Posted: 1/3/2013 8:18:33 AM EDT
| If not, I'll start one. My dad wants to try to make cheese, so I'm helping him. We have a great local source for organic milk straight from the bulk tank. I'm just curious if anyone here has tried this. Any input would be awesome. Gonna start with a soft cheese then try a hard cheese. And yes, for all interested, all efforts will be documented and photographed. |
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I've been making most of my own cheese for about a year now. I get a gallon or two of raw milk every week from a local guy who has a dairy cow.
What I usually do with a gallon of milk is (1) skim off the cream to make butter, then (2) make 30-minute mozzarella, then (3) use the leftover whey to make ricotta. This ends up being a pretty good bang for the buck, and all of them are easy to make. For butter I just put the cream in a quart jar and shake the hell out of it for 5-10 minutes. If the butter doesn't form it's usually because the cream is too cold; putting the jar in a pot of warm water does the trick. For mozzarella and ricotta I follow the recipes in Carroll's “Home Cheese Making.” Highly recommended book. Mozzarella is a bit involved so I won't describe it, but whey ricotta just involves heating the whey to 200 degrees and adding a quarter cup of vinegar, letting it set for a while, then very carefully scooping it out and drain in a muslin-lined colander. I sometimes make panir and feta if I get tired of mozzarella. Panir is a firm cheese that doesn't melt when you fry it, excellent in stir fries---to make it all you do is boil the milk, add some vinegar, then scoop the curds into a muslin-lined colander and hang it for a few hours to drain. I sometimes press it to make it firmer but this isn't really necessary. It's really yummy with basil and/or garlic added. One of the easier fresh cheeses to make if you can avoid burning the milk while boiling it. Feta is a bit more involved but that not difficult; it'll store for weeks in the fridge because of the salt brine. Most of the other fresh cheeses start going bad after a week or so (at least with raw milk). I've tried basic cheddar and Monterey jack, but neither turned out very well. Barely edible. Making aged cheeses is an art. It's also kind of a PITA to make (lots of steps in the recipe and it takes a long time), not worth it if you're only dealing with a gallon of milk at a time. I've tried a bunch of other fresh cheese recipes, but mozzarella, panir, and feta are definitely my favorite. |
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Quoted:
So is Ferals thread something that can be bumped up from archives? I for one would love to read it! You (Waldo) and Feral have tons of knowledge on all this type of stuff! Found it. http://www.ar15.com/forums/t_10_19/613269_.html |
I had posted some pics on my 'weekend projects' thread about some farmers cheese I had made but it probably isn't the one that "kicked tail"...lol
Okay, so everything I make doesn't always turn out great - yep I hear my husband snickering at me.  Anyhoo, I got my hands on 2 gallons of fresh from the Jersey milk on Saturday. I let it sit for 24 hours in fridge and skimmed the most wonderful cream off the top to make some butter. Then kept a gallon for us to drink and used a gallon to try and make some mozzerella cheese. All went well at first- added citric acid, heated it alowly to 90 degrees and removed from heat and added the rennet (I used what I had- junket brand (1/2 tablet dissolved in distilled water). Stirred with up and down motion for 30 seconds and covered it and left it to coagulate- it never did....after 3 hours I checked it and it just never firmed up.  Not sure if it was because of the junket brand rennet or not but I will be getting me some liquid rennet and try again.
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