Cheesemaking

Preface:

We've been making our own cheeses for about three years now. We primarily make goat cheeses, but have also spent some small time with Jersey cow milk cheeses. I expect that as this season progresses, and our calves get weaned, we'll have more to say about cow milk cheese.

Before beginning, thanks go where they're due: To Dolly for starting us on The Path. For Ginger for providing us with this year's milk. To Aurura, our Light in Winter and Daughter to Dolly - we look forward to milking her next year with greatest anticipation. And finally, to Feather, our newest addition, in whom we have great hopes.

I thought I'd mention some of the tricks that we've discovered along the whey (sic!). When we first got into cheesemaking, we were very concerned with exact temperatures, exact timing, etc. No Longer! Consider this, then, a first draft of an article for Cheesemaking for Dummies. Please Note:

General Rules:

Cut Curds - Always means into 1/2 in cubes. It doesn't matter how exactly or inexactly this is done. The exception to that is you must be somewhat gentle with goat curds. Cutting the curds does not mean La Machine!

Rennet can be added to form slow or fast coagulating curds. It seems as if any cheese recipe for half a gallon of milk will use either 1/5 drop of rennet for slow coagulation (approximately 24 hours) or 1/4 teaspoon.

Slow Coagulation, Soft Ripened Cheese:

I'll start by describing our daily cheesemaking process, if for no other reason, than so we'll remember for next year! We start by milking our goat in the morning. Only. Now that in itself is a BIG deal. I'm sure that all dairy goat owners will be shocked to hear that we do not milk twice daily. We have found that a single milking is more appropriate for our modest needs and fits into our schedule better. As far as the goat, she got used to that single milking very quickly. We determined that it's not an issue for her based on the pressure of her udder. After a couple of days of milking once daily, her udder was no longer tight with pressure in the morning. However, her quantity has not decreased since becoming accustomed to the new routine. We surely don't get as much milk this way, but we were throwing away so much milk due to not having the time to process it correctly, anyway.

After milking we let the milk sit for a few minutes, until the foam subsides. We hand milk, so there's much more foam than from a milking machine. Hand milking is definitely one of the big joys in cheesemaking for me. For a goat, that is! For cows, give me a milking machine. After the foam is gone, we strain the milk through paper towels. We've found no need for milk filters which are more awkward to use and filter the milk much slower. We've found that our single goat with a single milking produces around two quarts of milk. We don't worry about measuring the quantity, it seems to always be around that. A little more or less doesn't hurt our recipe. To the body warm milk, we add two cubes of mesophilic starter. When we make our starter, we freeze it in ice cube trays, with each cube providing one ounce. We then put the cubes in the freezer in a plastic bag labelled "M" for mesophilic or "T" for Thermophilic - the only two cultures we use.

We let the milk sit until the starter has melted, at which time we stir the milk. We then rennet by adding one drop of liquid calf rennet to 5 tablespoons of cold water, and add one tablespoon of the dilution to the milk. Again, we stir very thoroughly. Now we wait.

Having allowed the cultured and renneted milk to sit on the counter overnight, we mold the curds while allowing that morning's milk to de-foam. We've found several approached to handling the curds at this point.

  • We can take our plastic molds and scoop the curds up directly with the mold.
  • We can cut the curds into 1/2 inch cubes, let sit for ten minutes, stir, drain of the whey, and then spoon into the plastic molds.
  • We can cut the curds up, let sit, stir, and then pour into a colander lined with cheese cloth (ordinary, not fabric). At this point, we pick up the cloth by the corners for a minute to drain off most of the excess whey. Finally, we spoon these drier curds into the molds.

    This is our trick for forming a correctly shaped Saint Maure. Take two Saint Maure molds and align them. Next lay metal skewers along them. Finally tie string around the skewered pair. Fill with curds and you'll get a properly long Saint Maure.

    Once the curds are molded there is a variety of choices for flipping.

  • Don't flip them at all. For example, if you have a conical mold (Saint Maure, for example), you definitely won't be flipping those cheeses.
  • You can flip once an hour.
  • You can flip after the first ten minutes, and then once an hour.
  • You can flip whenever you think of it every couple of hours, or not.

    Where to drain your cheeses. We use a porcelain roasting pan. It has several advantages. First, it has tall sides, so that the whey doesn't drip all over the counter. Second, it has a flat bottom, so that when we flip our cheeses, we have a flat surface on which to place them. Also, since it's porcelain, we don't have to worry about the metal corroding.

    While our cheeses are draining, we cover them with a screen box. This prevents flies and the like from interfering with our cheesemaking, and allows us to leave them out overnight without a worry.

    One of the best tricks we have for flipping cheeses is called EasyLiner. It's a sort of thick shelf paper with holes. It replaces the more cumbersome bamboo mats. We get ours at WalMart. If you try this, make sure only to get the white! The other colors bleed onto the cheeses. We cut a small square of this stuff to cover the the opening of the mold. When we're ready to flip the cheese over, we put the cheese on a plate, then put the squares of EasyLiner on the bottom of the roasting dish (after pouring off the whey into a bowl for the sheep and goats). Finally, we just flip the molds, top down onto the EasyLiner. By flipping them onto the liner, it's easy to flip them back up in an hour or so, if that's your desire.

    We have found that it's a really bad idea to not go to a movie because you have to stay around to flip your cheese. Cheeses are your friends. Cheeses are very understanding. Cheese are very forgiving. They are definitely more 'Southern Californian' than 'New York Jewish'. In other words, leave your anal retentive side of yourself outside when making cheeses. That's what we had to learn.

    How long to let them sit? Now that's a problem. You let them sit until they're ready. I've read books that say that 5 hours is enough. I have never found that that is sufficient - even with a more renneted cheese. It's been our experience that if you unmold prematurely, the cheeses can flop, tilt, or even melt down to a blob. I have found that 24 hours is very timely. I can unmold my cheeses after dealing with that morning's curds and milk.

    When you unmold the cheeses, they should be moist, but not wet. At this point we salt them. Either kosher salt or regular. We've found that regular table salt seems to work better. It's harder to over salt with the table variety than with kosher. Not too much, so the cheese surface gets too dry, but enough to let the right moulds grow. You can let them sit out for a day or so, or else put them directly into the ripening phase.

    Ripening! Ripening. Ripening.... This is the hard part. Here's our setup that I believe has become somewhat foolproof. We have a second fridge just for cheese ripening. We have it on a thermostat set to 50 degrees F. New England Cheesemaking sells this thermostat. We put out salted cheeses on EasyLiner on plates in the fridge. Now that the temperature is assured, you have to get the right humidity. Since you want 95% humidity, we put a vaporizer on the top shelf of the fridge every couple of days for a few hours. NOTE: we said Vaporizer, NOT humidifier. The humidifier just doesn't get you the humidity you really need.

    Finally, you spray with penicilium candidum. We add the packet of the spores to a one quart spray bottle. Every day we spray our cheeses until they're covered with the beautiful white mould. When the top is furry, we flip them to get the mould to grow on the bottom, as well.

    Once the cheeses are fully invaded with the good mould, we wrap them in cellophane. BEWARE, this is not the plastic wrap that you buy in supermarkets. Cellophane allows air to pass in and out, so that the mould doesn't suffocate. I have found that cellophane can be bought very cheaply at party supply houses. We cut squares of the stuff, put the top of the cheese down in the center of the square, fold the sides up to cover the bottom of the cheese, then tape it closed. This sequence provides a very attractive finished cheese. If we don't wrap them, we find that they dry out a bit too quickly. The cellophane just makes them a bit more tolerant to insufficient or changeable humidity. In fact, the biggest problem we've run into is dry cheeses.

    Aging. Patience. Waiting. Now you have to wait. And wait. And worry. And Wait. The mould on the surface has to eat its way through to the center. It takes from 3 to 5 weeks. At 3 weeks, the center is like a Saint Andre or Boucheron. After 4 or 5, it's uniform and softer like a Brie with softer parts near the edge.

    On the other hand, if patience isn't your strong suit, consider an herbed cheese spread. This one was made by mashing up herbs from the garden, garlic, and some cheese cloth strained curds. We then salted the mix, added cracked pepper, and lightened with some fresh cream.

    Fast Coagulation Cheeses:

    The main difference between fast coagulation and slow coagulation, other than the amount of rennet and the timing before handling the curds is when the rennet is added. For slow coagulation the rennet is added at the same time as the starter culture. Not so for fast coagulation. The culture needs a head start to develop the acidity before the rennet kicks in and slows down the process. You can use an acidometer (an acid test kit), but it will always take an hour. Always. Really. We add the culture to the milk, stir until the cubes are melted and dissolved, wait for an hour, then add the rennet (1/4 tsp. per half gallon), stir very thoroughly for a minute, then wait for another hour. At this point the curds are ready for cutting and molding.

    One of the other distinctions between fast and slow coagulation is the texture of the curd body. Slowly coagulated curds will almost always knit well. That is, they will come together to form a unified mass in the mold. The additional rennet used in fast coagulation means that the curds have a stronger body and tend to hold their shape more. That doesn't mean that they won't knit, but that it often takes additional work to force them to join. That force is often in weighting down the cheese, or pressing it.

    For example, consider a feta. There are enormous variations on the theme, but essentially, they all go something like: Fast coagulation, cut curds, let sit ten minutes, stir curds (you'll see them shrink down a bit and look less smooth and more wrinkly - in about 20 minutes), put them in a cheese cloth, hang until uniformly drained (you don't want the mat of curds to feel looser in the middle than around the edges). This can take 6 to 24 hours. Remove the curds, cut them into cubes, salt cubes thoroughly, let sit in the fridge for 5 days. Then you've got feta. They can be brined at this point (1/3 cup kosher salt to 1/2 gallon water) for a few weeks as desired.

    Another typical treatment is to put the curds (same as above after being stirred) into a cheesecloth lined mold and press the cheese lightly for a period of time (usually 24 hours). The pressing accomplishes two things. My Dad (Victor Edelstein) designed and constructed this press for us.

    Thanks, Dad!

    First, it gets rids of the excess whey allowing for more successful internal development and aging. If there's excess moisture, may of the wrong bacteria will flourish (e.g. chlorifourm), and make the cheese swell up. This is particularly problematic if you're playing off the cheddar cheese model and waxing you're cheese. If it swells, the wax coating will crack and allow all the wrong bacteria to attack the cheese from without, as well.

    Secondly, it gives the finished product a firmer body. Note however, that goat cheeses in France are usually not pressed with much weight. Cheddars are usually pressed at upwards of 50 pounds. Goat cheeses are more often pressed in France only at a few pounds (if that).

    Variations on a Theme:

    Aged Cheeses

    Cheeses can be aged without becoming soft ripened by preventing the surface moulds from growing. Faster drying, higher salting, ripening at high temperature can all accomplish this goal. What you end up with at its best is a buttery firm cheese that pretty dry and very full flavored. It can also, depending on the dryness, turn out as a grating cheese with a taste not completely unlike Romano. We are always surprised, though, at the butteryness of these aged cheeses.

    When aging cheeses, you may still want some humidity to keep the cheese from getting "too" dry. We've been known to age our cheeses in our basement on a bed of straw by our stone foundation.

    If you have mice or if it's still bug season, a protective screen will be a necessity for cheeses stored outside of a protected area.

    Coverings for the Cheeses

    Historically, there were different reasons for putting things on the surface of the cheese. Very often, you wanted to mellow the flavor and hence reduce the acidity. This is where the ash covering cam from. These days, there are many different drapings commonly seen.

    Feta (as demonstrated by Sue Copola, our first workshop student!):

    Mozerella (as demonstrated by Al Chan, our second workshop student):