The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Food & crafts => Food processing => Topic started by: anderso on October 12, 2012, 01:59:32 pm
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well this week has been a busy on we have had a full two days of making cheese and yogurt from the goats milk -
as a first time it was brill and even though we say it our selves the end products was very nice (even the neighbours said so) no to go on and work on hard cheese and butter when we get a separator.
:goat: :goat: milk rules
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Fab!
I had a go at making mozarella yesterday - what a hoot! I had to save some of the mixture, so I could show my OH the science of it! It turned out to be a bit more dense than shop bout stuff, but will definitely give it another go!
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I love both goat's cheese and mozarella, but have yet to make my first cheese (well, I tried once and failed, used vegetarian rennet but the curds didn't separate from the whey). Any tips for the wannabe-home-cheese-maker? (Other than: use another rennet ;) )
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I have vegetarian rennet Eve and I found that if I dilute it the curds and whey don't seperate so I stopped diluting and its perfect!
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I love both goat's cheese and mozarella, but have yet to make my first cheese (well, I tried once and failed, used vegetarian rennet but the curds didn't separate from the whey). Any tips for the wannabe-home-cheese-maker? (Other than: use another rennet ;) )
Are you using shop-bought milk? If yes you probably need to add Calcium Chloride. All explained in Rikki Carroll's Home Cheese Making. Sorry quite complicated to explain and quite tired after glass of wine tonight...
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I've used this online 'cheese course' as a massive help to get started:
http://biology.clc.uc.edu/fankhauser/Cheese/Cheese_course/Cheese_course.htm (http://biology.clc.uc.edu/fankhauser/Cheese/Cheese_course/Cheese_course.htm)
I make an awful lot of the Neufchatel recipe every week and we've just built our own cheese press (for about £10 in parts) and have started on the 'Basic cheese for 1 gallon' recipe but it'll be a few more weeks before the first batch is ready to test.
I first tried with home-made buttermilk as a starter and it never worked, as soon as I used proper starter (bought online) it never fails to get a clean break, whether with veggy or real rennet.
The usual routine for me is to heat, add starter, wait and add rennet one evening; then strain (and cook if doing hard cheese) the curds next morning. For soft cheese I then salt and shape it up that evening and for hard cheese, I press it over night. The soft cheese is best left a couple of days to develop a stronger flavour then eaten within a week. I also sometimes make ricotta from the whey - leave the whey for about twelve hours after the curds have been removed so that it acidifies a bit more and then boil. Ricotta as a light fluffy mass takes ages to strain though so I can't always be bothered. Either way, the pigs love the left over whey.
Only gotcha I've found so far, is not to have a beer in the evening when you're making the curds because yeast gets in and makes it go all bubbly!
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Forgot the all important picture of the cheese press - 'cos I'm pretty proud of how it turned out ;)
https://twitter.com/HempsalsFarm/status/253976821979291648/photo/1
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The press looks fab, benkt. :thumbsup: One day... :thinking:
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Very impressed with the press and thanks for the link on cheese making. It is still on my to do list but getting closer.
Sally
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If I'm gona have goats then I need to know how to make cheese yogurt ice cream and any other recepies u may want to share.... Pretty please :hug:
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That's a helpful link, Benkt, and a very impressive cheese press! :thumbsup: