Feta Cheese

I have been making Feta cheese now for over a year.  The flavor is wonderful but I've always wanted to get that crumble texture you get from store bought Feta.  I have finally achieved it.

 

I first start by taking 2 gallons of fresh goats milk and flash pasteurizing it.  Flash Pasteurization is heating your milk to 165 degrees and holding that temp for 15 seconds.  Then I take the whole pot and place it in my sink and fill the sink with cold water and ice cubes.

 

This will cool your milk faster.  Cool your milk to 86 degrees.

 

Milk heating up for pasteurization

 

Once your milk is at 86 degrees, add in your cultures.  I order all of my cultures from www.cheesemaking.com.

 

I add in 1 package of Direct Set Mesophilic and 1/4 tsp Lipase Powder. Let cultures rehydrate for 2 minutes and then stir in gently. Cover milk and let ripen for 1 hour.  Next add in your Rennet.  I use 1/2 tsp liquid rennet added into 1/4 c water.  Stir gently with an up and down motion.  Cover and let it sit for 1 hour.

 

Adding the rennet to the cooled milk

 

Once it has sat for the hour cut the curds into 1/2 inch cubes and then allow to set, undisturbed for 10 minutes.

 

The curds cut

 

Now comes the most work.  Hope you got some muscles.  You need to gently stir the curds consistently for 20 minutes.  I stand at the stove and put my timer on for 20 minutes and just stir away.  Believe me your arm is gonna get tired.  This is when it would be good to have a helper if you have one.

 

Curds after being stirred

 

Now that your done stirring this is where a lot of people would just hang the cheese.  This year I bought a basket mold, also from www.cheesemaking.com.

 

Pour the curds into the molds slowly and as the mold fills up you need to use the back of your hand to push the curds down and to release all the whey that is in there.  I also use a wire mesh colander to help get some of the whey out first and then pour it into the mold and push out even more whey with my hand.  As you can see from the picture below I just put a cooling rack across my sink and put the molds on it while filling.  Any excess whey just goes down the drain. You could also put a bowl underneath if you wanted to collect the whey. 

 

Feta curds in the molds

 

Once you have all your curds in the molds find something that will fit in the top of it, here I used some Tupperware covers.  This is what is called your pusher.  Place this on top of your curds in the molds and then put a quart mason jar filled with water on top of it to help weigh it down and push out even more whey.

 

For the first 2 hours you want to turn the molded curds in the mold every 15 minutes.  After the 2 hours you can turn the molded curds every now and then.  You must leave the curds in the molds with the weights on it for 10-12 hours.

 

That is why i usually start this cheese in the afternoon.  It works out great for timing to let sit overnight.

 

Feta curds being weighted down in the molds

 

The next morning take your Feta Cheese out of the molds.  Below is a picture of what it should look like.

 

Feta just out of the molds

Cut the Feta into large pieces and place in a dish with a brine mixture for 8 hours for 1lb pieces or 4 hours for 1/2lb pieces.

 

Brine mixture can be made by adding 2 cups of non-idolized salt to 1/2 gallon of water then topping up to 1 gallon with water.  Some of the salt will not dissolve, that is okay. This brine can be filtered and reused again for your next batch of Feta.

 

Feta cut up and in brine

 

Once your time is up you need to place your cut cheese pieces onto cheese mats or I just used my cooling rack again.  Cover with a piece of cheese cloth or clean fabric and place in your fridge for 2-3 days, turning your cheese pieces a few times a day.

 

After the aging period is done I just crumble up the Feta with my fingers and keep in an air tight container for up to 2 weeks.  Most of the time it doesn't last that long though.

 

Note:  I do not add any extra salt to my recipe because I add Lipase Powder instead.  Also the brine is heavily salted too.

 

If you aren't going to use your Feta right away you can store it in the fridge in an air tight container in a 6-8% brine.

 

6-8% Brine: 3/4 to 1 cup of non-idolized salt in 3 quarts of water. Make sure all the cheese is covered in the brine leaving no space.  This will help to ensure that no mold with grow on the cheese.

Feta AND it crumbles!!!

 

If for any reason your Feta is too salty for your taste you can let it soak in milk for a few days.

 

 

 

Making Homemade Mozzarella

Finally was able to found a recipe that used up 2 gallons of my goat's milk to try my hand at making fresh Mozzarella.

I thawed all my frozen milk and then put into a pot and pasteurized the milk first.  I let the milk cool overnight and started my cheese the next morning.

First I measured out 2 1/2 tsp citric acid powder into 1/4 c cool water till dissolved.  I then added this to my pot of 2 gallons of cold milk and mixed well. I then warmed the milk and citric acid mixture to 88 degrees.

Then separately I added 1/2 tsp liquid rennet to 1/4 c cool water. Once the milk reaches 88 degrees I shut the stove off and added the rennet mixture and mixed slowly but well.  I covered it up and let it rest for 20 minutes.

 

Goat's milk curd formed for Mozzarella

Once your curds have set and it well cleanly break away from the side of the pot you need to cut it into 1 inches squares.

1 inch square cut curds

Then I let it rest for another 10 minutes to let the whey seep out of the cut curds.

Next you slowly warm the curds to 108 degrees.  The recipe said to stir slowly and often and keep the temp for 35 minutes.  I only did this step for 10 minutes as my cheese was fully formed after 10 minutes.

Cooked curds at 5 minutes

 

 

Cooked curds at 10 minutes.

This curds are very heavy at this point. Once cooked and formed I drained it in a colander.

Cooked Cheese curds draining. 

As you can see the cheese is one heavy piece now so its not really necessary to use cheese cloth to drain.

At this point I separated the cheese into 3 bunches.  I salted one at a time.  Next time I will be adding more salt as I don't think I added enough.  I took one salted bunch and placed in a plastic tupperware container and put in the microwave for 40 seconds.  Then I used the back of a large spoon to start the kneading as the cheese is very hot. Once it cools you can knead it will your hands like you would bread.  I didn't stretch the cheese this time but will next time.

Fresh Mozzarella

I was able to make two large pieces of fresh mozzarella and also a bowl full of small mozzarella pearls.

Two large pieces of Fresh Mozzarella

Mozzarella Pearls

The mozzarella melts really well.  Jamie made some stuffed jalapeno peppers with it.  He cut a jalapeno pepper in half and deveined and seeded.  Then he added a piece of folded up pepperoni and then topped with the fresh mozzarella and baked.  They were delicious.

Next we made a Fresh Mozzarella, Tomatoe and Cucumber salad with a great dressing.

Fresh Mozzarella, Tomatoe & Cucumber Salad

I still have the two large blocks left that I'm going to shred and make lasagna with this week.

Making Chevre

I finally had saved up enough goat milk to make a gallon a milk so I decided to make Chevre.

Culture Packets

Above is a picture of the culture packets I ordered from the Cheese Making Co that you add to your milk to make the cheese.

First I pasteurized my cheese which is recommended since it is a soft cheese.  You just need to heat your milk to a certain temperature for a certain amount of time.  I then let the milk cool to 86 degrees and mixed in the culture packet.  The you just put a lid on the pot and let it sit for 12 hours.

Chevre cheese curds

Above is what your milk looks like after the 12 hours.  Next you gently ladle to curds into a cloth lined colander to get out the whey (liquid). 

Chevre cheese curds in cloth to drain

Next you hang it to drain.  Depending on the creaminess of the cheese you want will depend on how long you hang it for.  I hung mine for about 3 hours

Chevre cheese curds hanging to drain

Once it is at the consistency you want, I separated mine into two dishes.  We flavored one dish with Good Seasons Dry Italian Dressing mix and the other dish with Hidden Valley Ranch dry Farmer's Dill mix.  Both tasted delicious

The cheese tastes exactly like the spreadable flavored pub cheese Aloutte.  I did notice that a few days later the cheese had firmed up a little more so I just added some milk into the cheese to make it creamy again.

Even my best friend Jackie loved it and she had never had goat cheese before.

Jackie enjoying Chevre on crackers.

Feta Cheese - 2nd Attempt - Successful!!!

 My 2nd attempt of making Feta Cheese worked!!! I got the new dairy thermometer yesterday in the mail and promptly thawed some of my goats milk to try to make Feta Cheese again.

I took pictures of the process along the way.

This is the pot of goats milk with buttermilk added for the culture, heating up to 86 degrees

Once it is heated up you need to let it rest for 1 hour and then you add an ingredient called Rennet, this helps the milk to congeal.  Once added the milk needs to rest again for another hour. Once the hour is up this is what your milk should look like.

Milk is now gel like, you can see the milk pulls away from the pot cleanly (top left corner of pot)

Next you need to cut the curd.

Curds cut in 1/2 inch cubes

Then you need to heat up the curds to 86 degrees again and stir gently for 5 to 10 minutes.

Cheese curds heated up and stirred

Next you pour the cheese curds and whey (liquid) into a cheesecloth lined colander.  I used some fine weaved fabric I had on hand that I sterilized.  I have kept the whey as this is what you make Ricotta cheese from. I'll be trying to make that today.

Cheese curds draining

Next you need to tie up your cloth and hang it over a bowl.  The bowl will catch any remaining whey that will drip out while you hang your cheese.  This part took 5 hours.

Remaining whey draining from the cheese curds

When your cheese curds are finished draining and you open up your cloth this is what you get (see pic below), this is now cheese.

Homemade Feta Cheese

We are now 7 hours into the process but still aren't done.  Next you need to slice the Feta Cheese and place in a clean dish, you have to salt both sides and cover.  It will then stand at room temperature 12 to 24 hours. We let it stand for 12 hours.

Feta Cheese, salted and sliced

You could actually eat it at this point but the recipe says it will taste better if you brine it, soak in salt water, for a few days.  So I decided to go ahead and do that.

Feta Cheese in Brine (salted water)

Now that I got it right it should be easier to make the next time.  This is a very small batch since I am still not getting much milk from Priscilla, most is still going to her babies.  This recipe was made with a quart of goat's milk.  I'm hoping once we start getting more milk I can make this recipe with 1 gallon of goat's milk, that way I won't need to be making it as often.

Feta Cheese is a favorite in this house.  We eat alot of salad here and usually always have Feta Cheese on it.  It will be nice to have Homemade Feta Cheese for our salads now.  I have calculated that we spend approximately $30 a month just on Feta Cheese.  That's a lot once I thought about it.  Now we won't have to.

Be sure to check back in 4 to 7 days,  I'll let you know how it tastes.

My 1st attempt at Feta Cheese -Unsuccessful

When we decided to get dairy goats I started researching what I can do with the milk.  One of the first things that interested me was making cheese.  My family is a BIG cheese eater.  So when I finally had enough milk saved up in the freezer I decided to make Feta cheese since we eat Feta every week on salads.

First you need to heat up the milk to a certain temperature, this is where I think I went wrong because I had the wrong type of thermometer.  I think I overcooked the milk.  I went ahead and added the other ingredient, rennet which helps congeal the cheese curds.

This is what I got.

It was not suppose to look anything like this. So down the drain it went. There are many more steps to making cheese but I will explain those the next time I try to make cheese and it works.  Knowing that my thermometer was the wrong kind I then went ahead and ordered a dairy thermometer from a Cheese Making Company for the next time I try to make cheese.