More cheese. Cheese is awesome. It's not gardening related, but whatever. Also my brother's girlfriend liked the last cheese post, so here's a new one for her. This time I tried to make a hard cheese that will need to ripen for a few weeks before we eat it. I made the cheese about 2 weeks ago, so in a couple weeks I'll post the result and let you know how it tastes.
So, cheese is pretty much just the solid particles from milk that have curdled and ripened. The best will no doubt be farm-fresh milk, but right now I'm trying with store bought milk. It's easier because I don't have to pasteurize it myself, but there will be less cheese from it.
The biggest pot I have fits about 4 liters, so that's what this cheese was made from. Besides that I have microbial rennet (ordered online), and some cultured buttermilk which I let sit overnight and then put in the freezer until needed. Cheese needs bacteria to ripen, and regular supermarket milk has already had all the bacteria killed through pasteurization. So, the ripened buttermilk will supply the bacteria. You can also buy mesophilic starter culture in powdered form online. For my next cheese, I'll probably order some starter culture. Since this is my first real cheese I didn't feel like investing much money.
After sterilizing the pot (with some boiling water) I heated the milk slowly to 30 C. while stirring Add the buttermilk and rennet. Wait one hour for the curds to form a solid mass. After an hour, you can cut the curds into 2 cm blocks with a long knife.
After the curds have been cut, leave them to sit for 30 minutes. After this, I did a process to wash the curds 3 times by removing the whey, adding warm water and very slowly heating the whole thing to 35 C. This took approximately an hour. Once this was done, the rest of the whey was drained off (you can save it for soups or sauces) and the curds were hung up in a cheese cloth (or just a regular cloth in my case). After squeezing most of the liquid out, I put it into a press.
Since I'm very much the amateur, I have no real cheese press. Of course, beer is always handy, and I used this crate and some plastic buckets to improvise a cheese press. The cheese was pressed for roughly 12 hours.
And this is the result after pressing. I soaked this little cheese is a salt brine for 8 hours, and the let it sit out for 3 days to develop a rind. Now it is thoroughly sealed and aging in the fridge. I turn it over every 3 days, and in 2 weeks we're gonna eat it. I don't have much patience, so it's going to be a young cheese. I have no idea if it will be any good, but it's fun trying anyway. Pictures of the finished cheese will follow.
So, cheese is pretty much just the solid particles from milk that have curdled and ripened. The best will no doubt be farm-fresh milk, but right now I'm trying with store bought milk. It's easier because I don't have to pasteurize it myself, but there will be less cheese from it.
The biggest pot I have fits about 4 liters, so that's what this cheese was made from. Besides that I have microbial rennet (ordered online), and some cultured buttermilk which I let sit overnight and then put in the freezer until needed. Cheese needs bacteria to ripen, and regular supermarket milk has already had all the bacteria killed through pasteurization. So, the ripened buttermilk will supply the bacteria. You can also buy mesophilic starter culture in powdered form online. For my next cheese, I'll probably order some starter culture. Since this is my first real cheese I didn't feel like investing much money.
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| Ingredients |
After sterilizing the pot (with some boiling water) I heated the milk slowly to 30 C. while stirring Add the buttermilk and rennet. Wait one hour for the curds to form a solid mass. After an hour, you can cut the curds into 2 cm blocks with a long knife.
After the curds have been cut, leave them to sit for 30 minutes. After this, I did a process to wash the curds 3 times by removing the whey, adding warm water and very slowly heating the whole thing to 35 C. This took approximately an hour. Once this was done, the rest of the whey was drained off (you can save it for soups or sauces) and the curds were hung up in a cheese cloth (or just a regular cloth in my case). After squeezing most of the liquid out, I put it into a press.
Since I'm very much the amateur, I have no real cheese press. Of course, beer is always handy, and I used this crate and some plastic buckets to improvise a cheese press. The cheese was pressed for roughly 12 hours.
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| Crates of beer are always useful. |
1 comment:
I remember rubarb with fear and nightmares, used to "have to" eat it. But on your blog it looks very nice. The cheese also. Like to taste some of both this summer. By the way: great blog !!!
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