Over at Sustainable Eats Annette had written a book called The Urban Farm Handbook
and she has a challenge going on this year. And this month challenge was dealing with Home Dairy.
Now I have chickens, I have a veggie garden, I have fruit trees and we even raise are own beef but one thing we do not have is a dairy cow or goat. Part of the challenge was to try to find somewhere local a dairy producer.
Well we have lots a dairy farmer around here but I do not know of one that sell from their farm. So I need to keep looking.
So to make my cheese I get my milk from Braum's Creamery. They do have really good milk.
I make Mozzarella cheese from their milk and I will share how I make my cheese but there is also other sites out there that give very good instructions. The cheesemaking supply company gives great instruction and that is where I have ordered what I needed.
Here is a brief summery of what I do.
I start with a gallon of milk, I use 2%.
You need to let your milk get to a temp of 55, which take a little while once out of the frig.
Once the milk reach 55 degree you add citric acid that had been diluted in water add it, to the milk. Need to heat the milk up to 90 degrees.
Remove the milk from heat and add the rennet that also been diluted in water. Let it sit for at least 5 minutes. The milk will start to curd up, look like custard.
When it does you will cut the curd into 1 inch squares.
Now heat the cheese curds to 105 degrees stirring very slowly at times.
When it reaches the temp you will remove the curds from the whey (liquid) and put in a colander to drain more of the liquid.. I make mine the way the cheese making company shows by putting it in the microwave to heat to a temp of 135 degrees. That is where you will pull and stretch the cheese until smooth
You can have it shaped as a ball or log. You can also make small balls of cheese.
You can also add Lipase Powder to give a good flavor. I purchase that from the Cheese Making company also.
Have questions may have the answers here.
So that is it in a nut shell.
It isn't hard at all and I enjoy making cheese. Someday I would like a dairy goat and doing more.
To see others who posted something they did on the challenge.
Hi :) Visiting from the UFHC. You sure made making mozzarella sound easy, I don't know why it intimidates me so much. I would like to find a recipe that doesn't use a microwave though. Either way, your cheese looks like it turned out great.
ReplyDeleteHi Kathleen ... I tried the mozzarella and made this little tiny ball from a 1/2 gallon. It looks like you got quite a bit more! April, I think you can skip the microwave and just use some boiling water (and thick rubber gloves).
ReplyDeleteYour cheese certainly turned out better than my first attempt but I am undaunted and will try again. My problem I suspect is impatience - what a surprise!
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