Cheese making

I make soft cheeses. Mostly Chevre. Some I make plain and use it for cooking instead of sour cream. Some I make creamier and add herbs and use it as a dip or spread for bagels etc. This year I am planning on making Mozerella cheese and I might try my hand at some hard cheese. We'll have 6 milkers this year and so I think I will have a little extra milk to play with, LOL!!

Mostly during the summer I made ice cream just about every day. Good thing for taking the goats our walking daily, :lol:

Rex, how did you make butter? I can't get my cream to seperate. I would love to buy a seperater, but they are out of my budget.

I can post my recipe here if anyone is interested or do we want to start another spot just for recipes?

Also, if goats milk is fresh and clean and handled right, it tastes just like milk (but better ). If there is a buck around, then yes, it will taste goatie. Out of all our milkers, I like all the milk except the one from the togg. Her milk is like skim milk and after a few days it tastes off. It's just her, I've had all kinds of tests done, but there is nothing wrong, she just has yucky milk and so it is good to use for the babies. She gives a little over 2 gallons a day. So I keep her around.

Whether or not you can make butter out of your milk depends on the amount of butterfat in it. Some breeds, such as nubian, make better quantities of butterfat. Also, diet has a lot to do with it. If you have a big skim of cream on the top of the milk when it sits overnight you will have butter.

I make chevre which is a quick white cheese, and cottage cheese. It's harder but not impossible to make cheddar and other types of cheeses from goat milk. But chevre can be seasoned with all kinds of herbs and even cranberries and jams. You can also make riccotta which lead to things like cheesecake and lasagna.

Good stuff. And cost wise, it's much cheaper and better quality. The chevre that you pay $5 for a little piece of , you can make a huge batch of. Also you can freeze it for future use. I use buttermilk for the culture so just milk and buttermilk and whatever seasonings is all it costs.

Actually made my first attempt at goat cheese today. I tried the recipe for the soft cheese made using vinegar. It was super simple to make and turned out great. My daughter is coming home from college tomorrow for a visit and can't wait to try it.

Know what you mean about the negative response when mentioning goat milk. We have that same problem right here at home. Bill won't drink it... but my son prefers the goat milk over regular cow's milk. Go figure. LOL Bill's first try of goat's milk was from someone who kept their buck in the same barn they milked in. Not a good first experience.

Actually I am rather excited because a friend of mine is going to teach me how to make the aged cheeses pretty soon. She is just waiting until the current lot of kids is weaned so we have more milk to use.

Here's the recipe I use I can't claim credit and as it was sent to me a couple of years ago on the internet by some friends. I do not know who the original poster is. My notes: I use the liquid rennet and I let it sit 12-16 hours. I hang the cheese till it is done dripping for a soft spreadable cheese and longer if I want a dryer cheese. When finished hanging, I add sea salt and chopped fresh chives. I've used this for spreading on bread and crackers, stuffing in manicotti shells and added it to any dishes that called for sour cream.

SIMPLE CHEESE

INGREDIENTS:
Two gallons goats milk
1/4 cup cultured buttermilk
½ tablet Rennet (or two drops of liquid rennet)

PROCEDURE:
Warm milk to room temperature (68-70°F)
Dissolve 1/2 of a rennet tablet in 1/4 cup luke warm water.
Stir in buttermilk, mix thoroughly.
Stir in rennet, mix thoroughly, cover, let sit for 12-24 hours.
Check for clean break. The curd should be firm enough to cut into 1/2 inch cubes (see page on Making 5 gallons of milk into cheese for pictures). Some recipes call for stirring the curds into a slurry, and pouring into a fairly tight weave bag to drain. However, if the weave is too loose, such as with a single layer or two of cheese cloth, the fine curd will run through at first. I far prefer to cut the curd as it makes for more easily separated curds and whey.
Ladel the curds into a sterile cloth in a strainer (or colander), and suspend in a refrigerator or cool place.
Let the whey drain for 24 hours in a cool place.
Salt to taste (about 1-2 teaspoons), store covered in the refrigerator for a week or two. This cheese will not keep for much longer. It freezes very well.

I make cheese also. I really enjoy it. I like the rennet made cheese best. You can use the buttermilk, yogurt, sour cream, etc for you cultures as long as they are cultured. I also like the squeaky cheese. It's about the same as the buttermilkl/rennet cheese posted only after the curds are set they are cut up small and then the heat is turned back on low and over an hour slowly heated while stirring gently intermitently until the curds are cooked so they look like cooked egg whites. Then they are drained and YUMMY!!! This makes the best cottage cheese too!

A couple tips from the other posts.... you can't use table salt. You really do need the sea salt and it's popular now so easily found.

Also, if the milk tastes off, the doe may well have a copper, cobalt or other mineral deficiency. There is usually a reason for the off taste!

No bread making or sour dough use when or just before making cheese as the yeasts can get into your cheese and ruin it!

For straining milk, I found some mens hankerchiefs at the dollar store and they are GREAT! 4/$1 is a bargain in my opinion. A plastic or stainless strainer (flat bottom is best) is very convenient and something to sit it into that will hold that gallon of whey is also crucial.

Aged cheeses are the more difficult and also require extra equipment and such. The soft cheeses and mozz don't. Soft cheeses will drain out and can be carefully allowed to "dry out" some so they can even be grated to some extent.

Don't throw your whey out as there are lots of uses for it including baking bread, cakes, cooking veggies/pastal/rice, soups, feed chickens/pigs, water tomatoes, berry plants, and more.

I have a goat milk, cheese meat group if anyone is interested. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GoatMilkCheeseMeat/
My fav (the best IMHO) cheese only group is Goat Cheese Plus on yahoo.

The simple cheeses are really easy to make after a couple times and fun too! The big thing is having the equipment to make them. (Stainless).

Have fun and remember the price the stores charge for a few ounces of what YOU can easily make on your own!

Shar