Whey To Go! More Adventures in Cheese Making

This week I am making cheese…..I have some cows milk and goat’s milk so I wanted to try my hand at more of my favourite cheese in the world – Feta. It is just the absolute best as far as I am concerned both for it’s taste and versatility.

I find I can use feta in nearly anything – and it improves the texture, taste, and overall appeal of any dish. From salads in the summer (doesn’t feta remind you of summer!) to warm vegetable pie bakes in the winter. Lovely.

So, with this in mind I wanted to make a sizable amount of cheese for us to enjoy in the coming week. (For me here, that means a bowl full LOL) Of course, getting a bowlful of cheese means using several liters of milk…..

And this means lots of whey left over at the end of the process of cheese making…..I never throw out something good – it just gets made into more food and fed to everyone.

To make feta, for those who are interested - it's quite straight forward. Using clean pots, thermometer and utensils - I gently heat the milk (this time 6 liters) to about 86 F. Then add in the starter culture (tiny quantities) - as much as possible I keep the temp around this mark for the next hour or so.

Then, I add a tiny amount of rennet (I use raw milk for cheese so a little goes a long way) stir and let this sit for another 30 to 40 minutes (with some warmth if I can) until curds are starting to form. Once the curds are forming and I get a clean break with a knife - I start cutting, slicing and otherwise gently lifting the curds to encourage more whey to come out.

This might take a little while....then the curds are moved to a muslin cloth to be strained for several hours or overnight (up to 24 hours depending on your tastes). Once out of the cloth the cheese is cut further into cubes, salted (and herbed in my case) and placed in the fridge for a couple of days. 

This entire endeavour produces a large amount of whey......

With this large pot of leftover whey, this week I made a few loaves of sourdough bread – one batch with cinnamon and one plain. I also decided to cook a large pot of basmati rice in whey (it is very tasty) as well as do a little spicy carrot & lentil stew….

Some of the whey went into animal feeds as well. Whey is a great source of protein, I would consider it similar to a tonic and a strengthening food. When it is used in cooking (such as the lentil stew) it adds a tangy flavour like nothing else – as if your stew had melted cheese in it.

Yum!

Finding uses for byproducts of making our food from scratch is part of the fun (and challenge) of using innovation and resourcefulness to it’s maximum. Yet….it’s all been done before!

Enjoy your day out there,

April

Curds and Whey

Happy Bacteria Cultures - Home Grown Mesophilic Bacteria

Yesterday I was busy finishing up my feta cheese making – it was a great experiment all round and fun too. It is a marvel to watch the milk curdle and then clump into solids and liquids as it separates during the ripening phase.

With my microbiology background (yes, that too) I am always curious about the bacteria normally present in raw milk and of course, then my mind goes into thinking….can I get them to grow at home?

Of course the answer for the most part is, yes. It is actually quite easy – and because I have wonderful raw milk from my own goats – the way to go about producing my own mesophilic (bacteria that grow in moderate temperatures such as 20 to 30 degrees) is relatively simple.

During the past couple of days I took a clean empty glass jar and filled it with milk right from the goats. Then I set it out on the kitchen counter (with the lid loosely on) and watched it. It feels as if I have done a lot of watching and waiting this week….

However, after a few hours, you kind of ignore it – because this process takes about 30 to 36 hours (in my case) for the milk to curdle. After 24 hours nothing was happening so I moved the jar to a slightly warmer place until I went to bed.

Just before I turned in for the night, I moved the jar back to it’s cooler location and left it there. This morning – I had soured, thick, clumpy milk – it was wonderful to see! I gave it a couple of little shakes to evenly distribute the curds and then poured it into small trays to freeze.

This was evidence that bacteria had grown and was now ready to use in some way...

If all goes well – I should be able to take one frozen cube out of the freezer and use it to inoculate my yogurt, buttermilk or cheese making adventures for at least some of the types I hope to make.

At the very least – it was nice to how more of this cheese making process can be done at home. I have an issue with mass produced, factory grown bacteria….I think they aren’t as happy as the ones grown in my kitchen.

April

Mesophilic bacteria starter in trays 

Homemade Ricotta Cheese - Doing the Impossible?

This past week I have been busy making new things (or at least new to me) such as goat’s cheese, my own vegetarian rennet, different types of sourdough bread. It has been quite a learning curve to say the least.

And I am enjoying every minute of it, as per usual. I wanted to make one tiny comment on my learning/education however….and that is this:

Just because someone says it can’t be done, perhaps this is true for them. But, don’t let someone else’s experience colour, cloud or dictate your own. The things you are meant to learn might be quite different and besides you are your own unique person.

One of the reasons I am saying this is mainly because I want people to explore all possibilities and angles of an issue. That is my general approach, especially when it comes to food and cooking.

The other reason centers around some ancient wisdom carried in our cells – going through these motions (life lessons, learning, trial and error) often enables cellular memories to awaken.

Case in point – this week I was reading up on cheese making and kept finding the same thing being said – you cannot make ricotta cheese using whey from acid cheese making processes.

What this means is you won’t be able to make ricotta cheese from the leftovers of cheese making – when you make a cheese using lemon juice or any other acidic type of regulator to make that cheese.

So, for half a day I looked at my whey sitting in my pot and wondered what to do with it. Knowing in my gut that I still thought I could make some cheese….there are also many other uses for it apparently. Such as making soups, stews, soaking beans, adding to pet foods, washing hair, pouring on roses and so on. It is a useful product. And I did add some to my stew I was making….

Then I threw caution to the wind and went ahead and followed the directions for making ricotta cheese. Heating the whey to 190F while stirring and then cooling slightly before pouring the mixture into the muslin cloth again and allowing it to strain through for a couple hours.

Of course, I only started out with 1 litre of milk at the outset, I had already made some cheese – I was not expecting to get much in the way of ricotta. But I did want to see – what, if anything, would happen.

Right now I am sorry I never took a photo of it! Because I got an even better tasting cheese then the one I made earlier. This one was very much like a ricotta, it was only a little bit, but enough for us all to have a taste – and spread it on some bread.

What was different about this one is that it was so spreadable, slightly richer in taste and when I added some fresh herbs and sea salt – it was glorious.

The lesson this week – never give up trying, always listen to your gut, don’t let anyone else’s good or bad experience interfere with yours and do it anyway. I mean, the worst that would have happened is nothing would have happened and I would have not been able to make ricotta cheese.

Instead – it was the best part of my cheese making day!

April

Our goat Marigold and her kids....

Homemade Goat's Cheese - Vegetarian Rennet and Lemon Juice

On to a new chapter in living foods (and increasing healthy gut bacteria) here with some exploration in cheese making, vegetarian rennet and all things to do with working my tiny bit of goat’s milk that I am getting each day.

Right now we have one goat that is milking – she has 3 kids on her, so we don’t take (or get) very much. And another goat who is a maiden milker but is due to have her kids at the beginning of May or so.

Not much milk at the moment – but hopefully more to come soon enough. The bit I do get goes mostly to my children, however I have been saving some over the past few days to try my hand at a little farmhouse cheese.

I have gone to a couple cheese making classes and read/studied lots about this wonderful art – so this week I decided to give it a try with my precious goat’s milk. However, my plan was to started out easy and simple either way.

To begin with I decided to make my own rennet – I don’t like the thought of using rennet from another species (animal rennet usually comes from calf stomach) and goat’s are vegetarians, so I thought – make some vegetarian rennet.

There are several plants apparently that are able to provide the necessary enzymes to get cheese making off to a good start. One of them is nettle – today I boiled some nettle (it was dried from last year) for 30 minutes and allowed it to steep, then added a little salt.

I then took 1 liter of raw goat’s milk and warmed it to about 25C, added a tablespoon or so of the nettle rennet and about 3 tablespoons lemon juice and stirred for a few minutes. Then I let it sit in the stainless steel pot for about an hour or so to see what might happen.

When I checked it – I could see the separation of curds and whey – so I poured it out into a strainer covered with layers of muslin cloth and placed the strainer over a large pot to catch the dripping whey.

This sat and drained down for another hour or so – and then I scooped the solid cheese out of the cloth and placed it into a bowl. This was salted with sea salt, sprinkled with homegrown garlic chives and promptly eaten!

Yum! And it was that easy….Now onwards and upwards!

April

Homemade goat's cheese - with sea salt and garlic chives