Club website. I hope you will consider looking into it!