More Homemade Cheese: Fresh Chèvre Edition

So part two of my cheese making binge last night was to start up some fresh chèvre (goat cheese) before I went to bed. I’ve made a much simpler recipe before.. even posted about it. This actually required me doing something other than squeezing a lemon into some goat milk though, so I’ll give you all the play by play.

Now, goat milk is pretty expensive and not all of us (laborofwonder, I mean you) have access to a goat. So rather than spending 12 dollars on a half gallon of goat milk, I decided to use powdered and spent about 1/2 that. I consulted several blogs and cheese making references.. and supposedly it’s not that big of a deal. This, of course, remains to be seen though I am guardedly optimistic.

Anyway.. you’ll need:

Fresh Chèvre

Ingredients:

1/2 gallon goat milk (not ultra-pasteurized)

3 drops animal rennet diluted in 2 tablespoons of water

1/8 tsp calcium chloride in 1 tbsp water (use only if you use pasteurized milk)

1/8 tsp mesophillic direct set culture (you can get this online)

The rennet, mesophillic direct set cultures, and calcium chloride are all available online if you don’t have a cheese making supply store near you. Heehee. I love LA.

 

Tools:

Big sauce pan with a lid

Slotted spoon

Butter Muslin

Thermometer

 

The Process:

Pour milk into a pan, heat gently until the milk has reached a temp of 72 degrees, add calcium choride. Stir. Add starter culture, mix thoroughly. Add rennet solution, mix for 2 minutes. Cover and keep near 72 degrees. Let it sit. Don’t open it.

*fast forward 18 hours*

You can open it now. What you should be seeing is a thick white layer of goop on top. It’s going to look somewhat like yogurt. If yours does, *highfive*, you did it right!

If not, put the lid back on and let it keep going. It may take up to 24 hours for the curds to show up.

Once you’ve got curds, take a knife and slice through the goop in a criss-cross pattern like in the picture below. This process is called cutting curds.

 

Now, pour the goop gently into a butter muslin lined collander.

Let it drain until the cheese dries out. This should take 4-6 hours. You may wanna keep the whey.. or you might not. It kind of makes my kitchen smell bad, so I’ve been tossing it out.

Once dried, put in an airtight container. Will refrigerate for 2 weeks.

Once my cheese has dried out fully I will post some pictures. For reference, I split up the cheese into multiple batches so it would dry a bit more quickly… based on the yield of goop, I have a feeling I will be really long on goat cheese!

 

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