Cheese!

 

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It's cheese time!  Now that I'm milking again, I have lots of milk.  I don't actually need the milk for regular use - I already get a gallon a week of local cow's milk that is more than enough for our needs (unless we have milk-drinking interns).  I barter for a gallon of homemade kombucha, which costs me about $.75 to make, so I can't pass that up!   I pretty much use the goat milk for cheese, and I'm going to use some for soap this year.  I'm getting about a quart a day, now that I've cut down to just Sophia and Snowpea.  That's close to 2 gallons a week, enough for 2 batches of a pound of cheese each week.  Mmm, fresh cheese!  

The recipe I use is called Mild Feta in the cheese book I have, and I found the same thing on the internet referred to as Haloumi.  Basically, it's mild and fairly melt-resistant like Feta, and sooo good to just eat chunks of fresh.  I like this recipe because it's the simplest I've found.  I simply heat the milk slightly to 86* (or so, it's never failed me at 84* or 87*), add a culture if I have it - buttermilk or kefir - and let it sit for an hour.  Then I add rennet and leave it for another hour.  Once it's curdled, I cut it into cubes and stir for 15 minutes, breaking up and defining the curds, then strain, drain for a while, and pop it into a light brine for a day.  I usually squeeze it a bit to speed up the draining, and then break up the large curd into little ones to be more feta-like.  I mainly do this because I'm not a patient person, and I also usually make ricotta afterwards, which needs to be done immediately.  I need all the whey out of the cheese as fast as possible, and squeezing meets both needs!  

Ricotta is also very simple - heat the whey to 190* or so (do NOT boil it, it volcanoes and is a huge mess!), add a bit of lemon juice or vinegar, and strain. Ta da!  The lemon juice boosts the last remnants of the rennet in the whey from the cheese making, which is why it should be made right away.  Most recipes call for a gallon of whey plus a quart of fresh milk to bulk up the results, but since I'm just salvaging what I can, I only use the whey.  Since it's the result of one gallon of milk, it's usually about 3/4 of a gallon of whey, and I get maybe 1/4-1/2 of a cup of ricotta - not much, but it's a bonus by-product so I can't complain.   

Comments

cheese

What fun to see how you make cheese. And yes, it was very yummy!

Thanks for taking the

Thanks for taking the pictures! The girls are up to milking over 5 cups a day so I'm making cheese twice a week. I'm trying French-style soft cheese today!

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